Local perceptions and postures towards the SPA “Ria de Aveiro”

Abstract

It has been widely argued that guaranteeing the participation of local stakeholders is a key factor for the successful implementation of the Natura 2000 Network. One of the most vital elements for guaranteeing local participation in this context may be the image that the network enjoys among local authorities and stakeholders. Perceptions towards Natura 2000 result from the way the network has been implemented so far, and may simultaneously play an important role in fostering acceptance regarding the necessary compromises of further stages of implementation, i.e., the adoption of management and conservation measures. This article presents a critical survey on the positions of key politicians and employees of municipalities that share an important part of the Ria de Aveiro, an important Portuguese wetland area designated as SPA under the Birds Directive. Our survey indicates that local perceptions are not particularly favourable to Natura 2000, which may consequently bring additional difficulties to an implementation process that has been problematic and conceptually complex from the start, not only in Portugal, but throughout the EU. In particular, the image of Natura 2000 has been further aggravated by the perception that Natura 2000 designation represents a ban on development and thus a constraint to the economic sustainability of municipalities.

Keywords:

• Natura 2000
• stakeholder perceptions
• biodiversity
• local governance

1. Introduction – stakeholder perceptions and Natura 2000

Natura 2000 areas may represent an important step towards the institutionalization of sustainable development in the sense that local development is being subjected to specific sustainability criteria that in the future may be expected to broaden and extend beyond these areas. In practice, however, developing strategies capable of such an articulation of economic development with conservation presents an incredibly difficult challenge to all responsible actors and stakeholders, from national and local authorities to landowners and economic developers.

Because it is increasingly accepted that the legitimacy and effectiveness of environmental governance and decisions depend to a large extent on procedural justice, the successful implementation of Natura 2000 should ideally guarantee the recognition of the concerns and interests of stakeholders and the distribution of decision-making power (Pavoola 2004). In this context, participatory and deliberative processes are now seen as a key element of new modes of governance1. At the same time, procedural justice increases the chances that governance solutions are perceived as distributively just and effective regarding their outcomes. In modern multi-level governance settings, attention should be paid to these aspects throughout and across all tiers, but perhaps especially so at the local level where direct interests meet and collide, and where management options take concrete form. From this perspective, image issues and social capital2 at the local level are considered decisive in this process, because they affect the way stakeholders (re)act regarding the issues at hand and the participation procedures themselves. We have attempted to assess the perceptions, expectations and postures of local government employees towards Natura 2000, which partially result from the way the network has been implemented so far. Simultaneously, the former are likely to shape reactions to Natura 2000 at the receiving end of its implementation, including for instance the acceptance of conservation and management measures, and the willingness to participate in creating the necessary compromises for a successful Natura 2000.

Some research has focussed on the perception of stakeholders as one source of process-oriented assessment criteria for participatory processes in environmental governance (e.g. Webler et al. 2001). In this article we also focus on the perceptions of stakeholders, but from a different angle, and in a wider scope than just towards participatory processes. Although we acknowledge that the notion of universally valid criteria for good environmental governance has been increasingly challenged, while the crucial nature of context has been gaining emphasis (Adger et al. 2003; Rauschmayer et al. 2008), a common set of criteria typically appears in the body of literature on governance and land-use planning in the context of biodiversity protection, and which are also frequently echoed in policy documents3. Particularly when they are formulated in a non case-specific way as general principles, this recurrent character lends some of these criteria a certain relative consensus. In this article, we have extracted a list of such recurrent factors, and used them to structure our interpretation of the perceptions that public employees involved in the local implementation of Natura 2000 seem to have on those same aspects. In general, the uptake of both empirical research and institutional policy recommendations by the praxis of decision-making has remained low. Through the comparison of a set of policy prescriptions with the perceptions of key decision-makers, our approach intends to shed some light on the gap commonly observed between science and actual policy, and thus contribute to a clearer understanding of the low practical uptake of governance prescriptions and give a more precise picture of some of the challenges that the implementation of Natura 2000 will face at the local level in Portugal.

2 Recurrent criteria for the successful protection of biodiversity

Within the scope of biodiversity protection and the implementation of the Natura 2000 Network, recommendations regarding factors such as an efficient and integrated planning system (Amezaga and Santamaria 2000; Haaren and Reich, 2006; EEA 2006; Gibbs et al. 2007), “bottom-up” approaches, effective public participation, consensus building and deliberative processes, and the accumulation of social capital (van den Hove 2000; LIFE 2004; Schenk et al. 2007; Rauschmayer et al. 2008), a political culture that promotes integrative and inter-sectoral coordination (Bennett and Ligthart 2001; Durant et al. 2004; Papageorgiou et al. 2006), an appropriate balance in the degree of local autonomy regarding environmental governance (Flynn 2000), the role of environmental ethics and views on nature (Paavola 2004; Scholl and Chilla 2005; Swart and van der Windt 2005), and a more holistic understanding of biodiversity are often considered essential in building a fertile basis for the success of such efforts. In Table 1, we provide a synthesis of such criteria that have been recurrently referred to as important for the success of local governance in protecting biodiversity, and that may be extrapolated for the implementation of Natura 2000 in particular4.

