Conflicts among stakeholders affect how biodiversity projects are managed

Natura 2000 is a large network of protected areas that spans all EU member states. It covers conservation areas that preserve the biodiversity of plants and animals. These different areas are all unique. They include forests, mountains, coastal regions - anywhere plants and animals need protection. Altogether, the network covers more than 18% of the EU’s land area (and 9% of sea territory), and with such a large reach, it’s no surprise that discussions about Natura 2000 land use can lead to conflicts. 

These conflicts happen because areas that include protected habitats of threatened species can also have other purposes. They might be areas of economic relevance to local communities or areas of interest for researchers. When multiple stakeholders all want to have a say about the land, these competing interests and values can make it difficult for the people who manage conservation areas to make decisions. That’s why researchers at Babes-Bolyai University interviewed project managers of Natura 2000 projects in Romania to find out how the conflicts they perceived among stakeholders affected their work. 

“Farmers, investors, and local administration consider the protected status to be a barrier that hinders them from exploiting the resources as they would like," said one of the project managers who was interviewed for this recent study. "They see protected areas only as obstacles."

“Understanding the perspective of project managers is important,” says Dacinia-Crina Petrescu, a professor at Babes-Bolyai University’s Faculty of Business who participated in the research. “They have a crucial role in the success or failure of the project.” Project managers are busy people, so it wasn’t easy to pin them down for in-depth interviews, but Petrescu and her colleagues still managed to interview project managers of three different Natura 2000 sites. They asked them about the different stakeholders in their projects and how the relationships between these groups affected their work. 

For example, one of the project managers had to find a middle ground between foresters interested in timber and biologists interested in conservation, because both groups were overseen by the same Forestry Directorate. One group wants to cut down some of the trees while the other group wants to keep the area intact, so it seems an impossible compromise, but luckily, there were other stakeholders to consider as well. In this situation, the project manager was able to come to a balanced resolution with help from the local government, because the mayor was particularly interested in the project. "He saw this protected area somehow as a potential hotspot for ecotourism development," said the project manager in their interview.

This shows just how many stakeholders could get involved with any decision. Farmers, businesses, academics, public administrators, and others all want a say. When the project managers ranked how much power their stakeholders had and what their level of interest in the project was, it quickly became apparent that not all Natura 2000 sites have the same stakeholder relationships. For example, while all three project managers said that local administration had a high level of power in the project, only two of them thought that this group also had a high level of interest in the site. Likewise, the project managers didn’t all perceive the same conflicts. 

That doesn’t mean that others would view these conflicts in the same way. “Everything we talk about here is from a project manager perspective,” says Petrescu. “If we ask other stakeholders, such as public administration or farmers or tourists, they may have a different view.” But because the project managers of Natura 2000 sites are driven by their own perceptions, it was important to understand what these were. 

Although the project managers at the three Romanian sites identified a range of conflicts between different groups, they also noted that academics were quite often seen as a trusted or neutral party by other groups. This means that, even though academics were themselves involved in some conflicts, they could potentially serve as a mediating party in others. Conversations with the project managers also highlighted the importance of inclusive language. Instead of just involving policymakers and academics, inclusive language opens up the discussion to farmers, local businesses, and others. 

The research team used a unique approach to find out what mattered most to the project managers of these sites. They tapped into a classic story by Alexander Pushkin in which a fisherman catches a magical goldfish that grants wishes in return for its freedom. “We asked people in our interviews to imagine that they have the goldfish and that they could ask for anything in relation to their project,” says Petrescu. She adds that it was likely the first time that this “goldfish scenario” was used in an academic study. “It was an exercise to stimulate their imagination and to bring to the surface what they want and need in a way that stimulates their creativity,” she says. 

This study sheds new light on the way that conflicts between different groups affect the management of these protected areas. But even though the study identified some general trends about the way that conflicts affect project management of these protected areas, by identifying some of the common stakeholders and conflicts, Petrescu also emphasizes that each site is different. “We should take into account the specificity of each situation,” she says. “People are different in each place, and even the same people can act differently in different contexts.”

Petrescu has previously worked on other types of research into the social aspect of land use management. For example, last year her group published a paper investigating how communities in Romania perceive their vulnerability to land degradation. Both this study and the newer research on Natura 2000 project management are part of the EU-funded BIOTraCes initiative, which investigates transformative changes for biodiversity. Achieving such goals can only happen if different voices are heard and acknowledged. And that includes project managers, says Petrescu, “Understanding what project managers think and do helps to implement changes that can be transformative for biodiversity activities.”

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