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Affirming New Directionsin Planning Theory:Comanagement of ProtectedAreasMarcus B. Lane aa Department of Urban and Regional PlanningUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison Madison, Wisconsin,USAVersion of record first published: 15 Dec 2010.
To cite this article: Marcus B. Lane (2001): Affirming New Directions in PlanningTheory: Comanagement of Protected Areas, Society & Natural Resources: AnInternational Journal, 14:8, 657-671
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Society and Natural Resources, 14:657–671, 2001Copyright Ó 2001 Taylor & Francis0894-1920/2001 $12.00 1 .00
Af� rming New Directions in Planning Theory:Comanagement of Protected Areas
MARCUS B. LANE
Department of Urban and Regional PlanningUniversity of Wisconsin-MadisonMadison, Wisconsin, USA
In recent years the conservation management literature has seen many calls forcomanagement of parks and protected areas. The rationale for this approach toprotected area management has come from the experience of park managers strug-gling to integrate the protected area with the socioeconomic fabric of the surroun-ding region. This rich experience informs calls for comanagement. A theoreticalrationale for and explanation of comanagement, however, have been slow in coming.This article considers the trajectory of change in planning theory over the past 50years and demonstrates that planning theorists have converged on similar groundto managers of protected areas. Developing cooperative relationships with localstakeholders and sharing the burden of management responsibilities have emergedas a potential new paradigm in natural resource planning. Protected areas thereforeprovide a context in which many of the ideas and concepts, much debated amongscholars of planning, have been empirically tested.
Keywords conservation, decentralized planning, empowerment, participation,planning theory, protected areas
Conceptual convergence seems to be a popular topic for commentators and observers ofnatural resource planning and management. Freemuth (1996) comments that ecosystemmanagement is increasingly viewed as a “new paradigm” in public lands management.Field (1997a, 336) suggests that:
Integrated resource management, landscape ecology, watershed management,ecosystem management, biodiversity, and restoration ecology—terms in thelexicon of contemporary resource management—will enhance the conver-gence of a uni� ed conservation philosophy.
Is such a convergence of thought developing among scholars concerned with naturalresource management and planning? Freemuth (1996) suggests caution. He arguesthat “ecosystem management” can in fact mean many things. Similarly, in the � eldof biodiversity conservation, a considerable conceptual gulf appears to exist betweenadvocates of biocentric and anthropocentric approaches.1 In addition, scholars in thediscipline of planning remain engaged in debate about the effectiveness of rational
Received 14 September 1998; accepted 4 October 2000.Address correspondence to Marcus B. Lane, Assistant Professor, Department of Urban and
Regional Planning, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 925 Bascom Mall, Madison, WI 53706,USA. E-Mail: [email protected]
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planning nearly 30 years after the paradigm was supposed to have given way to newmodels of planning2 (Sandercock 1998).
The term biocentric approaches to conservation is used in this paper to refer tothose approaches underpinned by assumptions about the intrinsic worth of biodiversityand the primacy of biodiversity over cultural and social diversity (see, e.g., Nossand Cooperrider 1994). An anthropocentric approach, by contrast, values biodiversityin terms of its social utility and emphasizes conservation strategies that integrateprotected areas into the social and cultural fabric of the region in which they arelocated (see Stankey 1989; Alcorn 1993). The International Union for the Conservationof Nature (IUCN), the premier international conservation agency, currently championsanthropocentric approaches.
Anthropocentric and biocentric approaches to conservation tend to be representedas polar opposites (see, e.g., Noss and Cooperrider 1994; Alcorn 1993; Redford andStearman 1993a; Redford and Stearman 1993b). Noss and Cooperrider (1994), forinstance, make the extraordinary claim that they are only interested in survival of thosecultures that are compatible with the conservation of biodiversity. By contrast, advo-cates of anthropocentric approaches (Stankey 1989; Alcorn 1993) argue that conservingbiodiversity can only occur in collaboration with local peoples, and not in spiteof them.
