Fact Sheet: Promoting inclusive conservation in protected areas

The Sierra de Guadarrama National Park is located in the Central Mountain System of the Iberian Peninsula. It was established in 2013, becoming Spain's newest national park. This National Park covers 34,000 hectares across the regions of Madrid (64% of the territory) and Castilla y León. The National Park’s authority in the area is intertwined with the different scales of decision-making of multiple state administrations. To compound this complexity, the Sierra de Guadarrama is the second most visited national park in Spain, and there are a great variety of local stakeholders engaged in diverse activities such as outdoor sports, extensive livestock farming, and environmental conservation, education and research. The multiple and sometimes competing uses and values create social tensions around how the park should be governed. Researchers are conducting research to provide practical guidance to understand, navigate and consider different visions, preferences, tensions, responsibilities and power relations between stakeholders, in order to move towards better social engagement in conservation decision-making.