The development of Mudstone Badlands Geopark from the perspective of collaborative governance

Abstract

The concept of collaborative governance has been widely applied to conflict resolution and community development strategies in environmental management As a concept involving flexible nature conservation management geoparks have four core concepts: landscape conservation environmental education landscape tourism and community engagement The goal is to tap into community groups and residents as a landscape conservation force to improve the local socioeconomics and to promote sustainable social and environmental development Coming from the angle of collaborative governance the current study attempts to examine the opportunities and constraints for stakeholders to participate in the promotion of a geopark The research framework is based on the collaborative governance model proposed by Ansell and Gash (2008) This case study investigated the process of promoting Mudstone Badlands Geopark located in southern Taiwan Using text analysis direct observation direct participation and in-depth interviews the study examined the current outcomes of the geopark’s promotion and the dynamics of the process by targeting the four parts of the promotion process: collaboration context system planning leadership development and collaboration process This study found that in the context of collaboration the natural environmental constraints of mudstone badlands have created a regional historical context of uneven local development Also because the villages are scattered local organizations mostly operated independently and lacked experience in collaboration However the emergence of the concept of “geopark” has brought about foreseeable economic benefits and created the role of “environment protector” for the communities This has motivated local stakeholders to participate in the planning of the geopark In terms of the collaborative process in the early stage of promoting Mudstone Badlands Geopark the goal was to understand the needs of local communities connect local groups in the mudstone badlands and promote dialogues and consensus These were achieved by conducting seminars workshops geopark network meetings group messages etc with the assistance of local government the academic coaching team and professional planning consultants

Date of Award	2020
Original language	English
Supervisor	Hsiu-Tzu Chang (Supervisor)