Like Freemuth (1996), I am cautious in predicting areas of convergence. Newparadigms are frequently predicted but are, as history shows, rare events indeed.However, a comparative examination of the trajectory of thinking in the � elds ofprotected area management and urban and regional planning reveals that a conceptualconvergence is emerging. The national park “experiment” began in the wealthy northover a century ago and, through the exercise of colonial power, has been replicated inthe poorer south for many decades (Stevens 1997). This international experiment innatural resource planning has now been tried in a plethora of different countries, in awide variety of institutional, economic, and cultural contexts. What has emerged is amodel for resource planning and management, referred to as cooperative management,which emphasizes decentralized decision making, active participation of interested citi-zens, and shared responsibility for both problems and solutions (see Rao and Geisler1990; Stevens 1997). In a different disciplinary and empirical context, scholars ofurban and regional planning have converged on similar conceptual territory and increas-ingly advocate participation, shared responsibility, and empowerment (see McClendon1993; Friedmann 1993). By sketching the development of this convergent theme inthese � elds, protected areas are shown to be a rich empirical testing ground for theemerging ideas in planning. The successful comanagement of protected areas, therefore,is revealed as a strong af� rmation of new directions of planning theory.
The Repositioning of the Planning Field
In theoretical and conceptual terms, the planning � eld has undergone dramatic changein the latter part of this century. Despite the dominance of rational planning throughoutmuch of the history of planning, in recent years alternate perspectives have devel-oped (P. Hall 1992; Friedmann 1993). The rational comprehensive paradigm of plan-ning has been challenged by, among others, pragmatic observers of policymaking(e.g., Lindblom 1959), Marxist critics of urban crisis (e.g., Harvey 1973), and, morerecently, postmodernists (e.g., Beauregard 1989). The criticisms of rational planningwere best summarized by Hall (1983, 42), who suggested that such approaches werecharacterized by
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Comanagement of Protected Areas 659
a belief that outcomes were predictable and plannable; that particular planningactions would achieve determinable results; that planning objectives could bespeci� ed by professional experts (speaking not on their own behalf, but asarbiters of an array of different social values) and would win general agree-ment; in sum, that rational decision-making was applicable to complex socialsystems.
While a generation of planners strove toward the development of rational, comprehen-sive planning models, the politics of planning constantly worked to undermine theirbest endeavors (McDonald 1989). Indeed, Beck (1992) has persuasively argued thatthe political content of decision making grows in proportion to the effort being taken tobe objective and rational. That the discipline assiduously represented itself as scienti� cand rational (Hillier 1993; Hoch 1992) can be blamed, according to Kiernan (1983),on two prominent features of contemporary planning: the claims of planners to profes-sional status, and the unitary public interest assumption. The former tends to valorizethe scienti� c dimensions of planning at the expense of the political (i.e., value-choiceand distributive questions), while the latter falsely suggests that the goals of plans areuniversally shared, ignoring the multiplicity of interests in any planning environment(see also Friedmann and Kuester 1994; Sandercock 1998).
Those who reject, either in part or in whole, rational de� nitions and perspectives ofplanning emphasize plurality of interests in society, the pervasiveness of con� ict, andthe political nature of planning activity (Forester 1989; Hillier 1993; Friedmann 1993;Sandercock 1998). It is dif� cult to describe the emergent responses to rational planningas a “school” as there are many divergent perspectives (P. Hall 1992), including Fried-mann’s (1973, 1993) transactive planning, Dorcey’s (1986) planning as bargaining,planning as communicative rationality (see Forester 1989; Innes 1995), and radical(Sandercock 1998) or community-based planning (Leavitt 1994). The common under-pinning of these approaches is that planning can be best understood as a � eld ofdecision making. It also suggests that there are both technical and political dimensionsto planning practice (Hoch 1994). However, the planning discipline and its literature aredisparate. Although some have sought to re� ne or recon� gure the rational model (seeAlexander 1994), others have “abandoned the quest for rational planning altogether”(Hoch 1994, 291).
