Development and Environmental Challenges, Podocarpus National Park, Ecuador.

Podocarpus National Park (PNP; 145,692 ha), established in 1982, is the only national park in southern Ecuador. It was established principally to protect Andean conifers, Podocarpus spp. In this introduction, first, we describe the methods that we used in our rapid appraisal of PNP. We detail our analytic perspective and the problem-oriented, contextual, and multi-method approach that we used. Second, we briefly describe PNP and its context. Our account of PNP management policy is a story about people who make up one large social process regarding how PNP will be used and who gets to decide. Within this social process, people are seeking values (e.g., well-being, wealth, respect) by using existing institutions and calling for new ones that use and affect resources in different ways. In this introduction we look at this social process, the idea of the “common interest,” and the need for management policy to help meet this goal. We also look at development and conservation as a decision-making process that must be understood and managed well if sustainability is to be had. The key to success in this regard, we argue, is to link “authority” and “control” in PNP management policy. Third, in this introduction we also give an overview of the articles in this volume and how they support this common interest outcome for the people in and around PNP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]