Good governance for terrestrial protected areas: A framework, principles and performance outcomes Michael Lockwood* School of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Tasmania, PB 78, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 13 January 2009 Received in revised form 3 August 2009 Accepted 13 October 2009 Available online 5 November 2009 Keywords: Protected areas Governance Principles Performance evaluation a b s t r a c t Governing norms by which to steer traditional government functions are well established and understood however, this is not the case for the new multi-level and collaborative approaches that characterize protected area governance. This is largely new territory that makes novel demands on governance institutions and policy. In this context, establishing and maintaining good governance across the diversity of ownership and responsibility arrangements is critical for the future effectiveness and acceptability of protected areas. Fulfilling the promise and avoiding the pitfalls inherent in contemporary protected area governance will require an understanding of what is meant by ���good governance��� and development of associated mechanisms to assess performance and provide a basis for improvement. This paper���s contribution lies in the guidance it provides for the hitherto under-developed area of governance quality assessment. I first present a framework that positions governance quality in relation to governance and management effectiveness. I then characterize good protected area governance according to a set of seven principles ��� legitimacy, transparency, accountability, inclusiveness, fairness, connectivity and resilience. Together, the framework, governance principles and related performance outcomes provide a platform for assessment of governance quality for an individual terrestrial protected area, a network of several protected areas, or a national protected area system. �� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Protected area governance concerns the structures, processes and traditions that determine how power and responsibilities are exercised, how decisions are taken, and how stakeholders have their say (Graham et al., 2003). Over the last few decades, the previously dominant state-based ���top-down��� model has been by augmented, and in some cases replaced, by diverse forms of collaborative management, partnership arrangements, delegated authority and community management. Powers and responsibili- ties related to protected areas, while still substantially vested in governments and their agencies, have also been taken up by indigenous and local communities, NGOs and individual land- holders, often working in partnership with each other. While non- state protected areas are not new ��� indigenous communities in particular have for millennia instituted protective governance over special places (Gokhale et al., 1997 Ramakrishnan et al., 1998) ��� civil, private and collaborative forms have recently become much more prominent and influential (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2006). Internationally, a series of conferences and initiatives have helped shape a new direction for conservation governance, with indigenous peoples in particular playing a key role. Governance first became a major focus for the international protected area agenda at the IUCN World Parks Congress, held in 2003 in Durban, South Africa and has subsequently been an important theme at international meetings such as the IUCN World Conservation Congresses in Bangkok (2004) and Barcelona (2008). One of the four themes in the Convention on Biological Diversity Programme of Work on Protected Areas, adopted in 2004 at the 7th Conference of the Parties in Kuala Lumpur, was ���Governance, participation, equity and benefit sharing���. Explicit recognition of four broad governance types��� governance by government, shared governance, private governance and governance by indigenous peoples and local communities��� has recently been incorporated into revised guide- lines for applying protected area management categories (Dudley, 2008). This upsurge of interest and attention reflects the coming together of diverse political, social and environmental influences. First, demands for observance of local and indigenous rights have gained political momentum through the widespread recognition that, in many parts of the world, protected area establishment and management has caused displacement and disadvantage (Brechin * Tel.: ��61 3 62262834. E-mail address: michael.lockwood@utas.edu.au Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman 0301-4797/$ ��� see front matter �� 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2009.10.005 Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 754���766

et al., 2002 Ghimire and Pimbert, 1997 Phillips, 2003). In Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, over 85% of all protected area establishments were associated with state expro- priation of customary tribal lands, dismantling of villages and exiling communities (Hess, 2001). Second, in some developing countries attempts to apply the top-down model have been problematic, with many protected areas failing to achieve their objectives due to capacity deficits and incursions from local communities including unsustainable resource extraction, poach- ing and sabotage (Anderson and James, 2001 Brechin et al., 2002 Cumming, 2004 Stevens, 1997). Community-based and multi-level approaches to environmental management are seen as a response to the practical (continued declines in biodiversity) and moral (inattention to social justice) limitations of uni-level state-based governance (McCarthy, 2007). Third, with increasing standards of education and enhanced communication and mobility, an informed citizenry has pressed for a greater say in decisions that affect their lives, including desig- nation and management of protected areas (Lockwood and Kothari, 2006). In many countries government protected area agencies have, while retaining ultimate authority, opened their decision-making processes to wide stakeholder input. Major NGOs such as Conser- vation International, The Nature Conservancy and World Wide Fund for Nature have shown a commitment to involve local and indigenous