Current challenges like shortage of resources, urban sprawl, demographic change and climate change call for the development of regional solutions. As ‘future labs’ of sustainability protected areas have gained increasing attention in addressing those regional and global challenges. Today nature protection represents only one of their tasks and regional development has become one of their main fields of action. Regional nature parks, national parks, UNESCO biosphere reserves and world heritage sites have become key players in leading regions towards a sustainable development.

Therefore, an international group of university professors have edited a collective volume, giving different authors from all over Europe the possibility to share expertise and experience about tasks and objectives of protected areas. Selected case studies, theoretical discussions as well as analysis of innovative approaches, projects and forms of governance and management are presented. Thereby the book manages to give a comprehensive overview on the current situation of parks in Europe, their possibilities but also their limitations in tackling change, their future tasks and their role in promoting sustainability.

Source
Hammer, T., I. Mose, D. Siegrist & N. Weixlbaumer (Eds.) (2016): Parks of the Future. Protected Areas in Europe Challenging Regional and Global Change. Munich: oekom.