In this session presenters will explore the many roles local communities
play in protected area management as stakeholders, actors, informal
social networks and formal institutions. We will examine diverse perspectives
such as community organization representatives and their attitudes toward
a wetland restoration project in Illinois, USA; protected area managers
and their perceptions of trust between the agency and local community
in Maine, USA; and community residents and their place meanings and
desires to conserve riparian forests in Belize. The session will illuminate
how different communities, within distinct sociocultural and ecological
contexts, depend on protected areas, engage in protected area management,
and derive multiple benefits from protected areas. The presentations
will address topics such as social justice, trust, community well-being,
place-based meanings, nature-based tourism, and community-based conservation
partnerships. In this session an array of methodological approaches
to investigating protected area communities will be demonstrated from
in-depth interviewing, to self-administered surveys, to focus groups.
Professionals and academics attending this session will gain a deeper
understanding of opportunities for, as well as potential obstacles to,
building trusting and enduring agency-community relationships and engaging
community members in conservation stewardship and management
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