Table 1. Typical recommendations for successful biodiversity governance.

Key factors	Typical recommendations
a) Degree of assimilation of the concept of SD and Biodiversity by key actors and by planning systems	The integration of environmental and nature conservation principles and development requires not only the awareness of environmental problems affecting single species, but also taking into account the importance of natural cycles and related phenomena associated to ecosystems nearby.
	Given the complexity of natural systems, uncertainty about causal links and the consequences that occur in the biodiversity to be managed should ideally be taken into account in decision-making.
	The traditional border-type and consequently fragmented view of land development versus nature conservation should be overcome.
b) Degree of understanding about Natura 2000 and the implications of designation	Local authorities and stakeholders must be convinced that designation of sites will not lead to a ban on development. Instead, Natura 2000 should be seen as an opportunity for promoting new models of development, in particular in some of the EU's most marginal regions that urgently need to be revitalized.
c) Degree of local autonomy	It is necessary to strike a delicate balance in the degree of local autonomy regarding environmental matters in order to deal with local issues more directly and effectively, and at the same time avoid too much unevenness and thus very different degrees of protection of biodiversity. This appropriate balance will most likely vary according to national characteristics.
d) Political culture and promotion of integrative and inter-sectoral coordination	A stronger integration of policies at various levels, namely urban development and nature conservation policies and strategies, which should also be considered in the integration of planning levels, principles, guidelines and articulation of plans, assuring shared principles and reinforcing mechanisms between them.
e.1) Implementation of conservation measures within the limits of designated sites	As protection measures and development should safeguard and adapt to the needs of dynamic natural values that are innately dynamic and in constant flux, boundaries should not be regarded as rigid entities.
e.2) Implementation of conservation measures outside the limits of designated sites	Local planning should consider the surrounding areas of protected regimes by formulating development options and by controlling associated effects, recognizing the need to create transitional areas as a function of the proximity to sensitive areas.
f.1) Mechanisms for the establishment of compromises between stakeholders, consensus building and public participation	Effective public participation is essential for the building of broad consensus. Those affected should be given the possibility to participate in an early phase of the planning process.
	Participation should be possible in a real participative manner, not only a consultative one. Local knowledge should be considered and valued.
	Co-operation fosters the wider acceptance of nature conservation measures. Setting up co-operative processes takes time, but it increases the effectiveness of the measures in the long term.
	Subsidies may be important but do not necessarily ensure compliance with conservation measures.
f.2) “Top-down” versus “bottom-up” approaches.	While bottom-up approaches are absolutely essential for the conservation of semi-natural habitats, for planning and implementing the measures a combination of bottom-up and top-down-approaches may be ideal. While imposing decisions causes resentment and is likely to trigger opposition, coordination and coherence are best achieved from “above”.
g) Social capital among stakeholders	Good will, mutual understanding, and trust between parties facilitate decision-making and negotiation.
h) Environmental ethics	Decision makers should acknowledge and take into account that different actors have different perspectives on biodiversity and attribute to it different values.
	Attempts to bridge gaps in environmental ethics should entail giving property rights broader consideration in public participation processes, as well as providing compensatory measures that cover conservation costs.
	Real solutions have to guarantee that the conflicting interests perceive the created compromises as beneficial, independently of what their convictions and motivations may be.

3 Natura 2000 in the Portuguese context

Because of their often remote locations and to their historical socioeconomic dynamics, many of the traditional protected areas in Portugal – mostly instituted during the 70s and 80s – were for the most part occupied by aged and declining populations whose economy was steadily becoming weaker and more peripheral in an industrializing country that was increasingly focused on the development needs of its main urban centres. Local populations find themselves in a delicate situation with difficult choices, among which the easiest is often moving to nearby cities or to the more affluent and better-equipped coastal areas, thus intensifying rural depopulation, considered as one of the largest environmental threats to Portuguese semi-natural ecosystems that tend to decay with lack of management. On the one hand, traditional livelihoods prove ill-adapted to modern standards of production and competitiveness, and often do not generate adequate income. On the other hand, options for converting land uses in these areas are extremely limited, which severely restricts the commercial or industrial potential that could revitalize local economies. The absence of strategies capable of developing acceptable alternatives that make these areas sufficiently attractive for their own inhabitants, combined with the fact that the latter have been excluded from the main decision-making processes that instituted and regulate these spaces, has led to the generalized neglect of local interests in favour of those of occasional visitors. Sometimes even as a direct result of development and land use restrictions, the social and economic dimensions of these areas have often continued to deteriorate (Figueiredo and Fidélis 2000).

