Acceptance of Acceptance of Protected Areas

Project Information

Currently, there are several projects for the designation of large protected areas such as national parks and regional nature parks in Switzerland. However, some of these projects had to be abandoned already due to acceptance problems. Conflicts between different stakeholders led to hardened fronts. Such acceptance problems represent a threat park projects. While in conservation communities awareness has increased regarding the importance of acceptance by the affected population, it often remains unnoticed that there is a mutual acceptance problem: Conservationists are often not enough willing to accept the attitudes and cooperation needs of the affected population. Our project therefore examined the attitudes of conservation representatives, experts, policy makers and the affected population towards current protected-area projects and towards the representatives of the divers positions. Based on the findings specific measures to promote understanding and mutual acceptance are developed and tested, so that in future park projects, consensus-based solutions can be found.