On Tuesday 5^th Dec, Pr. Nikoleta Jones has been invited by EUROPARC Federation to lead a webinar on conducting social impact assessments for protected areas: a step by step guide for practitioners

The EUROPARC Federation is the network for Europe’s natural and cultural heritage. The Federation works to improve the management of Protected Areas in Europe through international cooperation, exchange of ideas and experience, and by influencing policy.

The EUROPARC Federation is dedicated to practical nature conservation and sustainable development of Europe’s biodiversity, fostering holistic landscape approaches in its management

We are launching our new survey capturing the social outcomes of Warwickshire Wildlife Trust nature reserve for local communities this week!

8000 randomly selected households will receive a postcard next week inviting them to express their views on their local nature reserves.

Photo credits to Friends of River Arrow

Our SOCIAT tool which was developed during FIDELIO is being used to conduct one more social capital and impact assessment in Greece, at the Olympus National Park (Yes!, the place were the 12 Greek Gods lived).

This work is carried out in collaboration with Pr. Panayiotis Dimitrakopoulos and the University of the Aegean.

Please click on the link to find more information about SOCIAT

Credits to Thodoris Papafotiou

Credits to Elena Gibriksi 

We are launching our survey at the Black Forest National Park. This is our second survey in the area capturing change of perceptions through the years regarding the social outcomes of the park for local communities. It will be open until late December 2023.

The news service published by the European Commission features one of our recent papers from the FIDELIO project (ERC funded). This study identifies key factors that influence local community support for protected areas and considers how stated support is also associated with compliance with regulations and the decision to volunteer.

The paper was led by Jim McGinlay and was written in collaboration with a number of colleagues across Europe: Kerstin Botsch, Susanne Berzbornm, Panayiotis Dimitrakopoulos, Alfie Begley, Vassilis Gkoumas, Siiri Kulm, Kaley Sepp, Maria Nomikou, Mariam Semm, Nikoleta Jones and Andreas Kontoleon

Local support for protected areas linked to social impacts and personal attachment (europa.eu)

A two day workshop was organised 13-14 June by Nikoleta Jones, James McGinlay and Alfie Begley from IGSD bringing together practitioners and researchers across Europe who have been involved in social impact assessments of protected areas. The workshop follows the work conducted under the FIDELIO project during which over 15 assessments have been conducted across several countries. The FIDELIO project has explored why some Protected Areas are more effective than others setting at its core the unravelling of complexities in social-ecological systems and the important role of social outcomes of these conservation policies. During the workshop the main outcomes of the project were discussed including the level of public support for protected areas, their social impacts and also the spatial distribution of social impacts in the local communities. We were very excited to discuss new ways of improving social value and impact assessments for Protected Areas and explored pathways that will facilitate countries across Europe to meet the targets outlined in the new Global Biodiversity Framework including the potential expansion and increase of protected areas across the world.

Our new paper led by James McGinlay has just been published! In this paper we explore determinants of stated and active support for protected areas. Our results show that stated support is linked with pro-environmental behaviour when using the protected area, indicating the importance of supportive public attitudes for behaviour that is supportive of ecological effectiveness. The link between stated support and volunteering was less clear indicating that this is also influenced by other factors. Our proposed model is intended to inform theoretical understanding of the factors affecting public support, but also as a step towards developing a predictive tool for practitioners taking into consideration a broader range of factors in assessing public support and highlighting problem areas for action.

We are very excited to have completed our survey at Triglav National Park with the support of our local collaborator Matjaz Hribar. Over 300 local residents took the time to fill in our online survey after invitation. We will now start processing the data and we expect to have a report soon published on our website.

In this paper, we reviewed theoretical and empirical evidence explaining the level of support for protected areas and proposed a new approach when designing and designating protected areas in Europe. This approach models the process of the introduction of a new protected area as a policy intervention within a socio-ecological system. Specifically, it models how protected area social outcomes or impacts are conditioned and contextualised by numerous intervening factors relating to the social context and governance and management system to influence local actors’ attitude and active support for the protected area. This new approach aims to assist policy makers, conservation practitioners and scientists to plan actions that assist in increasing the level of public support for protected areas in the context of the post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy of the European Union. The full article is available here: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/5/733