Collaborative Management of National Parks: The Case of Retezat National Park, Romania (original) (raw)

The managers of protected areas now recognize that protected area management needs to take a cooperative and collaborative approach with local stakeholders in order to share the responsibility for management (Lane 2001; Kothari et al. 1996; Leikam et al. 2004; Bramwell & Lane 2000). It is socially and politically unacceptable to exclude from a protected area local stakeholders who live close to or within that protected area without providing them with viable economic alternatives, nor is it acceptable to exclude them from the decision making process (Leikam et al. 2004). The participation of stakeholders in the process of information sharing and decision making is a crucial precondition for tourism planning to evolve with minimum negative impacts (Bramwell & Lane 2000). However, involving a broad range of stakeholders in the planning process is not an easy task. It can be extremely challenging and time-consuming to reach consensus on the many, often incompatible interests of the stakeholders. Nevertheless, stakeholder collaboration can generate many potential benefits such as 'political legitimacy': collaboration processes are more legitimate and equitable than traditional approaches to planning, as the former encourage sharing and participation, in which the beliefs and advice of non-experts (e.g. local community members) are as equally valid as those of 'experts' (Bramwell & Sharman 1999; Hall 1999; Healey 1997). Furthermore, by sharing the ideas, resources and expertise of stakeholders, the group creates "something new and valuable together-a whole that is greater than the sum of its individual parts" (Shannon 1998; Taylor