Environmental Reviews and Case Studies: Searching the Conditioning Factors Explaining the (In)Effectiveness of Protected Areas Management: A Case Study Using a SWOT Approach

Based on long-term fieldwork, we report a descriptive SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) analysis performed by a public agency that manages a protected area (PA) system in a densely populated area (Rome, central Italy) to highlight the core limits in this PA's management effectiveness. The key result of the analysis is that the limits of the management effectiveness and the obstacle in setting improvement strategies can be basically derived from the hierarchical command-and-control government approach and from the adopted management model. The main hindrance to the implementation of a multilevel collaborative management appears to be the “institutional stickiness” of the managing public agency in shifting from its hierarchical government approach to a governance one. Having observed the presence of operational gaps among the best solutions in the scholarly mainstream, the governing capability of the managing authority, and what happens in the field, we suggest that an answer to aligning these factors could be the creation of more fluid conditions for bottom–up initiatives—for instance, by monitoring the multibenefits of PAs for local communities or by making available to the public the economic evaluation of public goods.

[1]  Contrasting effects of water stress on wetland‐obligated birds in a semi‐natural Mediterranean wetland , 2011 .

[2]  C. Battisti.  Habitat fragmentation, fauna and ecological network planning: Toward a theoretical conceptual framework , 2003 .

[3]  M. Lockwood.  Good governance for terrestrial protected areas: A framework, principles and performance outcomes. , 2010, Journal of environmental management.

[4]  R. Lopez,et al.  Transferring Research to Endangered Species Management , 2007 .

[5]  D. Ludwig.  The Era of Management Is Over , 2001, Ecosystems.

[6]  F. Halla,et al.  A SWOT analysis of strategic urban development planning: The case of Dar es Salaam city in Tanzania , 2007 .

[7]  M. Hockings,et al.  Evaluating the effectiveness of protected area management: The challenge of change , 2004 .

[8]  C. Holling,et al.  Command and Control and the Pathology of Natural Resource Management , 1996 .

[9]  The Private Sector on Public Land: Policy Implications of a SWOT Analysis of Banff National Park , 2011 .

[10]  H. Malde,et al.  A Practitioner’s Handbook for Site Conservation Planning and Measuring Conservation Success , 2003 .

[11]  D. Franco.  The rural policy as a tool for the natural resource management , 2007 .

[12]  A. Kroll.  Integrating Professional Skills in Wildlife Student Education , 2007 .

[13]  Xavier Pons,et al.  Landscape structure and bird species richness: implications for conservation in rural areas between natural parks , 2000 .

[14]  E. Boles,et al.  Collaborative Management of Protected Areas: Tailoring the Approach to the Context , 2000 .

[15]  D. Roush.  Making collaboration work : lessons from innovation in natural resource management , 2002 .

[16]  L. Luiselli,et al.  Quantifying threats in a Mediterranean wetland: are there any changes in their evaluation during a training course? , 2009, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[17]  L. Luiselli,et al.  A procedure to analyse the strategic outliers and the multiple motivations in a contingent valuation: A case study for a concrete policy purpose , 2013 .

[18]  J. Norberg,et al.  ADAPTIVE GOVERNANCE OF SOCIAL-ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS , 2005 .

[19]  Grazia Borrini,et al.  Collaborative management of protected areas : tailoring the approach to the context , 1996 .

[20]  Peter J. Boettke,et al.  Institutional Stickiness and the New Development Economics , 2008 .

[21]  Marc Hockings,et al.  Management effectiveness evaluation in protected areas : a global study : supplementary report No. 1 : overview of approaches and methodologies , 2008 .

[22]  L. Luiselli.  A model assessing the conservation threats to freshwater turtles of Sub-Saharan Africa predicts urgent need for continental conservation planning , 2009, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[23]  Marc Hockings,et al.  Evaluating effectiveness : a framework for assessing the management of protected areas , 2000 .

[24]  L. Luiselli,et al.  On threats analysis approach applied to a Mediterranean remnant wetland: Is the assessment of human-induced threats related to different level of expertise of respondents? , 2008, Biodiversity and Conservation.

[25]  Ernest Baskin,et al.  SWOT Analysis , 2019, Strategic Decisions.

[26]  C. S. Holling.  Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems , 1973 .

[27]  Sue Stolton,et al.  Evaluating effectiveness : a framework for assessing management effectiveness of protected areas, 2nd edition , 2006 .

[28]  Ben Collen,et al.  A Standard Lexicon for Biodiversity Conservation: Unified Classifications of Threats and Actions , 2008, Conservation biology : the journal of the Society for Conservation Biology.

[29]  D. Scott Slocombe,et al.  Environmental planning, ecosystem science, and ecosystem approaches for integrating environment and development , 1993 .

[30]  Eric D. Beinhocker.  The Origin of Wealth - Evolution, Complexity, and the Radical Remaking of Economics , 2007 .

[31]  G. Borrini,et al.  Indigenous and local communities and protected areas : towards equity and enhanced conservation (Arabic version) , 2004 .

[32]  Derek Armitage,et al.  A resilience-based framework for evaluating adaptive co-management: Linking ecology, economics and society in a complex world , 2007 .

[33]  T. O'riordan,et al.  Sustainable landscape governance: Lessons from a catchment based study in whole landscape design , 2011 .

[34]  C. Folke,et al.  Adaptive Comanagement for Building Resilience in Social–Ecological Systems , 2004, Environmental management.

[35]  Richard Margoluis,et al.  Measures of Success: Designing, Managing, and Monitoring Conservation and Development Projects , 1998 .

[36]  M. Reed.  Stakeholder participation for environmental management: A literature review , 2008 .

[37]  C. Battisti,et al.  Devolution and evolution in the policy of biodiversity conservation in Italy: central or local approach? , 2012, Rendiconti Lincei.

[38]  D. Pettenella,et al.  Forestry governance and collective learning process in Italy: Likelihood or utopia? , 2011 .

[39]  Robert A. Davis,et al.  Habitat Fragmentation and Landscape Change: An Ecological and Conservation Synthesis , 2006 .

[40]  Julia Smith.  A critical appreciation of the “bottom-up” approach to sustainable water management: embracing complexity rather than desirability , 2008 .

[41]  R. Westbrook,et al.  SWOT Analysis: It's Time for a Product Recall , 1997 .