Kiernan (1983, 73), in de� ning the “political” nature of planning, suggests thatthere are two aspects of politics involved. The � rst is that planning inevitably involvesvalue-choice issues (that cannot be adjudicated through technical procedures) to whichplanners bring their own philosophical and political values. The second is that planningis essentially distributional. Regardless of the planning context, planning involves theallocation of resources and these decisions are therefore often contested and debatedby the potential winners and losers of these allocative decisions (Kiernan 1983; Chris-tensen 1993). Friedmann (1993) puts it another way. He argues that in the quest forsolutions, planners must use two kinds of knowledge: “expert and experiential” (1993,484). Tauxe (1995, 477) also points to an incipient tension between the expertise andformal role of the planner and the views and values of others:
The discursive con� ict between local and bureaucratic planning styles re� ectedthe deeper con� ict between the sets of cultural values that shaped and justi-� ed each one. In particular, those whose discourse continued to re� ect localconventional norms tended to refer to moralistic ethics, whereas those usingthe bureaucratic style referred to legalistic ethics.
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If the rational planning model was seriously wounded by observers of the political andcultural dimensions of planning decisions and actions, it was, arguably, the postmod-ernists who � nished it off. The postmodern challenge to planning has denounced thepreeminence of the expert, denied the need for perfect knowledge, and attacked theassumption that there is a need for centralization of resource planning and management(Jacobs 1992).
Decentralized Planning
By the late 1960s, the trenchant criticisms of the rational comprehensive paradigmhad begun to precipitate entirely new models of planning (P. Hall 1992; Friedmannand Kuester 1994; Sandercock 1998). A single, unifying model of planning was notto emerge, however. Instead, a range of new approaches were suggested, all of whichshared the common goal of overcoming the many and varied criticisms which had beenleveled at the synoptic ideal. All of them—transactive, bargaining, and communicativeaccounts—are best understood as emerging from the social transformation planningtradition, rather than the increasingly jaded social guidance tradition (Friedmann andKuester 1994). All of them are participatory and decentered in style and concerned withdeveloping shared solutions to planning issues. All of them, in other words, advocatelearning about the perceptions and concerns of others and sharing the responsibilityfor planning outcomes in a way that is the hallmark of cooperative approaches tobiodiversity conservation.
Transactive planning was developed by Friedmann (1973; see also 1993) as aresponse to the failures of the synoptic ideal. Rather than conceiving of planning for anamorphous, ill-de� ned public, transactive planning proposes face-to-face contact withthe planning community (see Hudson 1979). Re� ecting Friedmann’s (1973) perspectiveon planning as linking knowledge to action, planning from the transactive perspectivedoes not rely on orthodox empirical techniques but rather on interpersonal dialoguein which ideas are validated through action (Friedmann 1994). In keeping with theconservative social learning school of the social transformation tradition (Friedmann1987), a central objective of transactive planning is mutual learning. Instead of pursuingspeci� c functional objectives, transactive planning places greater emphasis on personaland institutional development (Friedmann 1994). Importantly for the argument beingdeveloped here,
Transactive planning is situation-speci� c and thus appropriate to decenteredplanning, which seeks a diversity of solutions at regional and local levels. Itis a participatory style [which] requires that both planners and citizens havethe capacity to listen sympathetically and share the responsibility for problemde� nition and solution. (Friedmann 1973, 484; emphasis added)
In the 1980s, another approach developed, which, like its predecessors, maintainedan emphasis on planning as a policy and decision-making activity (see Dorcey 1986;McDonald 1989). Advocates of “bargaining” accounts of planning asserted that themost important aspect to decision making in mixed economies is bargaining withinthe parameters established by legal and political institutions (Dorcey 1986; McDonald1989). Bargaining was used in this context to refer to transactions between two ormore parties who established “what each shall give and take or perform and receive”(Dorcey 1986). According to this view, planning decisions were the product of giveand take between those actively involved in the planning process. This model therefore
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eschewed the antipolitical ideologies of earlier models and recognized the fundamentalpolitical nature of planning. Like advocacy and Marxist planners, the bargaining schoolrecognized the uneven distribution of power, but insisted that the plural nature of mostplanning contexts meant that all participants had the capacity to in� uence decisions,“even if it is only to vote, to embarrass, to provide information, to demonstrate or toblock decisions” (McDonald 1989, 333).
