The meaning and role of governance in sustainable development are examined in this detailed volume, with particular focues on territories classified as protected areas which are potential ecotourism destinations. Four key issues are addressed. First, how does multi-level governance shape the protection and reproduction of the nature-society relations in protected areas? Secondly what is the role of governance in the process of building an ecotourism destination and fostering more sustainable development paths in the protected areas hosting it? Thirdly how has governance for sustainable development crystallized in specific protected areas in Europe and the Americas and what has been the role of ecotourism in this process? Finally what lessons can be drawn for the future of sustainable territorial governance in general and in protected areas in particular?
To answer these questions case-studies in France, Portugal, Canada and Chile are analysed and compared by use of an enriched concept of sustainability, in which the social dimension is put at the centre. This means that collective action, negotiation, conflict resolution, innovation in social relations are not considered merely as the ingredients of a superseding socio-organizational structure. Rather they are the drivers of the multi-scalar governance of a protected area involving private, public and civil society actors, pursuing its future sustainable development.
Part 1: Sustainable Development, Governance and Ecotourism: Basic Issues
1. Sustainable Development: from Early Debates to Current Interdisciplinary Research Challenges
2. Social Sustainability, Multi-level Governance and State Rescaling: their Role in Sustaining the Nature-society Relationship
3. Territorial Sustainability and the Distinctive Governance of Protected Areas
4. Ecotourism as a Territory-based, Sustainable Social Practice
5. Ecotourism Places and Protected Areas as Cradles of Social Innovation
Part 2: Social Sustainability and Governance in European and American Protected Areas
6. The Multi-scalar Nature of the Governance of Protected Areas in Europe and the Americas
7. Social Sustainability and Ecotourism in the Morvan Regional Park. A French-European Case of Multi-scalar Governance
8. Ecotourism and the Reproduction of the Culture-nature Nexus in the Peneda-Geres National Park, Portugal
9. The Governance of the Complex System of Protected Areas in the Saskatchewan Province, Canada
10. The Controversial Governance of Protected Areas in Chile: the Private Pumalin Park and the Public Flamencos Reserve
Part 3: Social Learning for the Sustainable Development of the Protected Areas
11. Europe and the Americas: Reflections on Protected Areas from a Social Sustainability and Governance Perspective
12. Socially Innovative Practices in Ecotourism
13. Towards more Socially Sustainable Protected Areas: Contemporary Governance Practices and Policy Lessons
Constanza Parra is Assistant Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow, Department of Spatial Planning and Environment , University of Groningen, the Netherlands.