Participatory Scenario Planning for Protected Areas Management under the Ecosystem Services Framework: the Doñana Social-Ecological System in Southwestern Spain

Abstract

Conservation and development visions in and around protected areas generate confrontation and uncertainty that damage the biodiversity and ecosystem services which maintain human well-being. To address this issue, we applied the participatory scenario planning framework to the protected area of the Doñana social-ecological system in southwestern Spain. This work explores the social perceptions regarding the conditions, trends, trade-offs, and future of ecosystem services and human well-being, and seeks management strategies for the Doñana social-ecological system and its protected areas. We found that participatory scenario planning (1) can create different visions of the future of the system addressing its uncertainty and the main ecosystem services trade-offs, and (2) can propose consensual management strategies to determine a path toward a desirable future.

Keywords

• backcasting
• Doñana social-ecological system
• ecosystem services
• multi-scale scenarios
• participatory scenario planning
• protected areas management
• social-ecological system
• Spain