The involvement of non-state actors in the creation and management of protected areas: insights from the Portuguese case

Abstract

Increasingly, Protected Areas (PAs) are sustained by a multilevel governance where demands for public participation have occurred against the backdrop of state reconfiguration. Little scholarly attention has been paid to how these shifts have taken place; this paper aims to diachronically assess the involvement of non-state actors in the governance of PAs in Portugal. Our findings indicate that while the range of actors involved in the decision-making process has progressively widened, their engagement remains mainly consultative. Moreover, PAs managed by local authorities and private actors have been recognised, yet local authorities' involvement in PAs managed by state actors has been recently reduced. These apparently contradictory trends seem to illustrate a common rationale: state actors are fighting to retain control while adapting to the broadening role of multiple actors in nature conservation policies. We conclude that new governance approaches do not necessarily pave the way for more public participation in conservation.

Sustainability and Tourist Activities in Protected Natural Areas: The Case of Three Natural Parks of Andalusia (Spain)

“…The conservationist discourse is assumed by conviction by proactive tourism entrepreneurs [101], as identified by LAGs and other companies alike, the Foundation based on their purpose [102] and some municipal stakeholders [103]. The LAGs discuss sustainability from a broader perspective of equality and existing challenges rather than ecological thinking [41].…”

Professionalisation and the spectacle of nature: Understanding changes in the visual imaginaries of private protected area organisations in Australia

“…ENGOs are now a vital source of policy, financial and on-ground innovation in conservation (Büscher and Fletcher, 2020;Palfrey et al, 2021;Schetter et al, 2022). While the state has provided legitimacy and a policy architecture to drive ENGO expansion of the PA estate (Iannuzzi et al, 2020), ENGOs have shaped new trajectories for conservation through philanthropic and corporate partnerships, co-management arrangements, for-profit conservation finance ventures, research and education initiatives, and media and communications strategies (Davison et al, 2022;Gulliver et al, 2020). Reflecting the global turn towards capital and markets, Australian ENGOs have become increasingly strategic in their operations to generate new sources of funding and deliver conservation outcomes.…”

Role of local communities in the social network of the protected area management

“…Participation of communities in the decision‐making processes for PAs has been shown as crucial to raising awareness of environmental issues, increasing social acceptance and positive perceptions of governance (Hatcher et al, 2000), building local management capacity (Beierle & Cayford, 2002), and empowering communities to fulfill their needs (Bulkeley & Mol, 2003; Iannuzzi et al, 2019). A governance setting that encourages participation is likely to promote more complex stakeholder networks (Iannuzzi et al, 2019).…”

“…Participation of communities in the decision‐making processes for PAs has been shown as crucial to raising awareness of environmental issues, increasing social acceptance and positive perceptions of governance (Hatcher et al, 2000), building local management capacity (Beierle & Cayford, 2002), and empowering communities to fulfill their needs (Bulkeley & Mol, 2003; Iannuzzi et al, 2019). A governance setting that encourages participation is likely to promote more complex stakeholder networks (Iannuzzi et al, 2019). Thus, social network analyses, which are widely used in the social sciences to assess the structure and dynamics of social groups, are now being used to determine if behavioral changes impact the effectiveness of conservation interventions (de Lange et al, 2019), to evaluate the adaptive capacity of management measures in relation to environmental changes (e.g., Fischer & Jasny, 2017), to optimize natural resources management (Berardo & Lubell, 2016), and to investigate how governance systems can transition to more collaborative schemes (Rockenbauch & Sakdapolrak, 2017).…”

“…For collaborative management systems, the most resilient networks are densely connected (De Vincenzo et al, 2017), heterogeneous (i.e., encompassing diverse stakeholder groups) (Buckingham et al, 2021), and with their central stakeholders displaying cross‐group interactions (Ehrhart et al, 2021; Iannuzzi et al, 2019; Rockenbauch & Sakdapolrak, 2017). Applying these concepts to PA decision‐making would mean that local communities should be integrated within a PA social network if the PA is to operate as a collaborative management system.…”