**1. Introduction**

Historically, protected areas controlled by governments have been a primary mechanism for conserving the world's biodiversity. Since the beginning of the new millennium, the terms 'management' and 'governance' are often used concurrently to denote both technical and power-related aspects of nature conservation, respectively [1]. Over the past decades protected area governance and management have diversified, with significant growth in private and community-based management, as well as a variety of partnership-based models [2]. This diversification has been driven by both ethical and pragmatic needs to take into account local community dependence on ecosystem goods and services, respect the rights of indigenous peoples, and address failures of top-down governance to deliver expected outcomes [3–8]. Under these influences, power has been redistributed

across multiple public, private and civil society organizations, and collaborative arrangements are now widespread [9, 10].

Collaborative governance and management of protected areas should be beneficial to stakeholders involved in the partnership to be sustainable. Biodiversity benefits for governments, the scientific community and non-governmental organizations go hand in hand with socio-economic benefits for the private sector and local communities. Bringing different skills and resources to the table and reaching consensus can lead to so-called win-win situations [11]. Such arrangements often form cost-efficient solutions for effective protected area management. In addition, the increased knowledge, capacity, trust and learning by doing can result in less conflicts between the partners through an improved understanding [12, 13].

Protected area management authorities work in complex environments in which they have to liaise with national and local governments, scientific and civil society organizations, volunteers and local stakeholders, visitors and potential funders. This requires next to thematic expertise on conservation, among others legal, management, financial, administrative and communications skills and capacities. Especially the smaller protected areas struggle to efficiently operate in all these specialized fields and often lack enough in-house capacity and resources. Therefore, it is important for protected area management authorities to build effective partnerships to ensure certain resources through third parties instead of trying to do everything themselves. This can be in the form of collaborative arrangements, partnerships regulated through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or more informal partnerships. This chapter will highlight some of the lessons learned and the evolvement of various partnerships in different countries on different continents. The first case study highlights a formal collaborative arrangement in Laos. The second case study describes various partnerships regulated through different MoUs or informal arrangements in the Prespa-Ohrid Ecoregion in North Macedonia, Albania and Greece.

### **2. Methodology**

Two different case studies are described in this chapter using data from 2013 to 2016 in the Hin Nam No National Park in Laos in South-East Asia [14–17] and from 2017 to 2021 in the Prespa-Ohrid Ecoregion in North Macedonia, Albania and Greece in the Western Balkans [18, 19].

For both case studies the main lessons learned are derived from identified building blocks using the 'solutioning approach'. The PANORAMA - Solutions for a Healthy Planet Partnership is a global partnership that supports both the long-term strategic framework for capacity development and the knowledge management component of the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework [20]. Based on theories of knowledge transfer, peer learning, and social-ecological resilience, drawn from psychology, education, ecology, and conservation biology, PANORAMA documents and promotes verified examples of inspiring, replicable solutions across a range of conservation and sustainable development topics, enabling cross-sectoral learning and inspiration [21]. It allows for communication among solution providers and users through a virtual online platform (www. panorama.solutions) and further face-to-face and virtual formats. Developed by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), the PANORAMA 'solutioning approach' was launched at the IUCN World Parks Congress in Sydney in 2014. PANORAMA enables easy communication among practitioners, often being a source of inspiration and supports mutual learning in and for protected areas. The idea is that practitioners replicate workable solutions instead of re-inventing the wheel.

*The Importance of Partnerships for Effective Protected Area Management DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99595*

Each peer-reviewed and published solution is analyzed to identify the factors or building blocks that contribute to its successful implementation, and the online platform allows users or solution seekers to discover and access this knowledge, the solution providers, the relevant communities of practice, and also to compare and contrast solutions across geographies and sectors. PANORAMA has grown both in size and scope over several years. By April 2021, it included 868 solutions from 614 solution providers from 117 countries. Out of the 868 solutions, 431 are protected area solutions. From its inception, PANORAMA's relevance and contribution to the implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020, progress towards the Aichi Targets, the Sustainable Development Goals and the draft post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework has been recognized specifically [20].
