Evaluation of the ECST regarding the selected criteria

6.4.2.1 Effectiveness

The first stage of diagnosing the problems and challenges of the natural park was done in 2010. The Action Plan was elaborated considering this diagnosis and has been implemented from 2010 until 2015. Overall, we find that the ECST has been effective and its implemented actions are focused on improving certain issues related with many ecosystem services, such as the promotion and valorisation of cultural heritage, enhancement of environmental education, and promotion of sustainable practices regarding tourism. We further conclude that the ECST has positive effects on biodiversity conservation, but that key actions in this respect have not been undertaken, such as the monitoring of bioindicators to value the effects of visitors’ frequentation.

The ECST was further effective because both the diagnosis and the Action Plan were accomplished using participatory techniques that ensured the participation of stakeholders, which was one of the objectives of the ECST. We have reviewed the situation of the actions planned under the five strategies analysed of the ECST until the 6^th of November 2015 (see Table 6.2). From a total of 44 actions planned:

- 15 actions were finished;

- 15 actions were started and are still ongoing;

- 6 actions were initiated;

- 8 actions not undertaken.

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Table 6.2 Classification of the actions of each strategy of the ECST analysed according to its degree of implementation

Situation of the actions

Strategy 1 Strategy 2 Strategy 5 Strategy 6 Strategy 7 Total actions

Actions finished 4 1 5 2 3 15

Actions started and still ongoing 4 4 4 2 1 15

Actions initiated - 5 - - 1 6

Actions not undertaken - 3 3 - 2 8

Total actions per strategy 8 13 12 4 7 44

We have the following results when analysing each strategy separately:

Strategy 1. Cooperation and participation of different stakeholders of the territory This strategy sought to integrate the participatory process of elaborating and monitoring the ECST in the already existing bodies of the natural park. The participatory bodies of the ECST are found effective because decisions taken in the Working Group and finally approved in the PF are binding. However, the communication between the Working Group and the PF should be enhanced, for instance, sending the minutes of the first body to people attending the Forum. This strategy further pursued to work in collaboration with companies related with tourism and to establish mechanisms for disseminating the ECST. It had eight actions, among which four finished and four started and are still ongoing. One of the actions was to join the Advisory Committee – an already existing participatory body, see section 5.3.2 for an explanation of the functioning of the Advisory Committee – and the PF because some aspects were shared implying a duplication of functions. However, during the workshop, some stakeholders were of the opinion that they should not be joined because each body had different competences; moreover, decisions by the PF were binding as opposed to those by the Advisory Committee not. A second action undertaken was to organise an annual workshop to make businesses more aware of the importance of the ECST. This was found to have positive impacts and reinforced the involvement of tourism sector in the ECST.

Strategy 2. Monitoring and evaluating the natural and cultural heritage.

This strategy was focused on inventorying the natural and cultural values of the natural park, monitoring the impacts of visitors on these values and promoting its conservation by distributing information among tourists about good practices. This strategy had 12 actions, among which one was finished, three started and are still ongoing, five had

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been started and three were not undertaken. Several inventories have been done by biologists of the natural park, such as of flora and emblematic trees, invertebrate fauna, vertebrate fauna focused on following and monitoring the wild boar (Sus scrofa) population. The latter is of paramount interest as there are many of them and they occasionally cause damages to farming crops. Park managers and employees considered that there is evidence that indicates that current conservation policies are functioning well. In 2012 a couple of Egyptian vultures (Neophron percnopterus) settled in the natural park and data collected about chiropters show they have increased. Two of the actions not undertaken were the identification and monitoring of bioindicators in order to value the effects of visitors’ frequentation. In concrete, the species that were going to be monitored were bio-indicator species of the taxonomic groups of invertebrates, cryptogams, screws and vascular plants. This is particularly relevant because one of the challenges of the natural park in ecological terms is the impact that tourism might have in its flora and fauna.

Strategy 5. Heritage valorisation through creating tourism products.

