Uniting People through Nature in Southeast Europe: The Role (and Limits) of Nongovernmental Organizations in the Transboundary Prespa Park

Cross-boundary collaboration: key to the conservation puzzle

“…Well-coordinated plans that consider risk, uncertainties, and multiple scales and types of values ( Figure 1), can integrate these considerations and emphasise both representation of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Kark et al Collaboration in conservation 7 genetic diversity and local cultural or socio-economic values [10,16,19]. In these cases, when stakeholders have been integrated at all levels of the scale hierarchy (including local knowledgeable actors) from the beginning of the process (Figure 1), collaboration might ameliorate rather than limit the challenges of scale.…”

“…Increased cultural exchange and interaction between countries, e.g., the Prespa Park between Greece, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia [10]. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 Kark et al…”

“…Identify partners/countries involved across multiple spatial scales [10] Neighbouring countries (those that share international borders), indirect connections; e.g., countries that share migration pathways without sharing physical borders, or countries vulnerable to future alien/invasive species.…”

“…The most significant of these are game theoretic approaches [33:35] and social network analysis [10,14, 25,54]. …”

“…Collaboration can occur among a range of different actors and/or across spatial boundaries (political, municipal and others). Actors range from governments (local, state and national), councils, public and private agencies, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), project partners, to a network of additional stakeholders [7][8][9][10].The most common form of cross-boundary collaboration is that between direct neighbours that share terrestrial or maritime geographic boundaries. These include a broad range of collaboration avenues, such as shared or coordinated protected areas and joint management plans (e.g., the Natura2000 network), trans-boundary protected areas and peace parks [11], shared conservation action plans for recovering threatened species or ecosystems; integrated river basin management programs, joint plans for mitigating invasive alien species impacts (Box 3), joint research projects and other spatially-based collaborative efforts.…”