Collaborative management of protected areas : tailoring the approach to the context

"Collaborative management of protected areas" is a partnership by which various stakeholders agree on sharing among themselves the management functions, rights and responsibilities for a territory or a particular governmental agency staff - interested in pursuing the collaborative management option. It offers a broad definition of the approach and provides a number of examples of how it has been specifically tailored to different contexts. General assumptions, consequences, benefits, costs and potential draw-backs of collaborative management are reviewed and a process by which an agency in charge of a protected areas can pursue the approach is illustrated.