The concept of Natura 2000 represents an attempt to address this complex dynamic of semi-natural habitats (e.g. LIFE 2004), but how is it working in practice? Most of the previous environmentally protected areas are included in the network, which will doubtlessly ease implementation in those areas due to the accumulated experience in nature conservation. However, the management of areas that will now be subject to new stricter environmental criteria may constitute a much more difficult challenge than anticipated. Additionally, the Portuguese implementation process has to deal with specific issues such as: a deeply asymmetrical distribution of wealth between coastal and inland areas, a generalized lack of true environmental conscience – particularly among the rural population – (Figueiredo and Fidélis 2000), an increasingly depopulated countryside with “aged” inhabitants, a problematic coordination between different levels of government, sectors and institutions, and a long lack of tradition in active public participation as well as in effective land-use planning.

In the Portuguese mainland, 29 Special Protection Areas (SPAs) and 60 Special Areas of Conservation (SACs) have been classified so far. In addition to including most previously protected areas, both classifications overlap extensively and cover a total of 18,210 km2, which represents approximately 20.47% of Portugal's mainland territory. Like many other Member States, Portugal has adopted a set of guidelines and approaches towards the management of Natura 2000 areas. Although some other European countries have adopted management plans for each classified area, in Portugal, measures to protect species and habitats listed in the Birds and Habitats Directives are established in a specific national plan, the “Sector Plan for the Natura 2000 Network”5. These measures, which have to be included in other territorial plans such as Local Master Plans (called Plano Director Municipal or PDMs), include specific management objectives and regimes for each individual area. Additionally, the Institute for Nature and Biodiversity Conservation (ICNB)6 plans to develop special management plans called Integrated Territorial Interventions (ITIs)7 that by 2010 are expected to cover all Natura 2000 sites with semi-natural habitats, i.e., areas where agriculture and/or forestry have to be maintained in order to preserve local biodiversity, which amount to three quarters of all sites. At this point, according to the ICNB, there are already 9 completed (but not operational) ITIs that cover approximately one third of all SCIs and SPAs. As to the current status of designated Natura 2000 areas, these have since their designation been granted a temporary protection regime that requires approval by the central administration (namely through the ICNB for all interventions that may have significant environmental effects). The current focus is now on the development of the lacking ITIs, on the revision of the PDMs and the integration of the orientations prescribed by the Sector Plan, and on the financial issues that should be finally resolved by the implementation of the new EU financial framework.

Another important aspect for conservation policies in Portugal is the so-called Reserva Ecológica Nacional or REN (National Ecological Reserve), a specific land-use category created in 1983 that covers approximately 30% of the national territory. The ambitious idea behind it was the creation of a biophysical structure to protect ecosystems and to maintain or increase their natural processes in order to support human activities in a sustainable and integrated way (the concept of Continuum Naturale). Its successful implementation might have contributed enormously to the sustainable management of the national territory. However, it has been strongly criticized, mainly because of the way it has been implemented, characterized by a too radical and rigid character and by uneven designation. Its quasi-exclusive non-aedificandi posture has promoted among local authorities and populations a reductionist conception of REN versus urbanizable areas and so has consequently produced further fragmentation of the territory, exactly what it aimed to avoid (Fidélis 2001). For many years, a deep revision of its legal provisions had been unanimously claimed by various sectors. After a few amendments altered in 2006, the previous provisions in order to allow for specific exceptions in regard to licensing that add some flexibility to the RENs juridical regime, in 2008, the long awaited deep revision was finally undertaken with the overall purpose of providing “a conceptual clarification and a procedural simplification”. How the new REN will work in practice, however, remains to be seen.

In many SPAs or SACs, there is a high degree of overlapping with areas that had been previously classified as protected areas or REN. In truth, it would have been difficult to have it otherwise due to the dimension of the area designated as REN in Portugal's mainland. This extensive overlapping with protected areas or other land-use designations with conservation purposes may be counterproductive for Natura 2000s potential for sustainable development. The problem lies in the fact that most of the previous designations did not attempt to achieve the same kind of integration between socio-economic and conservation objectives and thus are more restrictive in terms of licensing. The REN does not belong to the national network of protected areas, but since it constitutes a classification category that seeks to restrict construction in ecologically sensitive areas, it has similar effects in terms of licensing to those of “official” protected areas.

4 Local perceptions and postures towards the SPA “Ria de Aveiro”

Having the prescriptions of Table 1 as a reference framework, we assess the degree of correspondence between typical literature and institutional recommendations and the ideas of municipal employees directly involved in the local implementation of Natura 2000 about these same aspects.

