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Evaluating Participatory Processes in Conservation Policy and Governance: Lessons from a Natura 2000 pilot case study
Author(s) -
Díez MaríaAngeles,
Etxano Iker,
Garmendia Eneko
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
environmental policy and governance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.987
H-Index - 48
eISSN - 1756-9338
pISSN - 1756-932X
DOI - 10.1002/eet.1667
Subject(s) - natura 2000 , citizen journalism , scope (computer science) , corporate governance , identification (biology) , compromise , participatory management , participatory gis , sociology , process (computing) , environmental resource management , political science , process management , business , management , social science , ecology , computer science , economics , biodiversity , law , biology , programming language , operating system
Participatory approaches have been incorporated in decision‐making to strengthen the involvement of social actors in natural resource management and governance. This paradigm shift is permeating the development of Natura 2000 in Europe. However, the implementation of participatory approaches is at an early stage and still contested. To assess the scope of these participatory approaches, this article: (1) reviews the role of participatory approaches in Natura 2000, (2) develops a common framework to evaluate such participatory processes, (3) applies this framework to a pilot case study and (4) based on the lessons learned, provides guidance for future developments. Although the relatively small sample of participants signals caution, the study shows that ensuring an open dialogue among the social actors served to enhance understanding of the various interests and facilitated the identification of areas for compromise. While these findings are promising, we also identify various challenges to a better and more open dialogue. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.