Integrating parks and people: How does participation work in protected area management?

Participation is increasingly seen as a tool to promote integration of protected areas and local stakeholders, minimizing existing conflicts and negative impacts on the areas. Until now, research has been conducted mostly to demonstrate that lack of involvement promotes conflict, or that participation does not result in long term changes. In this study a theoretical framework is developed to characterize different levels of participation in protected area management. Different perceptions of ideal participation levels are investigated and compared with levels of participation found in three different protected areas in the Mata Atlantica region of Brazil. Differences were more pronounced among four distinct groups of stakeholders than among the three areas. Factors favoring participation in conflict-prone settings were analyzed and individual factors important during the initiation of the process were identified. Social and institutional factors were found to become more important as the active involvement of local stakeholders increased.