The research was focused on six municipalities integrated in the “Ria de Aveiro”, an important SPA within the Portuguese context. The Ria de Aveiro constitutes a wetland area of approximately 110 km², of which 60 km² is a permanently flooded lagoon. The territory is covered by 10 municipalities with a total population of 250,000, from which the most important is the town of Aveiro, with a population of 75,000. This coastal lagoon is classified as a fragile ecosystem that has been subjected to strong development pressures (urban, agricultural and industrial) which have caused some severe environmental problems. Its complex system and ecological balance have been impacted not only by human activity in the outlying areas of the Ria, but also from within. Despite the environmental sensitivity of the Ria, its physical features have attracted the development of road and rail infrastructure related with the presence of the commercial port of Aveiro (also inside the Ria) and nearby seaside resorts. The pressures associated with changes in land-use have been magnified by the progressive abandonment of traditional socio-economic practices of the area, such as salt production and the regular harvest of the lagoon's eelgrass and other seagrasses used as fertilizers, which had shaped the local ecosystems (see Fidelis 2001). The SPA, covering 512 km², was designated in 1999 by Decree-of-Law (n. 140/99). The dispersion of decision-making across the 10 municipalities and various entities that have overlapping jurisdictions over the area, has led to constant difficulties in finding coherent and articulated management solutions for the Ria's ecosystem as a whole.

Our analysis is based on interviews with the municipal politicians and technicians responsible for the environmental matters of six municipalities that are relevant to the management of the Ria de Aveiro: Aveiro, Estarreja, Murtosa, Águeda, Vagos and Ílhavo8. The interviews attempted to capture how the local process of implementation of Natura 2000 is being perceived by the municipal staff most involved in it. Indirectly, the interviews were meant to elicit commentaries or statements that could be used to assess the views on aspects that are typically subject to policy recommendations, and so enable the intended comparison. Through a script with a short number of questions about the topic that served as a flexible structure for the interview, the aim was to develop a more or less “informal” conversation about our target issues, allowing time for the interviewees to elaborate their points of view as well as permitting a certain degree of openness with regard to their more personal views. Importantly, we here examine the notions and views of individuals, which do not necessarily represent the official positions of the municipalities where they work. Still, we believe that their views can be seen as representative of common positions and wider trends among municipalities and respective staff towards these issues. We structured the analysis of the collected data around the recommendations summed in Table 1 9.

4.1 Degree of assimilation of the concept of SD and biodiversity by key actors and by planning systems

Although the focus of the answers varied considerably, all the respondents attempted to define SD through the now common tripartite concept, divided in its three main dimensions of economic, social and environmental capital which should be passed on to future generations, without making any reference to subtler differences such as SDs strong and weak versions. Biodiversity was also said to include “human beings” whose rights also had to be safeguarded, showing that their discourse has to some extent already adopted some of the ideas of new conservation paradigms. Despite the criticism that conservation approaches tended to be too fundamentalist in preventing interventions in protected areas and the fact that it was recurrently claimed that ecosystems needed human intervention in order to be maintained, we noticed that the notion that conservation necessarily implied fragmentation of the territory seemed to pervade some of the arguments.

The interviewed decision-makers do acknowledge that different actors have different perspectives on biodiversity in the sense that they clearly recognize that other people such as the ICNBs technicians or biologists have a different perspective on biodiversity than their own or that of the general public. However, rather than taking that into consideration in order to enhance communication and collaboration, this seems to translate into a defensive posture, precisely because they generally feel overpowered by the central administration. Thus, although officially there is the recognition that “biodiversity is fundamental”, more ecocentric perspectives tend to be disregarded as too academic, too detached from the harsh realities of actual planning, licensing and governance, and ultimately as too fundamentalist.

Another interesting aspect that we have observed is that these local actors generally demand that natural values be thoroughly quantified and accurately documented so that land-use restrictions can be considered legitimate.

4.2 Degree of understanding about Natura 2000 and the implications of designation

In spite of all its limitations, all interviewees considered that Natura 2000 was in itself a fundamentally positive concept that could be successful without compromising local development provided that its flaws were overcome. Generally, the implementation process was negatively appreciated, particularly in what concerns the Sector Plan and the geographic delimitation of the SPA. Natura 2000 is perceived to be a dictatorial legal instrument because of the way it was implemented, i.e., without involving local authorities and populations, and because it is believed to represent a ban on development.

Another interesting point is that wherever the SPAs delimitation overlapped with areas included in the urban perimeter, this was interpreted by politicians and technicians as a crass mistake from the ICNBs part, a consequence derived from that “faulty” and “horrible” cartography. Furthermore, this was interpreted as a disregard for the work and knowledge that the municipality had already developed in zoning, and as the cause of problematic situations that could have been avoided by involving local authorities in the delimitation process.

