Abstract
Protected Areas are increasingly being considered, connected and managed as systems, rejecting the traditional view that regards them as “islands of nature”, fenced off from the outside world. Within networks of protected areas (NPAs), social and economic aims add up to the objectives of maintaining biological and cultural diversity, e.g. the provision of ecosystem services for settlements and human well-being. The new Action Plan of the EU Commission (Action Plan for Nature, People and the Economy, EC 2017), devoted to reaching the EU 2020 goals on biodiversity, identifies the following as its priority: “ensuring better coherence of biodiversity conservation with broader socio-economic objectives”. Aiming to achieve this aim, in many cases NPAs emerged as a governance instrument suitable to play a role in the framework of sustainable territorial development. The Authors aim to present the main results of a specific targeted analysis promoted by ESPON. The results of the research highlight the great value and the promising opportunities offered by networks of Protected Areas for implementing “green infrastructure” policies in several fields through a functional approach built on a coherent system of areal components, where PAs are included as core elements. Possible fields of action of NPAs include nature conservation & ecological connectivity, planning for sustainable use of natural resources (e.g. through agriculture, forestry, fishing, human settlement, recreation, etc.), and genuine green economy policies for European SMEs. NPAs show a greater value if considered as powerful tools for integrated landscape management and with a perspective of increasing development of regional green economies and infrastructures.