Initial findings from the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park reveal a variety of conservation governance arrangements in terms of stakeholders’ inclusiveness
ENVISON team members from Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) have just published a report focused on exploring conservation governance arrangements in the Sierra de Guadarrama National Park. Through a policy review process, semi-structured interviews and field observations, we have found that governance arrangements in this National Park are usually shaped by both formal procedures and informal routines. The study allowed us to disentangle four types of governance arrangements according to the different sorts of responsibility and multiple levels of influence that stakeholders have in establishing them: prescriptive, informative, consultative and cooperative. Interestingly, while we identify formally-established arrangements in each of these four categories, those based on informal routines are mainly dominated by cooperative arrangements, that is, the ones in which the stakeholders involved share responsibility and have equal ability to achieve these arrangements, facilitating their engagement in the protected area decision-making. These findings help us understand the mechanisms that shape the governance system and identify strengths and weaknesses to improve stakeholders’ active involvement in protected areas governance.