This strategy promoted the creation of tourism products with added value as a result of the joint work between public and private sectors and the collaboration of local population, particularly in promoting new services for accommodation in rural areas.

This strategy had 12 actions from which five were finished, four started and are still ongoing and three could not have been implemented. The main actions undertaken have been to participate in exhibitions and fam-trips, the creation of local tourist products based on the traditional way of producing wine and the enhancement of the cultural heritage of Talamanca village. This last action was particularly relevant because it included the restoration and conservation of a stretch of the river Llobregat and the valorisation of the cultural heritage of the tines – a traditional way of producing wine –.

The actions not implemented, because of lacking budget, included the creation of a network of paths to promote hiking and a workshop to create new tourist products.

Strategy 6. Promotion of the education and knowledge of the natural park.

This strategy sought to analyse the training needs of the tourist agents of the territory and the existing offer of environmental education, and develop a joint training and educational plan. This strategy had four actions, from which two finished and two started and still ongoing. The actions undertaken were a census of the environmental education companies existing in the natural park and a participatory process with these companies to develop a common environmental education program. The actions that will continue are the elaboration and execution of a calendar of training sessions for the staff of the natural park and people from the private sectors, such as restaurants, farmers and environmental education companies, in order to provide quality information to visitors.

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Strategy 7. Promotion and development of the local economy.

This strategy was focused on involving the population of the municipalities of the natural park in its advisory bodies, keeping informed the private tourism sector operating within the ECST and promoting local products and economic activities within the park. It included 7 actions; from which three of them were finished, one started and is still ongoing, one had been initiated and two were not developed. One of the actions of this strategy was to create a working group of the primary sector in order to analyse its situation, enhance coordination among farmers and park managers and ensure its development. However, this working group did not thrive since it only had one meeting.

Another action related to the primary sector that was undertaken was the centralization of different projects for the preservation and production of local landraces. However, the involvement of projects developed by farmers was not promoted and finally, park employees were the ones who undertook the action through planting different local landraces in a plot inside the natural park. Another action related to farmers was the creation of a system for sharing agricultural machinery among them but it did not succeed. According to the representative of the farmers that attended the workshop, the enhancement of the primary sector, specially agriculture and livestock, in the natural park was not properly undertaken due to little interest from park managers, even though the working group for the primary sector had goodwill from the farmers initially. In fact, the farmers continued to be organized in the already existing “Association of farmers from the natural park” despite the unsuccessful attempt to promote the working group. There was a progressive decrease in organic farmers in the last decade in the area of the natural park. We consider that this decrease needs to be addressed because it implies a loss of local traditional knowledge and biocultural diversity. Furthermore, the lack of promotion of agriculture may be a problem because it has a central role in ensuring open areas that diminish the risk of fires in the area, which is one of the problems due to an increase of forest cover. Actually, one of the challenges of the natural park is to maintain certain diversity of ecosystems combining open spaces with forests. Some fields were opened through the cultivation of vineyard in certain areas of the natural park while in others livestock was increased.

One of the actions executed was the “Parc a Taula [Park on the table]” project, which was based on promoting contact between the primary sector, restaurants and the local population in order to strengthen collaboration. However, farmers claimed that this initiative was not effective for them because, at the end, it was focused too much on attending fairs which meant spending a lot of time and often they did not sell anything.

They considered that the main aim of this initiative should be to promote the purchase of organic local products among restaurants and local inhabitants and to establish direct selling systems between farmers and their consumers that would shorten the distribution chain. Among the actions not executed is the enhancement of economic activities in villages through the development of the Plan for the future of the municipalities of Mura, Talamanca and Rocafort.

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The second stage based on adhering companies to the ECST started in 2013 and also worked well. A total of 14 companies adhered to it. According to the attendants to the workshop, another aspect which decreases the effectiveness of the ECST is its high level of bureaucracy and complexity. This complexity generates a lack of understanding among participants at the PF when discussing certain topics.