communities in their initiatives and to act in partner- ship with governments, the private sector and other NGOs. Fourth, many governments around the world have, for the last 30 years, pursued a neo-liberal agenda that, amongst other things, has devolved responsibilities from government agencies to individuals and communities, fostered individuals��� entrepreneurial capacities, and favoured market-based instruments as a ���first- choice��� policy option (Dean, 1999 Peck and Tickell, 2002). This policy environment has been conducive to the emergence of more powerful and significant NGO, private and community-based environmental actors. At the same time, while governments have withdrawn services, they have attempted to maintain control by ���governing at a distance������ that is, directing conduct by making funding and other forms of support conditional on satisfying government objectives, accountability mechanisms and perfor- mance standards (Dean, 1999 Lockie et al., 2006). Finally, it is now recognized that many protected area problems require a landscape-scale response, so that governance, by addressing the wider connectivity of protected lands, must consider issues that cross the boundaries of protected areas into the surrounding matrix of forestry, agricultural, fishery, urban and other uses (Worboys et al., in press). Territorially-based state actors are increasingly challenged to engage with and influence policy responses across complex transboundary arrangements and networks of state, sub-state, non-state and civil society organizations. Under these influences, power has been distributed across multiple organizations and individuals, with some previously centralized functions increasingly devolved to ���lower��� governance levels. Decision-making and implementation processes are under- taken with a mix of voluntary, cooperative and contractual tools that in many cases overlie previously established rule-based command-and-control measures. Furthermore, Eagles (2008) usefully distinguishes between three components of a governance regime��� ownership rights over lands and resources sources of finance and management authority��� and shows how various combinations of actors across these components generate additional layers of governance diversity and opportunity. These dynamic, complex and polycentric regimes of protected area governance raise pressing issues of appropriateness, design, quality and effectiveness. Establishing and maintaining good governance across diverse ownership and responsibility arrange- ments is critical for the future of protected areas. Good governance is a prerequisite for effective management, and is fundamental to securing the political and community support essential to the development, indeed the survival, of the global protected area system. In this context, assessing governance quality is an important task for both demonstrating performance and identifying where improvement is desirable. At present governance is generally dealt with as part of management effectiveness evaluation and guided by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature World Commission on Protected Areas (IUCN-WCPA) framework (Hock- ings et al., 2006). Gilligan et al.���s (2005) assessment of Finland���s protected areas, for example, was structured according to the six elements of the IUCN-WCPA framework and 42 subsidiary questions, 16 of which had some governance content. However, such subsuming of governance matters is problematic. The management effectiveness framework does not distinguish or reveal the relationships between governance, management and management effectiveness. This conceptual indeterminism typically means that evaluations neglect important governance dimensions such as legitimacy and fairness, and incompletely address other aspects such as accountability. In this paper, I offer a framework for governance evaluation that includes a specification of how governance relates to management and to management effectiveness (Section 2). The framework provides a context for a set of principles and performance outcomes for good protected area governance,1 which are developed and described in Section 4. The methods used to formulate the princi- ples and outcomes are explained in Section 3. 2. A framework for governance assessment Management effectiveness evaluation of protected areas is well-established, with processes generally employing the IUCN- WCPA framework. Hockings et al. (2006, p. 23���24) observe that assessment of governance and management effectiveness ���are likely to become more closely linked in the future, and assessment of process should generally include some measure of the effec- tiveness of governance systems���, and suggest that ���[f]or now, appropriateness of the particular governance model being used might usefully be included as one of the factors being assessed under [management processes]���. While the distinction between governance and management is somewhat blurred, the former concerns the powers, authorities and responsibilities exercised by organizations and individuals, whereas the latter concerns the resources, plans and actions that are a product of applied gover- nance. Given this conceptual distinction and the association between effective governance as a prerequisite for effective management (UNEP, 2002), in particular for the generation of outputs and achievement of outcomes, it is useful to assess governance in its own right, albeit linked with and complementary to the assessment procedures for management effectiveness. Accordingly, a framework for governance assessment should explicitly relate to management effectiveness. The bridge between the two can be provided by the notion of ���governance effectiveness���, constructed as a combination of governance quality and institu- tional capacity and a supportive context. Fig. 1 shows the linkages between management and governance effectiveness that are provided through institutional capacity��� inputs and processes��� as well as the influence context and planning have on governance, and 1 As these principles were developed for a terrestrial context, I make no claims here regarding their applicability to marine protected areas. M. Lockwood / Journal of Environmental Management 91 (2010) 754���766 755