**5.1 Local participation in protected area governance and issues of accountability and trust**

Protected area establishment and operation has frequently resulted in a clash between local communities and scientific experts (Hovik et al., 2010; Keskitalo & Lundmark, 2010; Laudati, 2010; Reser & Bentrupperbäumer, 2005). In this conflict, experts appear as the group that can guarantee scientific rationality, while local people point to their right to use natural resources (Clapp, 2004). Inclusionary models of environmental governance in contemporary planning share the premise that local inhabitants participation is a prerequisite of an effective management strategy (Aasetre, 2006; Ellis & Porter-Bolland, 2008; Kingsland, 2002;

Dadia Forest Reserve in 1980 has been launched as an initiative of IUCN and WWF-International under a 'Greens know best' perspective, where scientific knowledge produced by environmental nongovernmental organizations was utilized as the knowledge base, which legitimized and guided forest management with a primary focus on biodiversity conservation. The fierce opposition of local people after the designation of the reserve can be understood within the frame of a 'Locals know best' perspective, where local knowledge based on local experiences and embedded in social practices was contrasted to scientific knowledge in order to delegitimize the privileged access of environmental nongovernmental organizations to decision making for forest management issues. Quite paradoxically, long-lasting weaknesses of the government apparatus in the Greek case and the recent financial crisis seem to have enrolled forest management in Dadia in institutional forms and arrangements that adhere to a negative version of a 'State knows best' perspective, where outdated legislation and shrinkage of public funding are recognized as core impediments to sustainable forest management. The establishment of Management Authorities for 27 protected areas in Greece in 2002, including Dadia, should be recognized as a move towards a 'Nobody knows best' perspective, where all interest groups are called to share the responsibility for the organization of social consensus in forest management. According to this perspective, a critical approach is necessary for building on both scientific knowledge systems and local knowledge systems. Further, uncertainties in forest management and trade-offs between different interests are acknowledged as ubiquitous and are handled by means of participatory institutional arrangements that need to become

Under the 'Nobody knows best' perspective, contingency and 'not knowing' should be conceived as a precondition of freedom and choice of action, which provides a requested sense of controllability over the decision-making process (Keskitalo & Lundmark, 2010) and precludes powerful partners from determining the outcome unilaterally (Von Detten, 2011). Social partners are engaged in a procedure of mutual learning (Wynne, 2006), where experts are expected to question conventional wisdom, while lay people are expected to question expert assumptions (Parkins, 2006; Risse, 2000). However, 'sharing responsibilities' might be in itself far from adequate for facing the new risk situations which have been described previously. A new, affirmative conceptualization of sustainability in forest management is needed to guide decision-making under the urgency of risk and uncertainty and to guarantee public involvement and the contribution

**5. An attempt for an affirmative approach to sustainable forest management** 

Protected area establishment and operation has frequently resulted in a clash between local communities and scientific experts (Hovik et al., 2010; Keskitalo & Lundmark, 2010; Laudati, 2010; Reser & Bentrupperbäumer, 2005). In this conflict, experts appear as the group that can guarantee scientific rationality, while local people point to their right to use natural resources (Clapp, 2004). Inclusionary models of environmental governance in contemporary planning share the premise that local inhabitants participation is a prerequisite of an effective management strategy (Aasetre, 2006; Ellis & Porter-Bolland, 2008; Kingsland, 2002;

**5.1 Local participation in protected area governance and issues of accountability** 

adaptive.

**and trust** 

of all interest groups towards a common vision.

**when 'nobody knows best'** 

Kleinschmit et al., 2009; Velázquez et al., 2009). At the same time, the inclusion of societal actors poses the question of accountability and legitimacy (Kleinschmit et al., 2009). Indeed, the lack of accountability and transparency between experts and the public has been highlighted as a considerable disadvantage of protected area governance (Apostolopoulou & Pantis, 2010; Dearden et al., 2005; Lund et al., 2009), which becomes increasingly important in situations of risk and uncertainty (Von Detten, 2011).

More often than not, initiatives to engage local stakeholders as partners in protected area governance have served as a means of countering local opposition to nature conservation and have not been organized as strategic institutional structures to mediate and reconcile opposing views on conservation (Hovik et al., 2010; Uddhammar, 2006). Environmental education interventions have commonly targeted local communities in protected areas with the central aim to transmit scientific knowledge under the anticipation that local attitudes and behaviors will be transformed by scientific accounts to align with nature conservation values and expectations (Durand & Vázquez, 2011; Nygren, 2004). Next to the contested approach to environmental education that these interventions follow (Hovardas, 2005), they reveal that equality in terms of participation and inclusion is not always accompanied by a corresponding equality in determining the outcome of participatory processes. This instrumental view of public involvement might acknowledge local communities as key actors in protected area management but local people are eventually treated as beneficiaries of projects that have been designed without their input and consent (Durand & Vázquez, 2011). The end result is that certain privileged groups still dominate decision-making practices despite the fact that the rhetoric of participatory governance has become a commonplace (Ojha et al., 2009).

Recent research has shown that the environmental discourse has diffused in rural areas (Hovardas et al., 2009). This is also valid in the case of Dadia (Hovardas & Stamou, 2006b). Although local communities in protected areas might have adopted core requirements of environmental conservation, this trend should not be perceived as an unproblematic adherence of local people to join the coalition of conservationists. What is needed for the promotion of effective local participation schemata and the organization of social consensus regarding natural resource management is power sharing between local people and experts (Arts & Buizer, 2009; Hovik et al., 2010). Unless this precondition is met, scientific experts will become so powerful in any type of deliberation process that local people or their interests will be excluded (Giessen et al., 2009; Lövbrand, 2009; Steffek, 2009) and the democratic legitimacy of the process will be severely undermined (Csurgó et al., 2008; Kleinschmit et al., 2009). An important barrier that has to be overcome in this respect is the restoration of trust between social actors with competing interests and powers. How can experts trust local people in issues that need to be based on the scientific background of forest management? On the other hand, how can rural residents in protected areas renounce their legitimate claims on the land and resources in their region?