6.4.2.2 Efficiency

We could not address this criterion because we do not have enough information to assess its cost-effectiveness.

6.4.2.3 Equity

We considered three types of equity: a) equity in terms of access, i.e. local people’s ability to participate in the ECST; b) equity in terms of decision making, i.e.

participants’ perceived fairness in ECST decision-making procedures; c) equity in terms of outcome, i.e. focused on the impact and distribution of ECST outcomes.

In the case of equity in access, representation in the Working Group was unequal because some categories of stakeholders were absent and need to be represented in it, such as the conservationist sector and forestry organisations. Results from the attendance to the PF indicated there has been a significant change of the categories of stakeholders represented on it. Several trends can be identified (see Table 6.3). First of all, the presence of park managers, leisure sectors and tourism sector has increased significantly. Secondly, the scientific and the civic sector have diminished considerably their presence in the body. Thirdly, the agricultural, the conservationist and the forestry sectors have completely stopped attending the body. The reason given was that they felt the body was not effective to devote their scarce time to and that the body did not represent their interests. In the case of the agricultural sector, the representative explained that park managers did not support their proposals, like the agreement to set up the working group of the primary sector.

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Table 6.3 Attendance to the Permanent Forum through time by different categories of stakeholders.

Different periods

Local administration Park managers Park employees Agricultural Scientific Civic Conservationist Leisure Environmental education Forestry Tourism

PF₀ 22.7 4.5 6 4.5 7.6 12.1 3 6 15.1 3 15.1

PF_f 22.9 10.4 4.2 0 2.1 6.2 0 10.4 14.6 0 29.2

Tendency + ++ - -- -- -- -- ++ - -- ++

Notes:

Results are expressed as percentages relative to the total number of different persons attending the meetings. When a person attended to more than one meeting of the same period of time, it was counted just once. We considered two different periods of time:

PF₀: attendance to the first meetings of the PF [66 different persons in 3 meetings].

PFf: attendance to last meetings of the FP [48 different persons in 2 meetings].

The last row shows the tendency of changes in attendance by the different categories of stakeholders to the participatory body. ++ means considerable increase of the presence of the category in the body; + means increase; - means reduction; -- means considerable reduction.

In order to assess the equity in decision-making, we analysed the perceived influence and relevance of each category of stakeholders from a scale from zero to five, with zero denoting “no influence/relevance” and five “a lot of influence/relevance”

considered by the attendants to the workshop. The categories that had more perceived influence in the PF were park managers (4.38) and environmental education sector (4).

The ones having less influence were the forestry sector (2.38) and agricultural sector (2.75). The categories having more perceived relevance in the PF were the conservationist sector (4.11), park managers (4), tourism sector (4), leisure sector (3.89), environmental education (3.89) and agricultural sector (3.78). The ones having less perceived relevance were the park employees (3.11) and the civic sector (3.44). The fact that the most perceived relevant stakeholder categories (conservationist sector and agricultural sector) have stopped attending it shows that there is no equity in decision-making.

In the case of equity in outcome, the agricultural sector claimed that the promotion for the companies belonging to the primary sector was low. One of the farmers noticed that “one of the approved proposals was to establish a working group of the farmers in order to set up collaboration, but park managers did not like this idea and hindered it.” As a result, most farmers stopped participating because their interests were not taken into account. The outcomes are a bit unbalanced, favouring tourism and environmental education companies, while other sectors, such as primary sector, are not receiving enough attention.

119 6.4.2.4 Legitimacy

The ECST appeared legitimate to most stakeholders. Regarding its process of implementation, all stakeholders participating in the workshop except the persons belonging to the agricultural and conservationist sectors, considered the PF a legitimate body. The main arguments were that it promoted participatory dynamics (such as workshops and evaluative focus groups) and discussions among the participants and many people from the tourism and environmental education sectors attended it.