4.3 Degree of local autonomy

Most of our respondents expressed the wish that their municipalities should see their competences regarding licensing increased in order to bypass unnecessary consultation procedures with external entities for every single project. In the case of the SPA, they believe this could be achieved through clear and effective guidance from the ICNB regarding good practices and precise instructions on what, where and how things could be done in the designated areas. According to them, this would avoid unnecessary bureaucratic processes, and save time in the approval of necessary projects. Current procedures are being criticized as being unnecessarily cumbersome and time-consuming. By having a priori a parameter framework to guide the elaboration and approval of projects, local developers and municipal technicians would be able to ensure that land-use restrictions were being adequately respected, maintaining a certain degree of autonomy in interpreting these regulations on their own. The necessary monitoring and supervision by central authorities would take place a posteriori, holding decision-makers accountable and liable to sanctions when considered to have breached the directives' provisions.

4.4 Political culture and promotion of integrative and inter-sectoral coordination

Only a few respondents expressed the impression that the planning system often appears decoupled (and sometimes even “contrary”) from environmental legislation and that the two correspond to two different “sensibilities” that have to be harmonized. In the case of the development of projects and management schemes, one respondent suggested that these should be assisted by multidisciplinary teams that simultaneously have expertise on different fields, namely environmental issues and town planning.

Regarding Portuguese environmental policies, these were negatively criticized. The Portuguese political culture is perceived as having ignored the environment for too long and then, all of a sudden, began to be too radical with some areas of the territory, jumping to the other extreme of fundamentalist non-intervention, without even managing to be effective at doing this. However, these decision-makers noted that official policies are gradually starting to change and to acknowledge that this approach does not represent a viable solution.

Although resentful of the fact that Natura 2000 has been implemented “top-down” by the central administration, it was often mentioned that one important aspect for the success of conservation measures is the existence of effective enforcement mechanisms that demand compliance from the entities held responsible for their implementation.

4.5 Implementation of conservation measures within and outside the limits of designated sites

Although most employees insisted on the necessity of cartography and inventories of natural values that are as complete and updated as possible, this was meant more in the perspective of making sure that derived restrictions are justified and acceptable, and not because natural systems are perceived to be dynamically in flux. Planning systems still require the delimitation of boundaries for conservation purposes, and it is also within this framework that local politicians and technicians conceive conservation policies. From this perspective, development and conservation are expected to take place separately in clearly defined areas, in which the two can seldom coexist.

Similarly, no special emphasis was made in regard to the areas that surround the more sensitive designated sites. The Portuguese planning system does not foresee any special status for those areas, and the perceptions of local actors, who are primarily concerned with the requirements of the system, seem to be shaped accordingly.

4.6 Mechanisms for the establishment of compromises between stakeholders, consensus building and public participation; “top-down” versus “bottom-up” approaches; social capital among stakeholders

According to most of the interviewees, they, who were most familiar with local land-use occupation and had the task of managing the territory, should have enjoyed a privileged status in the process of implementation, particularly concerning zoning and the formulation of conservation measures that are seen as highly damaging for the socio-economic development of their municipalities. The degree and kind of participation in which the municipality should have been involved, however, is differently perceived according to individual convictions. In the case of Estarreja, for example, besides the local administration, this involvement should have definitely included all of the affected population, and landowners in particular. The justification for this was that landowners have to be considered capable of a meaningful participation, since, after all, it was the local population and “its ancestors” who “created” the Ria de Aveiro's ecosystems that these instruments wish to preserve, and it is on them that preservation efforts will ultimately depend on. In the case of other municipalities such as Murtosa, Aveiro and Águeda, the concept of sufficient and fair participation seemed to concern the official authorities alone. The latter consider that the common public is “unfortunately” insufficiently qualified to contribute significantly within a broader (and simultaneously narrower) debate that these matters entail, and, since the public is generally uninterested in participating, that “even if given the chance to participate more, things would have nonetheless turned out exactly the same”.

4.7 Environmental ethics

Three of the interviewees explicitly expressed the opinion that the rights of the species Homo Sapiens are not being sufficiently regarded by conservation regimes that appear to them as too rigid and “fundamentalist”. In the sense that people's property rights and livelihoods have to be safeguarded, these positions seem to represent “weak” forms of anthropocentrism. Occasionally, however, we noticed attempts to make the discourse more ecocentric as for example that “the planet is above everything else”, a conception of biodiversity as a sort of all-comprehensive, “omnipresent god”, or even in the definition of SD as “being able to exist in a state of well-being within a space that deserves to be preserved” etc. These more ecocentric statements seemed to have the rhetorical purpose of rendering their official position more environmentally conscious/friendly.

Independent of the extent of their underlying ethical positions towards the environment, all of the interviewed actors tried to make clear that for them, preserving the environment is absolutely essential for a sustainable future. However, we also noticed attempts to introduce arguments that corroborate other views on this, namely that technology could compensate for biodiversity loss or that there is no proven link between the disappearance of many species and human activity. Rather cautiously, these views were mentioned but not assumed. However, it was clear that the people we interviewed more or less consciously understood that different conceptions of nature were at stake, and wished to distance themselves from the “fundamentalist” ecocentric perspective that they attribute to the ICNB.

