50 years of preservation in Doñana (Spain). Public involvement as the present challenge and management strategy to face future challenges (case study)

Abstract

In social sciences, scientific approaches to nature preservation in Protected Natural Areas (PNA) are scarce, and those aimed at assessing the involvement of local communities with PNA are particularly deficient. In this paper, we show how management strategies of Protected Areas (PA) have created a lack of trust since the beginning on those social agents who are more directly affected by them. Even if sustainable development policies have tried to diminish the rift between local populations and PNA, they must be reinvented in order to face present preservation challenges and generate or increase citizens' commitment to PNA. Regarding the Natural Area of Doñana (Spain), some of the main challenges are conflicts due to water scarcity, the impact of agroindustry proliferation and the loss of traditional environmental knowledge. Social research provides us with critical elements to create management strategies capable of minimizing negative social and environmental consequences of the persistent and deceitful preservation/development dichotomy. Our main conclusion is that new responsibilities in ecological heritage management must be the result of public involvement, due to its ability to produce civic education and governability. This means that whether public involvement in the management of nature preservation in PNA succeeds or fails will determine the success or failure of preservation itself..