However, there was no consensus on the reasons for promoting participatory techniques at the PF. Some stakeholders said that they were intended to collect different perspectives to establish the strategy of the ECST. Others pointed out that park managers merely organized participatory processes because they were mandatory to obtain the Charter certificate. Regarding the dynamics of the PF, stakeholders in average thought that this body was informative with a punctuation of 3.75 on a scale from zero to five. In addition, it scored on interactive (3.57), advisory (3) and decisive (2.57). These results show there were joint discussions among participants during the meetings of the participatory body in order to reach agreements.

During the workshop, the person from the agricultural sector considered that many people attended this body which made it highly time consuming and little constructive. Some argued that “most of people going to the meetings of the ECST have direct interests, both professional ones such as park workers, managers or scientists; or economic ones like small-scale companies related with tourism”. Regarding the legitimacy of its content, some stakeholders pointed out that it was overly focused on tourism issues and other necessary topics such as agriculture were not receiving enough attention.

6.4.2.5 Complementarity of policies on one or multiple criteria

The official documents of the ECST already identified several complementarities among actions of the ECST. For instance, they described that one action of strategy 1 focused on organising an annual workshop to make businesses more aware of the importance of the ECST reinforced stage 2 of the ECST, which focused on certifying businesses with the ECST. Another complementarity described was that one action of strategy 6 based on elaborating a census of the environmental education companies existing in the natural park complemented with the action of the same strategy 6 focused on developing an environmental education program through a participatory process with these companies.

We found that it was further interesting to identify complementarities of the actions of the ECST with other policy instruments implemented in the natural park. For instance, the strategy 2, focused on monitoring and evaluating the natural and cultural heritage, is reinforced by the Monitoring Plan of ecological parameters and with actions done to restore certain habitats, such as pine forests, ponds and fountains, eliminate invasive species like the tree of heaven (Ailanthus altíssima) or actions to conserve

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certain species of reptiles and amphibians. It is also complementary with the agreement made with climbing entities to regulate this sport in order to protect chiropters and other species living in caves. Some actions of Strategy 2 are focused on evaluating the impacts of visitors on flora and fauna. The mentioned agreement is an example of an instrument designed after it was assessed that climbing in certain locations and periods of time had negative impacts on certain species living in caves.

Another policy instrument that complements strategy 2 is the Conservation Plan.

This is still being drafted and aims to establish conservation priorities in the natural park based on previous inventories and studies regarding different species and habitats.

Therefore, actions of strategy 2 focused on inventorying and monitoring species can provide information to establish such conservation priorities.

There is a program of subsidies from the Diputació de Barcelona to service companies operating in the area of the natural park which subsidize the improvements needed by these companies in order to be certified by the ECST. These subsidies reinforce strategies 5 about heritage valorisation through creating tourism products, strategy 6 focused on promotion of the education and knowledge of the natural park and strategy 7 about promotion and development of the local economy.

Strategies 5 and 6 are complementary with the Program “Passejades els diumenges” [Sunday Tours] which promotes companies of environmental education and restaurants organizing tours along the natural park. Other cultural and gastronomic activities were planned focused on organizing a trip together with a lunch in a restaurant of the area but they did not work because not many people demanded these types of activities.

The actions established in strategy 7 are complementary with the subsidies to agriculture of the Diputació de Barcelona and the one from the Generalitat de Catalunya. The subsidy from the Diputació is higher if the agriculture is organic and following good practices as mentioned by the director of the park, although such practices are not specified in any document.

6.4.2.6 Overlap of, or conflict between, policies in terms of a particular criterion There are no concrete actions of the ECST that overlap or conflict between each other.

However, there are actions that were not performed that might minimize the effectiveness of other actions. For instance, the action of evaluating the impacts of tourism on certain species has not been done and could have generated necessary inputs

However, there are actions that were not performed that might minimize the effectiveness of other actions. For instance, the action of evaluating the impacts of tourism on certain species has not been done and could have generated necessary inputs