Towards a multidimensional framework to assess the social and ecological fit of institutional arrangements for private protected areas

Private protected areas (PPAs) are considered a promising governance conservation tool to complement public-run protected areas. Despite their promotion in national and international environmental agendas and increased adoption worldwide, there has been little research on the overarching implications of their implementation. This paper introduces a framework to explore the suitability of the institutional arrangements of PPAs to enhance nature conservation whilst meeting societal needs. To do so, we draw on the literature on socio-ecological systems incorporating insights from critical perspectives on agency and power. The resulting conceptual approach pinpoints the interplays between the ecological and social systems, providing a systemic perspective which underpins an interdisciplinary diagnostic framework. This draws on the concepts of social and ecological fit and integrates contributions from the literature on good governance; fine-tuning good governance principles to suit PPAs. We outline a multi-tiered tool for assessing PPAs. This is a first step to comprehensively addressing the match of PPAs’ institutional models with the ecological and social dimensions of complex systems.