Erika Stanciu and Alina Ioniță Governance of Protected Areas in Eastern Europe Overview on different governance types, case studies and lessons learned BfN-Skripten 360 2014 Governance of Protected Areas in Eastern Europe Overview on different governance types, case studies and lessons learned Results of a research study commissioned by BfN to ProPark, Romania Erika Stanciu Alina Ioniță Cover picture: Stakeholder consultation – Romania (E. Popp) Editors’ Address Erika Stanciu Protected Area expert, trainer, consultant PhD Alina Ioniță Protected Area expert, trainer ProPark Str. Lungă, nr. 175, 500051, Braşov, ROMÂNIA Tel./Fax: +40-368-462-564 Tel./Fax: +40-268-510-188 www.propark.ro Scientific supervisors: Gisela Stolpe German Federal Agency for Nature Conservation Dr. Ralf Grunewald International Academy for Nature Conservation Isle of Vilm 18581 Putbus / Rügen, Germany This publication is included in the literature database “DNL-online” (www.dnl-online.de) BfN-Skripten are not available in book trade but can be downloaded in a pdf version from the internet at: http://www.bfn.de/0502_skripten.html Publisher: Bundesamt für Naturschutz (BfN) Federal Agency for Nature Conservation Konstantinstrasse 110 53179 Bonn, Germany URL: http://www.bfn.de All rights reserved by BfN The publisher takes no guarantee for correctness, details and completeness of statements and views in this report as well as no guarantee for respecting private rights of third parties. Views expressed in the papers published in this issue of BfN-Skripten are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information stor- age and retrieval system without written permission from the copyright owner. Printed by the printing office of the Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety Printed on 100% recycled paper. ISBN 978-3-89624-095-8 Bonn, Germany 2014 About this report The proceedings provide a comprehensive compilation of the results of a one year study on governance of protected areas in Eastern Europe including the outcomes of a final expert workshop from 2 - 5 December 2012 at the International Academy for Nature Conservation on Isle of Vilm, Germany. The study was commissioned to ProPark, Romania, by the Ger- man Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. Acknowledgements Thanks are due to the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (BMUB) and the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) for financial support and confidence. We are particularly thankful to Gisela Stolpe and Ralf Grunewald for the excellent collaboration and the professional review of the content. We would also like to express our thanks to the CBD Secretariat, especially Sarat Babu Gid- da and Lisa Janishevski for the interest shown and support for this study. This study was developed with the strong support of the protected area governance experts who were involved from the very beginning of the study design and provided scientific sup- port throughout the study, as members of the Project Advisory Committee. We would like to thank them for sharing their knowledge, experience, research and advice and for facilitating or organizing the field visits in some of the target countries. • Rolands Auziņš - Nature Conservation Agency in Latvia (Regional Director) • Iris Beneš - ICCA Consortium (Regional Coordinator for Northern, Central and East- ern Europe) • Dr. Grazia Borrini-Feyerabend - IUCN CEESP (Vice Chair for Europe) and ICCA Consortium (Global Coordinator) • Anastasiia Drapaluk - Ministry of Ecology and Natural Protection of Ukraine (Head Expert of the Department of Protected Area) • Dr. Jan Kadlecik - State Nature Conservancy of the Slovak Republic (Department of International Treaties) • Trevor Sandwith - IUCN - Global Protected Areas Programme (Director) • Dr. Andrej Sovinc - Head of Sečovlje Salina Nature Park (Slovenia), IUCN-WCPA Chair for Europe • Katerina Rakovska - WWF - Danube-Carpathian Programme, Bulgaria (Protected Areas and Natura 2000 expert) • Dr. Rauno Väisänen - Metsähallitus Natural Heritage Services, Finland (Director) • Irina Zupan - State Institute for Nature Protection in Croatia (Head of Protected Area Department) The rich and valuable information that is at the core of this study was provided by repre- sentatives of national, regional and local level protected area authorities and agencies, as well as by protected area practitioners from a wide range of institutions and organizations within the wide project target region. We are sincerely and warmly thankful to all those who helped us gain access to information by all means and who provided us the information di- rectly either by face to face or Skype interviews or by filling in a questionnaire, those who helped organizing the interviews and the field trips, i.e. protected area staff and representa- tives of the institutions and organizations. Their names are listed in Annex 1. The authors would also like to thank ProPark team members who helped with the project implementation. 3 CONTENTS Executive summary ............................................................................................................ 10 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................... 18 2 Governance of protected areas ................................................................................ 20 2.1 What is protected areas governance? ......................................................................... 20 2.2 Types of governance ................................................................................................... 20 2.2.1 State governance .......................................................................................... 21 2.2.2 Shared governance ....................................................................................... 21 2.2.3 Private governance ........................................................................................ 22 2.2.4 Community governance (community conserved areas) ................................. 22 2.3 Principles of good governance .................................................................................... 23 3 Methodology .............................................................................................................. 25 3.1 Geographical scope .................................................................................................... 25 3.2 Analytical approach ..................................................................................................... 27 4 Context for protected area governance in Eastern Europe .................................... 31 4.1 Socio-economic and political context ........................................................................... 31 4.2 National legislations on protected area governance .................................................... 37 4.3 International agreements – relevance and implementation .......................................... 39 5 Protected area governance in the project area ....................................................... 42 5.1 Types and sub – types of governance systems ........................................................... 47 A. Governance by Government ................................................................................... 47 B. Multi-stakeholder management ............................................................................... 70 C. Private Management ............................................................................................... 87 D. Community Management ........................................................................................ 90 5.2 Expert bodies and their role in protected area governance .......................................... 94 5.3 Management of PAs by Forest Management bodies ................................................... 97 5.4 Specifics of Natura 2000 governance .......................................................................... 99 5.5 Actors, roles and responsibilities ............................................................................... 100 5.5.1 Main actors and their roles in PA governance .............................................. 100 5.5.2 Land ownership and management within PAs ............................................. 106 5.5.3 Financial responsibilities .............................................................................. 107 5.5.4 Decisions concerning the budget allocation for PA management ................. 109 5.6 Some aspects on the quality of protected area governance ...................................... 111 6 Trends in protected area governance in Eastern Europe ..................................... 114 4 7 Lessons learned ...................................................................................................... 117 7.1 Key lessons ............................................................................................................... 117 7.2 Most common mechanisms used to improve PA governance in the region .............. 120 7.2.1 Governance systems with National Agencies for Protected Areas ............... 120 7.2.2 Transfer of power and responsibility through delegation .............................. 121 7.2.3 Multi-stakeholder