New Insights into the Assessment of Protected Areas – Integrating Rural Development

Abstract

It is argued that protected areas (PAs) assessment framework should emphasise two important properties which are often disregarded, namely integration and participation. The implementation of such a dual approach permits the inclusion of rural development issues within current debates about PAs. Following this view, it is proposed an innovative assessment framework for integrating rural development into the assessment of PAs, i.e. the so-called Social Multi-criteria Evaluation (SMCE). Enforcement of this approach is illustrated through a real-world case study using SMCE in a Natura 2000 site in the Basque Country.