This volume celebrates the emergence of what is rightly called a ‘new paradigm’ of protected areas, namely the transition from a ‘static-preservation’ or ‘segregation’ approach (characteristic of most national parks and nature reserves worldwide) based on the protection of nature from human activities, to one which seeks to integrate economic activity with conservation in a sustainable manner. The editor and authors see this alternative paradigm, here termed the ‘dynamic-innovation’ or ‘integration’ model (p. 12), as emerging in varied ways in a host of European designations such as regional parks and nature parks (as well as in UK National Parks). The text is in three parts, of which the mid-part comprises fully 70% of the whole (over 170 of less than 250 pages) and consists of eleven country case studies.
There are two chapters from Switzerland and two from Austria. A study of the Swiss Entlebuch Biosphere Reserve argues that the biosphere reserve principle can be a powerful instrument of sustainable regional development, providing key conditions (including effective stakeholder participation, adequate resourcing and attention to sociocultural aspects) are met. An account of six planned regional nature parks in the Canton of Bern illustrates the need to tailor plans for, and expectations of, ‘value added’ activities to the specifics of local circumstances. Empirical survey data on Austria's Ötscher-Tormäuer Nature Park emphasizes the importance of stakeholder attitudes and municipal performance. The success of well-governed protected areas in levering external funding (such as LEADER+), as well as in managing increased visitor numbers without destroying the resource that visitors come to enjoy, is illustrated by a report on the Hohe Tauern National Park.
A chapter on Germany's Müritz National Park Region asserts that park marketing is a form of governance aimed at stimulating processes of exchange between a region and its market partners. It suggests that conservation authorities sometimes have little competence in ‘product policy’ and that the ‘owner’ of a regional marketing initiative should be an organization from outside the park. Müritz was established in 1990 on a military training area on the border immediately prior to reunification and illustrates the potential of protected areas to contribute to integration in a once ‘marginal’ area. A contrasting study of the contribution of protected area status to ‘peripheral’ areas is presented in an account of the role of Finland's Urho Kekkonen National Park in reconciling nature protection, tourism and the traditional economy of the Sámi, the only ‘indigenous’ people within the present European Union.
The very distinctive French experience is represented by an account of its first national park, Vanoise (rather than by the better known and reported Parc Naturel Régional system). Vanoise National Park arose from a combination of two very different (naturalist and humanist) projects, resulting in considerable conflict since its proclamation in 1960. With the highest concentration of ski resorts in Europe, ‘sustainability’ is still in question in the Park's peripheral zone. Of all European protected landscapes (and not just those in this collection), Italy's representative, Cinque Terre (a World Heritage Site as well as a national park), manifests the conflicts between cultural landscape protection, tourism and ‘development’ (in particular second homes) in perhaps their most intense form; the Park organization is as much a development agency as a conservation body. A chapter from Spain surveys the development of its national parks (including Doňana) in their regional context, and demonstrates that a high level of local acceptance with clear benefits to local communities is a precondition of success. English and Welsh national parks, for long misfits within the international national park system but now recognized as archetypes of protected landscape management, are well represented in other literature. It is appropriate therefore that the UK experience is represented by Scotland's Cairngorms, Britain's newest (and largest) national park, established in 2003 with a specific aim ‘to promote sustainable social and economic development of the communities of the area’ and presently a test-bed for applications learned from its more mature predecessors.
The former socialist countries (with their distinctive history, considerable problems and, in many cases, very significant potential contribution of protected areas to regional development) are represented by just a single chapter from Slovakia, characterized as ‘typical’ for the countries joining the EU in 2004, with case studies of the Biosphere Reserves Slovensky Kras and Polana. It would have been good to have other examples of the rich diversity of experience from the new accession states, particularly those which would confound the now well-worn and dismissive mantra regarding a ‘lack of the basic awareness necessary for civil society participation’ (p. 242). In fact, ‘Europe’ is itself represented somewhat arbitrarily. South-east Europe is not represented at all, and although the USA's Yellowstone National Park is cited frequently, the book makes no reference to the experience of Russian zapovedniks which represent in many ways the European ‘scientific’ equivalent of the USA's ‘wilderness’ model to which this collection's protected (cultural) landscapes are counterposed.
Overall, the case studies are this book's most successful and readable elements. Less valuable is the attempt to theorize the emergence of the new European protected area paradigm. In part this is due to its being a multi-authored collection, with little integration between chapters. Part I (Theoretical background) consists of two short introductory chapters which outline the history and development of (European) protected areas and their current functions. Most of this will be familiar to those conversant with the subject, but for those who are not, it will prove confusing. Structured (as has now become almost de rigeur for texts on this topic) around the IUCN protected area categories I to VI, these categories are not properly described until Chapter 2. Part III (Synthesis) comprises just a single chapter which starts by telling the reader for the first time that the eleven case studies ‘were selected with the specific aim of enabling a comparative, cross-section examination of different types of protected area at an European level’ but concedes also ‘that the case studies used here use standardized methods of data collection and evaluation only to a limited extent’ (p. 234). In many places the absence of hard data is highlighted directly or by implication, and this indicates the need for agreed monitoring standards, particularly of stakeholder participation and socioeconomic performance.
The remaining 12 pages pose seven questions to do with the objectives and performance of protected areas. These questions are answered only to the most limited extent, adding little to the assertions of the opening section. There are some surprising omissions. For example the European Landscape Convention, arguably a tool with significant potential for promoting best governance in IUCN Cat V protected areas, receives hardly a mention. Nor is there any recognition that the ‘integrationist paradigm’ is already being questioned (including by some of those who have done most to secure its acceptance) as running the risk of going too far in compromising conservation in favour of commercial interests. These problems of omission are compounded in places by sometimes impenetrable English. The strength of this collection is that it demonstrates how far protected areas have come, but also how far they still have to go.
Nowhere is the target readership for this book indicated. It is not a student textbook, and the price of £55 (c. 80€) for a relatively slim volume will put this beyond the pockets of most individual teachers, policy makers and protected area managers. The case studies however will make this a useful library acquisition.
