Local participation in governance of protected areas is considered
to be important to natural resource management and biodiversity
conservation (Dudley 2008, Borrini-Feyerabend et al. 2013).
Participation has been defined by Wesselink et al. (2011) as any
type of inclusion of nonstate actors, both members of the public
or organized stakeholders, in any stage of governmental policy
making. Several studies have emphasized the need for
participation in governmental decisions (Fiorino 1990, Fischer
1993, Blackstock and Richards 2007, Reed 2008, Wesselink et al.
2011). Various reasons for these have been identified:
participation assures more legitimate decisions, thus enhancing
public credibility in governments; it reduces potential conflicts
between different stakeholders; it increases the variety of
information that contributes to better decisions; and it counters
the power of incumbent interests by allowing all those affected
by a decision to influence the associated decision process.
Before the 1980s, communities tended to be excluded from public
decision making, or their participation was even regarded as
counterproductive to natural resource management (Ruíz-Mallén
et al. 2013). This approach was challenged by studies that stressed
the inclusion of local people in natural resource governance
(Hutton et al. 2005). The rights and need for local participation
in decision making into protected areas was articulated at
successive world congresses on national parks and protected
areas, particularly the third in 1982 and the fourth in 1992
(McNeely 1992), as well as in the Convention on Biological
Diversity (CBD 1992). Recently, active stakeholder participation
has been recognized as a key factor of effective area protection
in the Programme of Work on Protected Areas (PoWPA) of the
CBD (Dudley 2008) and in the 2020 biodiversity strategy
(European Union 2011).
Participatory initiatives for natural resource management
nowadays include stakeholder analysis, that is, the process of
identifying individuals or groups that are likely to affect or be
affected by conservation efforts (Freeman 1984, Reed et al. 2009).
This type of analysis has responded to the failure of many past
conservation plans caused by paying insufficient attention to the
interests and characteristics of stakeholders (Grimble and
Wellard 1997). There is now increasing recognition and
understanding of how stakeholders can or should influence
natural resource management (Burroughs 1999, Prell et al. 2009).
However, stakeholder analysis has two main limitations. First,
stakeholders are usually identified and categorized through a
subjective assessment of their relative power, influence, and
legitimacy leading to a misrepresentation of stakeholders
(Frooman 1999). Second, methods for stakeholder analysis often
overlook the role communication networks can play in
categorizing and understanding stakeholder relationships (Prell
et al. 2009). Social network analysis is a tool that can help to
overcome these shortcomings by providing insights into the social
structure of stakeholders (Prell et al. 2008).
We studied the social network of communication with regard to
the natural park of Sant Llorenç del Munt, a protected area
situated in Catalonia, Spain. We based our research on previous
studies suggesting that the exchange of knowledge and
information is crucial for effective governance of natural
resources (Bodin and Crona 2009) and that social network
analysis may disclose the communication networks of
stakeholders (Prell et al. 2011). Social networks are observable
social structures (Bodin et al. 2006) made up of individuals or
organizations tied by one or more specific types of
interdependency, such as common interests or communication
exchange. Social network analysis may demonstrate the existence
and importance of social drivers supporting natural resource