Property rights were probably the most important issue in many of the answers we collected. Especially in Murtosa, Vagos and Estarreja, it was considered “unfair” to prevent landowners of making a living with designated property without any kind of financial compensation. Why should landowners bear the individual “burden” of managing “common natural heritage” if it is economically unsustainable for them? Fairness would mean here either selling designated property to the state, being able to render it profitable, or even exchanging it for less restricted land elsewhere.

5 Discussion of results

As we shall comment bellow, the way the implementation of Natural 2000 has been conducted by the Portuguese central authorities may have contributed to some of the difficulties that have been mentioned in the interviews. However, there are also a few aspects in the reading we make of the perceptions of the respondents that may accentuate (and at the same time result from) those same difficulties.

One concerns the claim for accurate information on the present species and habitats in order to legitimise land-use restrictions. We believe that it would be helpful if decision-makers were more aware that a high degree of uncertainty regarding biodiversity management must be taken into account in the respective decision-making. Given the current scientific state-of-art, and especially given the limited resources available to the ICNB, absolute certainty regarding the present systems and species to be protected and respective management measures will not realistically be achieved. Although there is certainly still much to be done on the ground to collect baseline data on natural values, it should not be expected that in the near-future it will be possible to satisfy these claims, and so this should not constitute an obstacle for the legitimacy of current conservation measures per se. However, it is obviously important that the cartography and inventories of natural values are as complete and updated as possible in order to manage these areas effectively.

Secondly, the recurrent idea that the designation of Natura 2000 represents a rigid prohibition on development constitutes an obstacle for a positive image of the network. This indicates a poor understanding of the integrating objectives of Natura 2000 in theory, but on the other hand perhaps accurately describes the way Natura 2000 is being presented and implemented in practice by the central authorities. The same can be said of the mentioned reaction to the inclusion of land in the SPA that had been previously classified as potential areas for urban development by local PDMs10. These ideas are in absolute contrast to the principle of integration behind Natura 2000s core concept, and are obviously damaging to the creation of social support for the network's goals. However, due to mentioned extent of overlapping with other designations (see section 3), we should not be surprised that the general public and local authorities think of a SPA or a SAC as a new kind of protected areas with a similar non-aedificandi approach11.

Third, as mentioned above, the desire to see local competences increased was evident in almost all interviews. Interestingly, however, is that while municipalities claim more opportunities for self-initiative based on their supposedly increasing ecological awareness, most of our respondents seemed to believe that the current level of ecological consciousness of mainstream Portuguese culture requires a considerable degree of control and supervision to ensure that environmental interests are not overridden by other competing interests. Indeed, to what degree are Portuguese municipalities realistically capable of ensuring that conservation interests are not de facto overridden by local private interests? Research has shown that these may indeed be counterproductive for the protection of biodiversity, resulting for example in illegal urban sprawl or lax approaches to the criteria in the issuing of licensing permits (Fidélis 2005). Furthermore, under non-compliance, ecosystems that may be irreversibly damaged cannot be adequately compensated by penalty payments or compensation measures. A high degree of local autonomy may only be effective when more ecocentric postures become widely disseminated among local authorities and populations. In the meantime, however, moderately increasing local autonomy under current circumstances in order to find a workable compromise between the ICNB and local administrations is likely to be beneficial for the purposes of Natura 2000, not only because of the reasons mentioned above, but also because giving municipalities (including their populations) a sense of greater equality in decision-making processes that ultimately affect them most directly may do much for creating the necessary social capital and acceptance of conservation measures12.

Embedded in the national political culture, the ICNB may have performed poorly in creating a favourable context for Natura 2000 by fostering general support among local stakeholders. Though common to the implementation of Natura 2000 throughout the EU, the issue of participation as presented in the previous section is a commonplace in Portugal, where the lack of interest (and ability) to involve local stakeholders in an extended debate over their own affairs can be partly explained by a persistent “tradition” of very limited forms of political participation and discussion. Indeed, the general public often does not embrace participation initiatives because of lack of interest, lack of information both about the opportunities to participate and the contents under discussion, or even because of the belief that their views or claims will not be acknowledged and taken into account by the official authorities. Significantly, however, this aspect seems to go both ways of the political spectrum. Not only are people generally unaccustomed to participating actively, but also decision-makers seem frequently reluctant in providing the means for effective participation by the general public and “lesser” stakeholders. Arguably, the same pattern may be observed between other steps of the “political ladder”, as for example in the interaction between the central administrations and the municipalities.