Active participation by interested stakeholders was fundamental to the bargaininganalysis of planning. According to the bargaining school, the participation and inter-action of stakeholders was the principle ingredient of decision making. Webber (1983,96), prophesizing on a negotiation-based style of planning, described it as a mode ofplanning that does not
promote a single conception of the public interest, and that professes to beessentially political rather than essentially technical in character. Instead ofstriving for integrated plans and programs, it encourages all interested partiesto promote and pursue their own preferred projects, however disparate andcontradictory. It does not rely on a central planning agency and a centralcommand post. . . . Instead it encourages all agencies, public and private, toconduct rigorous technical analyses and, within the constraints of availableresources, to formulate their own plans favoring their own purposes, eachvirtually independently of the others.
Bargaining was therefore another decentered approach to planning, emphasizing theparticipation of all interested citizens, and seeking to arrive at conclusions that hadauthority and legitimacy among concerned actors.
In the late 1980s and 1990s, the demise of the omnipotence of scienti� c-rationalism, encapsulated best as the “postmodern challenge to the modernity project,”has forced a reconsideration of the nature and role of reason in planning which,in turn, has precipitated a new account of planning (Healey 1992, 148; seealso Hillier 1993; Hoch 1992). Healey (1992, 150), following Habermas (1984),summarizes the communicative perspective thus: “Far from giving up on reason asan organizing principle for contemporary societies, we should shift perspective froman individualized, subject-oriented conception of reason, to reasoning formed withininter-subjective communication” (see also Dryzek 1990, 14; Giddens 1994, 115–116).
Forester (1989, 18), in the seminal account of the communicative approach toplanning, argues that communication is the major method of planning. In his terms,planners are essentially concerned with “organizing attention to the real possibilitiesfor action” (1989; 17–18; see also Hillier 1993; Healey 1992; Healey 1993; Sager1994). Forester (1989, 18) argues that:
Planners are not apolitical problem solvers or social engineers. Instead they areactually pragmatic critics who must make selective arguments and thereforein� uence what other people learn about, not by technically calculating meansto ends or error signals, but by organizing attention carefully to project possi-bilities, organizing for practical political purposes and organizational ends.”
According to this view, planners do not simply report on planning problems and issues.Instead they refashion and reformulate the problem and, in doing so, provide newbases for policy formation (Forester 1989). Rationality is thus expanded to includeall the ways in which people come to “understand and know things and use that
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knowledge in acting” (Healey 1992, 150; Hillier 1995). If planning activity is focussedon intersubjective argumentation, an understanding of the concerns of individual actorsmay be achieved. Moreover, by recognizing that the concerns of an individual actormay be personally, societally, and culturally situated, intersubjective communicationcan help actors “understand each other” (Healey 1992, 158; see also Hillier 1993;Hillier 1995; Innes 1995).
Communicative rationality thus emerges as another decentered, participatory, sociallearning approach to planning. The communicative approach shows how democraticparticipation and strategies for citizen empowerment are critical to the creation ofequitable planning outcomes (Hillier 1993). Its strength lies not only in its potential fornormative model building (see Healey 1996) but also in the manner in which differingrationalities, such as feminist (Hillier 1995) and indigenous (Lane 1996) perspectives,are incorporated as legitimate and authoritative in their own right.
Comanagement of Protected Areas
In the � eld of protected area management, a � eld that is largely unrelated to the theo-rizing of urban and regional planners, managers have, after a century-long experimentin land and resource conservation, proved that decentralized, participatory approachesare the most effective management strategies (Rao and Geisler 1990; West and Brechin1991; Western et al. 1994). While the planning theorists have advocated for participa-tion, shared responsibility, and empowerment (McClendon 1993; Friedmann 1993),protected areas managers have shown that their “cooperative management” modelworks. In a variety of institutional, economic, and cultural settings, comanagementprovides a compelling proof for these new directions in planning theory.
