| Protected areas are created as strategy to preserve natural resources. However, their sole creation does not lead to resource protection. Practitioners and academics describe the "paper parks" phenomenon in which, by legislation, areas are assigned for protection but receive little or no resources for implementation. These areas face serious problems, such as threats to natural resource and loss of opportunities for education, research and recreation. In Brazil, "paper parks" are very common.; This dissertation had two phases of empirical research. First, a Delphi study was used to select cases and to identify characteristics considered by 33 panel experts as important to effective management of Brazilian national parks. Second, case studies were conducted in three Brazilian national parks, using in-depth interviews and observations. After data were analyzed, findings across phases were compared using a synthesis of four widely-used frameworks for evaluation of protected area management effectiveness.; Findings indicate that the three study parks have moved and continue to move in the direction of more effective management over time. Factors of parks' success included building resources, leadership, teamwork, and organizational culture; they contributed to building parks' capacity to manage. Parks' internal organization was a very important component of parks' capacity. A major driving force in building parks' capacity was the presence of leadership capable of optimizing opportunities, generating innovative solutions to bypass barriers, and instilling a professional and dynamic culture among staff within a culture that was traditionally bureaucratic and highly political. In other words, the parks' leaders and team were critical in orchestrating the activities that lead to building community relations, partnerships and infrastructure and to maneuvering around politics, bureaucracy and shortages in funding and staffing.; Findings support that the factors of success represented building blocks for improved "capacity to manage," and that building capacity to manage required a "process" that varied across parks given their particularities and their contexts. These findings contribute important insight for understanding that "effective management" is not an either/or variable, but rather it is a gradual "process;" they contribute to the on-going debates regarding the meaning of effective park management and methodologies for evaluating management effectiveness. |
