Territorial sustainability in protected areas in Spain

The goal of this paper is to present the current status of protected natural areas and to consider how to proceed with these areas from an intra- and inter-territorial sustainability perspective (environmental, economic, and social). Our analysis of these factors is based on the pattern of relationships, positions, and characteristics. For this analysis, we highlight the dependency relationships and their strength in the eight cases of protected natural areas in Spain. We also include the territories’ progress towards their ideal performance and consider how this ideal scenario can be achieved taking into account the territories’ characteristics. In this way, we design realistic and achievable development processes for each of the territories.