The world’s � rst national park was established in the United States in 1872following the passage of the Yellowstone Park Act. While the clear intention of thelegislature was to preserve the scenic wonders of northwestern Wyoming, the act wasonly passed after it was shown that the “proposed park would take nothing of valuefrom the public domain” (C. M. Hall 1992, 68; Runte 1987). Yellowstone National Parkwas founded on two principles. First, the park was meant to protect the unique naturalfeatures of the area, and second, it was to provide for public access and use in the formof recreation and tourism (Stevens 1997). The � rst principle has been interpreted asreferring to the concept of wilderness, which has been understood as uninhabited landwhere the course of nature might progress without human intervention. In accordancewith the second principle, human use of the park was largely restricted to nature-basedtourism and recreation. The “Yellowstone model,” therefore, has become synonymouswith “public ownership, tourism development, and above all wilderness, and they havehad little place in them for indigenous peoples” (Stevens 1986, 2).
Yellowstone was quickly used as the model for national park planning and manage-ment in the United States and throughout much of the developed and developing world(Stevens 1997; Rao and Geisler 1990). Indeed, the slavish adoption of the Yellowstonemodel in other areas of the world, and the failure to develop different approachesto conservation more suited to the particular ecological, sociocultural, and politicalcircumstances of individual regions, has (1) had important social impacts for localpopulations and (2) constrained and undermined the conservation project itself (Raoand Geisler 1990). Increasing con� ict between indigenous peoples (in particular) andnational park managers, and the evident failings of the Yellowstone model of conserva-tion, have slowly catalyzed new approaches to natural resource conservation (Stevens1986; 1997). Although park advocates were slow to realize that a single conserva-tion model was highly limiting and restrictive (Lucas 1992), the IUCN, the world’s
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Comanagement of Protected Areas 663
premier conservation agency, eventually developed a range of conservation modelsin order to provide a more � exible framework for conservation in differing settings.3
Limiting conservation initiatives to lands on which human use has been or can belimited was clearly not practical in an increasingly populous world. In addition, theexclusion of local peoples often resulted in localized opposition capable of underminingthe conservation objectives of the protected area (see, e.g., Lane and Chase 1996).
The concept of cooperative management4 was originally devised as a means ofreconciling the competing imperatives of ecosystem protection and indigenous rightsand cultural heritage.5 In essence comanagement refers to “shared decision makingbetween local resource claimants and formally trained resource managers on policiesguiding the use of protected areas” (Rao and Geisler 1990, 19). Comanagement ofprotected areas has emerged as a substantial challenge to the Yellowstone model.In many countries around the world, the dif� culties associated with the adoption ofthe wilderness model have become increasingly evident (Western and Wright 1994;Raval 1992; Rao and Geisler 1990; Stankey 1989; Harmon 1987). This recognitionhas forced the planners of protected areas to adopt different approaches to ecologicalconservation. Alternative approaches to protected areas, although diverse, are uni� edby the importance of integrating ecological conservation with the social, cultural, andeconomic fabric of the surrounding region and by their emphasis on decentralizingdecision making by seeking the active participation of resident stakeholders (Westernand Wright 1994; Rao and Geisler 1990).
The Yellowstone model was borne of particular circumstances in the United Statesin the late nineteenth century and re� ects particular ideologies about the need for androle of protected areas (Raval 1992). Although Yellowstone National Park was initiallyprincipally concerned with the protection of areas having scenic and recreational value,the emphasis on nature conservation (as opposed to the protection of scenic landscapes)is a relatively recent ideological development (Stankey 1989). The conservation ofbiodiversity has recently emerged as the dominant imperative for the establishment ofprotected areas.
The comanagement approach seeks to integrate the ecological perspective withlocal social and cultural perspectives. The central objective of comanagement is todevelop strategies to ensure the collaboration of park managers and local peoples (Raoand Geisler 1990; De Lacy 1994). Such an approach demands that responsibility formanagement is shared and resident stakeholders are empowered to participate actively.According to the logic of advocates of the model, this approach not only reducesthe social impact of conservation, but also improves the capacity of managers tomeet conversation and other objectives. This view is thoroughly congruent with thelong-standing call for local participation in land use planning in order to inform andlegitimize planning decisions (Oakley 1991). Comanagement can be understood, in thissense, as constituting formal arrangements facilitating the participation of local peoplein planning and management.
