Land Use Policy 28 (2011) 877–886
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Land Use Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/landusepol
A bottom-up ‘Convention-Check’ to improve top-down
global protected area governance
Volker Mauerhofer
∗
Department of Conservation Biology, Vegetation and Landscape Ecology, Faculty Centre for Biodiversity,
Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Vienna, Rennweg 14, 1030 Vienna, Austria
article info
Article history:
Received 8 June 2010
Received in revised form 2 March 2011
Accepted 4 March 2011
Keywords:
Nature conservation treaty
CBD
CMS
Bern Convention
Laws
Regulations
abstract
This paper introduces the so-called ‘Convention-Check’ as a new bottom-up approach of assessing the con-
tribution of large-scale protected areas to the implementation of Multilateral Environmental Agreements
(MEAs) that are introduced from the top down. The assessment consists of three major sub-sequential
parts: the current contribution of a protected area to the implementation of the MEAs, recommendations
for improvements and – through an ex-post-evaluation – the impact of the recommendations provided.
The Convention-Check is carried out in a total of ten methodical working steps. A very first applica-
tion of the method is presented based on the example of an Austrian National Park. In this example, a
Convention-Check was carried out using five MEAs and was evaluated after two years. The results show
that there is great variability regarding the number and intensity of implementation measures already
taken by the different levels of governance addressed. Potential reasons and perspectives for the exam-
ple situation, as well as possibilities for future improvement of the method and its global application
on large scale protected areas, are discussed. A significant and causal impact of the Convention-Check
towards improved protected area governance is already shown by the Austrian example after two years.
The Convention-Check combines different working methods from social as well as natural sciences in a
new way. Its innovative approach is designed to overcome deadlocks in the top-down implementation of
MEAs by means of bottom-up initiatives out of large scale protected areas, and aims to contribute towards
improved global protected area governance.
© 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Introduction
Around the world, large scale protected areas contribute indi-
vidually, and as parts of wider networks, to the conservation of
biodiversity (Naughton-Treves et al., 2005; Ervin, 2003a). Also in
Europe, the number and total size of such protected areas has
continuously increased during the last decades (Bishop et al.,
1995; Donald et al., 2007; Jenkins and Joppa, 2009). Among the
driving forces for this development are international, regional,
national and local legal acts with more or less effective enforcement
mechanisms, adopted at different levels of governance (Bennett
and Ligthart, 2001; Susskind, 2008). At the highest geographic
levels, these acts for example include UN-based Multilateral Envi-
ronmental Agreements (MEAs) with a clear focus on sustainable
development (French, 2007; Mauerhofer, 2008a). Among these are
the Convention on Biological Diversity – CBD (Swanson, 1999;
Wolfrum, 2001; Siebenhüner, 2007), the Convention on Migra-
∗
Tel.: +43 699 10165580; fax: +43 1 5951113.
E-mail address: volker.mauerhofer@univie.ac.at
tory Species – CMS (Birnie, 1989; Koester, 2002) including its
agreements such as the African-Euroasian-Waterbirds-Agreement
– AEWA (Lenten, 2001, 2005; Thomas and Guitart, 2005) and the
Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats –
EUROBATS (UNEP/EUROBATS, 2006). Furthermore, on the regional
European level, one must also mention the Council of Europe’s
(CoE’s) Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and
Natural Habitats, more commonly known as the ‘Bern Convention’
(Cutillo Fagioli, 1997; Dejeant-Pons, 1997; Bennett and Ligthart,
2001), and – with a stronger enforcement mechanism – the Birds
Directive and the Habitats-Directive for European Union Mem-
ber States including the thereon based protected area network
named Natura, 2000 (Mauerhofer, 2008b; Morris, 2010). All these
top-down introduced MEAs also address – partly complemen-
tarily (Glowka, 2000) – the issue of conservation areas (Cirelli,
2002; Koester, 2002). Such unspoiled protected nature is com-
ing under growing consumer demand for spiritual recreation,
while other landscapes outside protected areas are experienc-
ing more and more intensive use and pressure. In most cases
large scale protected areas therefore remain the only spatial units
where whole ecosystems, with all of their related natural pro-
0264-8377/$ – see front matter © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2011.03.004