In this context, the little public participation that has been promoted seems to have amounted to a shallow degree of consultation through a so-called process of “public discussion”. Furthermore, it was only after the boundaries of the sites and the orientations of the Sector Plan had been defined that the official process of public discussion began. The formal proceedings that surrounded the process and the far too advanced stage at which it began, do not appear to have promoted the effective participation of local populations, nor their support for the network's objectives. According to the people we interviewed, at no stage of the process did municipalities feel they were actively participating in the decision-making related to the delimitation of the areas or the formulation of management measures. On the other hand, the lack of stakeholder involvement prevented an effective assessment of the practical feasibility of many of the management measures that were proposed in the Sector Plan, or for that matter how these could be adapted to concrete circumstances. The solutions to many of the practical problems of implementation were redirected to subsequent stages, i.e., to the transposition of the Sector Plan into other instruments of spatial planning such as the PDMs, which from the perspective of current paradigms of land-use planning is illogical and to be avoided.

In addition, the reduced amount of participation seems to have been ineffectual from the point of view of the participants. The general impression was that the feedback that municipalities had submitted during the consultation process went largely ignored. When comparing the summary of main questions, comments or suggestions that were submitted during the Sector Plan's “public discussion” period (ICNB 2006), we find that many of the same aspects persist in concerning municipal employees. If more than one year after the publication of the participation report (which includes the amendments and clarifications that resulted from the consultations), most views have remained relatively unchanged, then this may mean several things. One is that the answers and explanations provided in the report were not sufficiently satisfying for municipalities, who wanted to see concrete results instead, and who probably mistrusted arguments that from their perspective appeared decoupled from actual procedures. Another is simply that the way in which the ICNB is articulating and communicating with affected municipalities may be poorly effective, which hinders the creation of trust and social capital. It seems that poor communication and lack of effective participation, as well as perhaps a systematic underestimation of the value of local contributions, have produced the generalized idea that local knowledge and (human) resources have not been duly appreciated and put to use in a way that could favour both the central and local administrations. This prevented the Sector Plan from being seen as a joint product of collaboration, which authorities (as well as other stakeholders) could feel responsible for and identify with.

The lack of social capital is evident in this case, in which municipalities have a somewhat defensive posture towards the ICNB who is seen to put unfounded ecocentric interests ahead of those of local citizens. Furthermore, this apparent mistrust seems to be reciprocal. The implementation process suggests that there may be a relevant degree of mistrust towards local authorities, who sometimes seem to be seen as having the tendency to put other interests ahead of nature conservation efforts. This may have contributed to the limited opportunities for participation and to the lack of effective joint decision-making, and also in the way projects and plans still have to be individually approved by the ICNBs staff, perceived by some respondents to have more or less the same qualifications as municipal technicians. We believe that the causes for this distrust are related to the way motivations are being mutually perceived by the different parties, and also that many of the conflicts arise from differences in environmental ethics. We do not mean to say that this mistrust is unfounded, but it is obviously necessary to overcome mutual suspicions in order to slowly but surely build social capital. This clearly requires greater efforts in communication, public relations, participation and decision-making. Eventually trusting and counting on a more active contribution from municipalities instead of acting as an isolated actor, may ultimately be one of the most effective solutions to the ICNBs limited resources. These aspects may also translate into better uptake of policy guidance by the praxis at the different levels of the Natura 2000 implementation process.

On the other hand, to be fair, part of this faulty communication may also be related to the posture of local politicians towards environmental policies and the ICNB. Perhaps rightly, environmentalists often accuse municipalities of not having enough vision to see how Natura 2000 could present them with enormous opportunities for development during the EUs new budgetary period. Similarly, municipalities are considered not to have used the (few) participation opportunities they had during the period of public discussion as they should and could have. From that perspective, there may be room for scepticism regarding claims for more participation opportunities. Although we find this view comprehensible, we believe that, rather than quantity, the problem is related with the type and degree of “participation” that the term often carries in Portugal. The question of whether local authorities and stakeholders would have participated more actively, remains open only when more participation means more passive consultative procedures and emptied but politically correct rituals. Increasingly, research has supported that context-specific participation mechanisms, in which people know that they are being effectively involved in a collaborative process and that their contribution is taken into account, may be capable of ensuring more participated and thus consensual results. In this regard, the current situation may still be remediated in time for the creation and implementation of the individual management plans.

6 Final conclusions

Although in theory they regard Natura 2000 as potentially beneficial, our respondents seemed to be having difficulties in seeing how the way (they think) it is being implemented could possibly be in the best interest of their municipalities. In face of seemingly rhetorical participatory procedures that have so far been mere one-way consultations, local authorities seem to feel generally alienated from the process of implementation, which hinders cooperative interactions that would ideally require a solid basis of social capital.