Comanagement in Australia
Kakadu National Park, in Australia’s Northern Territory, is one of the best examples ofcooperative management of parks and protected areas (see Press et al. 1995). Australiahas experienced signi� cant con� ict between indigenous peoples and government agen-cies over the establishment of protected areas (see Toyne and Johnson 1991; Laneand Chase 1996), and this con� ict has precipitated the Australian version of coman-agement: “joint management.” The comanagement arrangements for Kakadu National
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Park were established in 1978, and are now regarded as offering a model for thewider application of the concept (De Lacy 1992; 1994). The essential elements of jointmanagement at Kakadu are: (1) the land is owned by the traditional Aboriginal custo-dians as inalienable freehold title; (2) the land is leased by the Aboriginal owners to theCommonwealth Government to be managed as a National Park; (3) the lessors receivean annual rent from the Commonwealth; and (4) the Aboriginal owners constitute amajority on the Board of Management, the locus of park management decision making(see De Lacy 1994).
The joint management arrangements at Kakadu are the result of the RangerUranium Environmental Inquiry, which was established, in 1975, in order to examineand reconcile competing interests in land and resource use in the region. At thetime of its establishment, the region was the subject of signi� cant con� ict as mining,conservation, pastoral, tourism, and indigenous interests wrestled for access and controlof land. At the completion of the inquiry in 1977, the Australian federal governmentaccepted almost all of the recommendations of the inquiry, including those aboutgranting Aboriginal title and establishing a major national park. Shortly thereafter anarrangement was struck whereby the traditional owners leased the land granted to themto the government so that it could be managed as a national park (KBM and ANCA1996). This “joint management” model has also been applied to new lands as theywere added to the park by way of indigenous claim of lands in accordance with theAboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Act of 1976.
Although the Kakadu example has been widely copied, there have been critics.Some have commented that in some respects Aboriginal owners are effectively marginalto decision making and they form a minor and peripheral element of the park’s workforce (Lawrence 1995). In addition, the success and renown of the park have causeda long and steady increase in tourism. Traditional owners, Lawrence (1995) argues,sometimes feel that the growth in tourist numbers challenges their capacity and respon-sibility to care for the land that comprises the park. Identi� cation of these problemshas been followed by a management plan that, among other things, seeks to addressthese concerns directly (see KBM and ANCA 1996).
In one sense, this shows the resilience of the partnership between park managersand indigenous people: Following the identi� cation of local concerns, an explicitmanagement response was developed. The effectiveness of comanagement arrange-ments at Kakadu is also evidenced by the fact that the park continues to meet itsconservation objectives. Indeed, it remains a signi� cant property in Australia’s WorldHeritage estate (see Lane et al. 1996), demonstrating that Aboriginal ownership andjoint management have not diminished the conservation value of the park (see Laneet al. 1996).
The Bene� ts of Comanagement
There is a substantial literature that explores the comanagement concept and considersits advantages over traditional approaches to conservation. The � rst and most importantbene� t of comanagement is that it substantially reduces the negative social and culturalconsequences that protected area status can bring (Rao and Geisler 1990). In anotherwell-known case, Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park, also in Australia’s Northern Terri-tory, the original national park was created by excising the required land from apreexisting Aboriginal reserve (Woenne-Green et al. 1994). Joint management hastherefore reenfranchised the traditional owners of the area, who were initially excludedfrom the park (De Lacy 1994). Several writers emphasize that failure to recognize the
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Comanagement of Protected Areas 665
relationship between nature and people can precipitate signi� cant local social disrup-tion and impact (Stankey 1989; Rao and Geisler 1990). Rao and Geisler (1990, 27) callfor “comanagement as mitigation,” emphasizing comanagement strategies as a meansof minimizing the social impacts of conservation.
A second associated bene� t of comanagement is that it enhances and informs themanagement of natural resources. Failure to adopt an interdisciplinary approach to parkmanagement and manage parks as human ecosystems (Grumbine 1990) can compro-mise the biophysical values for which protection was sought (Stevens 1986; Stankey1989). This, of course, re� ects that most natural resource management problems occurin a social context. Failure to recognize this social context can substantially reducethe effectiveness of natural resource management strategies (Field 1997b). Moreover,although protected areas, particularly in industrialized countries, have been conceivedof as being separate from people (McNeely 1984), humanity’s in� uence on the world’secosystems has been signi� cant and the complex relationship between nature andhuman society demands an explicit focus on human use and values (see Field 1997b).
