A heuristic framework for reflecting on protected areas and their stewardship in the 21st century

The diversifying and increasing expectations for protected area services and functions provide great opportunity to enhance the relevancy of conservation for civil society. At the same time, such expectations, occurring in a dynamically complex and uncertain world, also provide numerous challenges. In this essay, we propose that constituencies involved in protected area stewardship need to attend to ways of making sense of this complexity and uncertainty and build awareness of the particular social, political and environmental context as a precursor to decision making. We suggest that conceiving of protected areas as a complex social–ecological system helps in sense-making. And we propose a framework focusing on the three variables of learning, managing relationships with constituencies and managing demand that would be helpful in developing the situation awareness needed to better understand the opportunities and consequences involved in decisions about various challenges. Recognizing that elements of this framework do appear in the literature, we argue that considering them together provides a more effective diagnostic framework for stewardship and enhancing system resiliency.