Governance of protected area
Governance of protected area – a relatively new concept, refers to how power is used in the decisional process, to the structure and functioning of the decision-making system, which has a considerable influence on the effectiveness of protected area management. Adopting/developing different types of governance, as e.g. those defined by the IUCN, into practice and increasing the quality of decision-making processes, are obligations of all the Parties to the International Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and to its Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA).
The project, whose financing is ensured by the German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation in Germany (Bundesamt fur Naturschutz) – the national and international scientific authority in the field, is implemented by ProPark between December 2011 and December 2012.
The project aims to:
- identify the existing types of protected area governance from Eastern-European countries and to analyze their functioning;
- promote the different types of protected area governance, to allow their understanding and recognition into practice by synthesizing the theoretical and practical information and by presenting case studies from Eastern Europe;
- emphasize the main issues, tendencies, opportunities and implications of the existing models of governance form Eastern Europe and to formulate some recommendations to increase the quality of governance and the adoption into practice of new forms of governance;
- update the world database on protected areas with information on protected area governance in Eastern European countries.
The target area of the project, where the above-mentioned issues will be investigated, includes 19 Eastern-European countries: Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Serbia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Albania, Macedonia and Finland.
The ProPark expert team will be assisted and supported throughout the project implementation by an Advisory Committee - a group of 10 national and international experts in the field. The members of this Advisory Committee are:
Trevor Sandwith Global Protected Areas Programme Director – IUCN (International Union for Nature Conservation)
Dr. Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend Commission for Environmental, Economic and Social Policies (CEESP) of IUCN - Regional Vice-Chair for Europe and Global Coordinator of the Indigenous Peoples’ and Community Conserved Areas and Territories (ICCA Consortium)
Dr. Andrej Sovinc Head of Sečovlje Salina Nature Park, Slovenia and IUCN-WCPA Chair for Europe
Iris Beneš ICCA Consortium – Regional Coordinator for Central, Eastern and Northern Europe
Katerina Rakovska Protected area and Natura 2000 Expert – WWF-DCP Bulgaria
Anastasiia Drapaliuk Head Expert of the Department of Protected Area of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Protection of Ukraine
Rolands Auzins Nature Conservation Agency Latvia - Regional Director
Dr. Ján Kadlecík State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic
Irina Zupan State Institute for Nature Protection in Croatia - Head of Protected Areas Department
Rauno Väisänen General Director of ”Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services”, Finland.
The project will contribute to the achievement of CBD PoWPA objectives in the target countries; therefore, its implementation is supported by international organizations as: IUCN, WCPA, CBD Secretariat and ICCA Consortium.
The meeting of the Advisory Committee and of the project management team was held between the 28th and 29th of February, in Brasov. The aim of this meeting was to agree on the approach and methodology and to identify the most representative protected areas where case studies will be conducted. The BfN was represented by Gisela Stolpe.
In the next stage, the ProPark experts will travel in the countries where case studies will be conducted to collect data and information to be used in the study by the aid of some interviews with representatives of institutions, organizations and administrative structures involved in the management and governance of nature protected areas.
The results of the analysis undertaken in the framework of this project will be synthesized in a study, which shall be published by the end of year 2012. A final workshop will be held in December, in Vilm (Germany), to discuss the results and outcomes of his project.
Governance of Eastern European protected areas – the field phase
Most of the field activity planned within the project Protected area governance in Eastern Europe has been carried out in June and July. In this phase, information concerning the decision-making and governance system from most of the target countries was collected by the aid of some semi-structured, face to face interviews.
The ProPark experts interviewed representatives of the ministries, national and regional agencies for nature conservation, NGOs and of protected area administrations where case studies have been planned, from: Republic of Moldova, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, Latvia, Finland, Slovenia and Croatia.
Case studies have been conducted in the following protected areas: Tatra and Pienini national parks, Protected Landscape Area Poľana (Slovakia), Pienini National Park (Poland), Pirin National Park, Rila Monastery Nature Park (Bulgaria), National Park Kemeri, Nature Park Pape, Protected Landscape Area Ādaži (Latvia), Repovesi and Oulanka national parks, nature reserve Aarnikotkanmaa, Kvarken Archipelago Nature Heritage Site (Finland), nature parks Logarska Dolina and Sečovlje Salina (Slovenia), Northern Velebit National Park and Lonjsko Polje Nature Park (Croatia).
Similar interviews will be conducted in Serbia, Albania and Romania.
The project team is sincerely thankful to all the respondents and to those who facilitated the field visits for their support and availability.