This perspective on comanagement echoes the call for local participation in plan-ning, suggesting that issues of human use and human values are at least as importantin management as the technical issues usually the domain of biophysical science (Lake1993). In indigenous contexts, cooperative management through participation providesa mechanism for the incorporation of indigenous ecological knowledge (Williams 1989;Smyth 1992). The collaboration of indigenous ecological knowledge and Western scien-ti� c approaches to the biosphere has much to offer management planning, accordingto some commentators (Williams 1989; Stankey 1989). In Kakadu, Aboriginal knowl-edge, together with traditional land management practices, has been incorporated intooperation and management of the park (see Press et al. 1995; De Lacy 1994). In othercontexts, protected area management is centrally concerned with managing the activ-ities of recreators and adjacent landholders. In these contexts, a understanding of thevalues that underpin these behaviors is also critical for management (Field 1997b).
Understanding the social context of protected areas can have important implicationsfor the implementation of management decisions. Central to the comanagement thesisis the idea that if park managers can establish a cooperative relationship with local resi-dents and park users, a relationship in which the responsibility for park managementis shared, then the task of the professional manager and the nature and importanceof local management problems can be signi� cantly changed. In these circumstancesthe protected area manager can rely on voluntary compliance and cooperation withmanagement prescriptions, rather than seeking to enforce or defend the protected areaboundary, seeking to keep an unsympathetic local public at bay (Stankey 1989; Raval1992; Marks 1992). Volunteerism, collaboration, and shared responsibility by conser-vation planners and local stakeholders are recognized in the conservation planningliterature as being crucial to integrating protected areas into the local socioeconomicfabric and, in so doing, overcoming local opposition and behaviors that have done somuch to undermine conservation (Bradby 1991; Syme 1987; Campbell 1994; Stankey1989). Comanagement can be understood as a set of institutional arrangements for parkmanagement that facilitate the development of an effective partnership between localstakeholders and conservation planners.
A common cause for complaint from resident peoples when a protected area isestablished is the perception that conservation will have a negative impact locally. Localopposition to the creation of new parks and a refusal to comply with new resourcemanagement requirements have often confronted the managers of new protected areas.Comanagement arrangements have the potential to provide economic bene� ts for local
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peoples (Smyth 1992). Clearly the extent of the economic bene� t is determined bythe nature of the collaboration and the willingness of park planners to consider localeconomic issues. Altman and Smith (1990) have demonstrated the extent to whichAboriginal involvement has enhanced visitor experience in Kakadu and Nitmiluknational parks in Australia’s Northern Territory and provided substantial economicbene� t to local Aboriginal peoples. Being concerned with local economic develop-ment is fundamental to seeking to integrate protected areas with the local socialcontext in order to fashion relationships that are genuinely collaborative and coopera-tive (Bromley 1994). The call to conserve the biodiversity in the populous developingworld is unlikely to be achieved unless the aspirations of local peoples for economicdevelopment are considered as a fundamental component of the conservation equation.
Co-management has emerged as a substantial challenge to the classical model ofnational parks. In particular, it has been regarded as a means of mitigating the socialimpacts of conservation and catering for the rights and concerns of local peoples. Inaddition, by incorporating key resource claimants in the planning of national parks,management planning is, according to advocates of the model, informed by accessinglocal and traditional ecological knowledge. However, the extent to which these bene� tsare realized depends, in large part, on the effectiveness of the implementation of co-management arrangements. Warning of the optimistic rhetoric that accompanies muchof this literature, West (1991, xxii) cautions:
For the most part it is too early to tell. There are early signs of promise inspeci� c cases. . . . [Much of the literature, however] is based on prescriptivehopes, plans and dreams; others on impressionistic, qualitative judgementsafter early steps in initial implementation.
Reconciling natural area protection with the rights and concerns of resident andindigenous peoples is a painfully dif� cult task. As West (1991, xxiii) has argued, “thegap between rhetoric and reality is not so easily closed. Tragic dilemmas and hardwrenching choices will not go away” (see also De Lacy 1994). Clearly, however,the nature of the challenge has been re� ned, and the central management objectivede� ned. Protected area managers have recognized, through long experience, that theymust establish cooperative, collaborative relationships with local stakeholders and sharethe responsibility for management.
