Abstract
While national parks (NPs) have for a long time made substantial contributions to visitor well-being, many spaces remain out of reach of people with disabilities (PwDs). This is partly due to a lack of policies that take accessibility for broader intersectional audiences into consideration. This paper evaluates governance and legal frameworks in NPs in both Canada and Spain. A decision-making framework based on intersectionality realities is proposed to assess current conditions of environmental good governance using a set of descriptors created to scrutinize laws and technical documents that can promote equitable access to NPs. To validate results derived from the regulatory evaluation, semistructured interviews with park managers were carried out. Results revealed the importance of incorporating equity discourses into policies that regulate NP networks to guarantee that all the intersectional realities for park uses are considered in their management. Furthermore, when a country develops a well-structured federal framework under which the rights of PwDs are ensured, it transcends other fields of law. Differences between the Canadian and the Spanish situation are highlighted, as well as the need for links between higher-level policies and laws and on-the-ground implementation, with NP management plans playing an important role.
Highlights
Introduction published maps and institutional affilDirect contact with nature provides benefits to human health [1,2]
Canadian Parks Agency is accountable of national parks (NPs) and other types of heritage that are under its jurisdiction, such as national historic sites, federal heritage buildings, and townsite communities within NPs [51,52], while in Spain heritage sites are managed by other bodies
In Spain, those principles have been taken into account in its respective legal framework as shown by the nature for all objective (NAO) and removing barriers program (REB) (Table 3), which have been incorporated into the Spanish National Parks Act (SNPA) through the discourse by the allocation of resources and their benefits as a main objective in the act (Art. 5) [60]
Summary
Introduction published maps and institutional affilDirect contact with nature provides benefits to human health [1,2]. Natural protected areas (NPAs) are spaces of special interest due to the quality of their ecosystems, which has made them desirable places to visit [3]. According to data from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) published in the Protected Planet Report 2012 [4], 12.7%. Of the world’s land and 1.6% of the world’s ocean are recognized as NPAs. Among these, national parks (NPs) are eagerly anticipated by society and have the objective of protecting large-scale ecological processes to maintain their ecosystem services and functions, which sustain human life as we know it. Despite the fact that NPs have become a tourist attraction due to the increase in the number of visitors reported annually [3], there are still some places that exclude a significant percentage of society, such as people with disabilities (PwDs), iations Educational purposes are a main objective and are focused on enjoying the outdoor opportunities they provide [5,6,7,8,9,10].
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