As solutions to what they perceive to be the main problems, the general expectation of the interviewed actors was that the situation could be mended mainly through a reformulation of both the delimitation of the SPA and of the respective conservation measures when transposed to the PDMs. According to the interviewees, this would require from the central administration a reassessment of local realities, even-handed negotiations with local stakeholders (which as seen above may or may not include the general public) but at the same time enforcement mechanisms that ensure that the measures are effectively implemented, the harmonization of planning instruments that need to be coherent, the development of multidisciplinary approaches, and, finally, permitting landowners to intervene on their property in order to make it economically sustainable or, in the case of necessary non-intervention, ensuring that landowners are adequately compensated through subsidies or land purchase.

If the impressions we have observed are partly justified by poor implementation practices as we believe it to be the case, then this may indicate that typical policy prescriptions such as those listed in Table 1 have not been effectively assimilated and put to practice by the central (and local) authorities in implementing Natura 2000. Yet, in terms of their general expectations and stance on the future implementation of the network – in particular in the recurrent claims for more real participation and fairness concerning the costs of management measures –, we can observe that some of the mentioned prescriptions are beginning to permeate the discourse. Assuming that these policy recommendations are generally valid in terms of their potential to improve governance practices for the protection of biodiversity and the implementation of Natura 2000 (even if they have to be adapted and fine-tuned to the specificities of individual contexts), this may seem encouraging. Still, we feel that important reservations are called for. One cannot fail to notice the way that the appointed solutions for the perceived problems are systematically “pushed” onto the jurisdiction of central authorities, in a clear attempt at discarding self-responsibility. Thus, local initiative for problem-solving in this context seems scarce, and, since Natura 2000 has always been perceived as an external imposition, local administrations seem to expect solutions to be handed down to them from above13. Furthermore, these local decision-makers (and very likely other types of stakeholders) still have to be persuaded of the validity of other important guidance factors, which prevents their uptake by decision-making. Perhaps most importantly, this includes the notion that Natura 2000 designation represents per se a ban on local development. These aspects may prove counterproductive for ongoing and future implementation and constitute an issue that we believe ought to be addressed more seriously by central and local authorities.

Notes

1. This perspective has been gaining support both through empirical research (e.g. van den Hove 2003; Rauschmayer et al. 2008; Reed 2008) and through institutional uptake as for example in the Agenda 21, the Aarhus Convention, the White Paper on European Governance and the 6th Environment Action Programme.

2. We refer to the concept of “social capital” as theorized by Putnam (1993).

3. As for example the Commission's White on European Governance and the guidance documents on the implementation of Natura 2000.

4. We have selected these criteria in particular because we hold them to be of special importance. In order to maintain their general validity, we have deliberately formulated them as general principles that are not context-specific, but their effectiveness typically appears in the literature as contingent on how they are adapted to the specificities of context. The references we provide here are but a sample of a much wider body of literature that systematically draws attention to these and other factors.

5. After a long and difficult process of formulation, the Sector Plan for the Natura 2000 Network was officially approved in July 2008 by the Council of Ministers with Resolution no. 115-A/2008.

6. The ICNB, Instituto da Conservação da Natureza e Biodiversidade (Institute for Nature and Biodiversity Conservation) is a dependency of the Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Planning, and Regional Development. The ICNB is by far the most important actor in the Portuguese Natura 2000s implementation process. Representing the national administration, it is directly responsible for the establishment and management of protected areas, including Natura 2000 areas.

7. Intervenç[otilde]es Territoriais Integradas.

8. By “municipal technicians” we refer to the municipal employees who usually provide the necessary technical assistance to the decision-making led by the elected politicians. Due to their relevancy in this process, we have included them under the term “decision-makers”. As the responses did not differ according to these two different typologies, we have decided not to explore their different status.

9. The interviews were taped and partially transcribed. We would have liked to include here quotes as to better support our interpretations, but size limits have rendered this impossible.

10. Since the network seeks to protect and promote biodiversity through the articulation of local development and traditional activities with conservation objectives, it may be logical to designate urban or urbanizable areas if the goal is for example preventing excessive urban density or increasing the requirements of environmental criteria in those areas, so as to better protected adjacent ecosystems. In theory, these areas could be interpreted as a type of buffer-zones. In practice, however, it remains to be seen how their actual management will be approached by local authorities and the ICNB.

11. In addition to the actual geographic overlapping that takes place in many areas, another factor that is most likely to play a role in local perceptions is the powerful mental association of N2000 designation with what locals know about traditional approaches to licensing in Protected Areas or REN areas alike, even when they do not actually coincide with Natura 2000 limits.

12. According to the ICNB, apart from defining activities that may be financed, the already mentioned ITIs should also provide a framework of criteria for licensing procedures. This will theoretically avoid necessarily consulting the ICNB in regard to the licensing of every individual project with potential effects over designated areas.

13. This may well illustrate the way that “bottom-up” dynamics tend to function in Portugal, which may also justify concerns in granting more autonomy to local administrations.