Convergence
We should be cautious in identifying conceptual convergence in a single discipline, letalone in two � elds, albeit related, that are rarely the subjects of comparative examina-tion. The relatively recent imperative to conserve the world’s biodiversity continues toproduce biocentric approaches that marginalize consideration of the human dimension.In addition, technocratic approaches to ecosystem management, which largely ignorethe political dimensions of decision making, continue to emerge (Freemuth 1996). Simi-larly, the importance of integrating socioeconomic issues with biophysical considera-tions has only recently been seen as critical to achieving sustainable development (Shawand Kidd 1996). Nevertheless, protected area managers and commentators consis-tently advocate integrating local social and cultural issues with the overall managementagenda. Indeed, sharing the burden of both management problems and solutions can beidenti� ed as the most important conceptual issue in the � eld (West 1991). Outside of the
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protected area context, in the broader � eld of ecosystem management, decentralizationcan also be identi� ed as a developing trend (Freemuth 1996).
Planning theorists are converging on similar ground. Since the much-discusseddemise of rational-comprehensive planning, a variety of theories and models haveenjoyed brief ascendance. McClendon (1993, 145) argues that “planning theory hasevolved for the simple reason that we as a profession have simply not been able to getit right.” Notwithstanding the emergence of communicative rationality as an “emergingparadigm” in planning (Innes 1995), across much of the contemporary � eld of planningthere is a de� nite trend toward a style of planning that emphasizes participation, sociallearning, and decentralized decision making (Friedmann 1993; McClendon 1993). Inresponding to declining authority and legitimacy of decisions based on scienti� c ortechnical arguments (Giddens 1994; Beck 1992), scholars of planning have soughtto expand the notion of rationality as it is used in planning by focusing on sociallearning through active participatory dialogue (Healey 1992; Hillier 1993). By decen-tralizing planning processes and decision making, planning outcomes may enjoy greaterlegitimacy and authority (Beck 1992).
In what could have emerged from long experience with protected areas, McClendon(1993, 147) argues that planners should “work to empower and reinforce the self-suf� ciency of their customers. Successful planners are using volunteerism, self-helpand co-production techniques to ensure that their customers are given actual authorityand shared responsibility for solving these problems.” The extent of convergence iscompelling. The importance of this convergence lies in the fact that protected areasprovide a rich empirical context in which many of the ideas and concepts, muchdebated among scholars of planning, have been tested. If national parks can be under-stood as a century-long experiment in natural resource management and planning, thenumber of replications, across a wide diversity of environmental, social, and politicalsettings, provides considerable empirical support for some of the contemporary ideas inplanning. Transactive and community-based approaches to resource planning, empha-sizing empowerment and shared responsibility, have and are being tested in manyregions around the world. While further work needs to be done before authoritativeconclusions can be made, at this stage at least, protected area management provides asigni� cant af� rmation of new directions in planning theory.
Notes
1. See for example Noss and Cooperrider 1994, and the exchanges between Alcorn (1993)and Redford and Stearman (1993a, 1993b).
2. Consider, for example, the exchange between Friedmann (1993; 1994), the advocate of“non-Euclidian” planning, and Alexander (1994), the systems theorist.
3. The IUCN categories of protected areas (see, e.g., Lucas 1992).4. The bulk of the literature refers to comanagement. The other term commonly used is
joint management, which is a term usually used to identify the unique Australian model ofcomanagement in which Aboriginal people claim the national park and subsequently lease itback to the relevant conservation agency to be managed as a national park (see Alanen 1992;cf. Rangan 1999).
5. Some would disagree with my depiction of these imperatives as being in competition.Indeed, the extent to which indigenous interests and conservation are convergent or competinginterests is an important and on going debate in the literature (see, e.g., Clad 1985; Redfordand Stearman 1993a; Alcorn 1993; Redford and Stearman 1993b). I deliberately depict themas potentially contradictory in order to highlight the logic in the development of the modeland to underscore the importance of indigenous–conservation con� icts in catalyzing change inapproaches to conservation.
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