Understanding the (In)Governability of Environmental Protected Areas: The Case of Greece

Abstract

Protected areas (PAs) remain central to global conservation policy, yet their performance depends as much on governance quality as on ecological design. This paper examines the (in)governability of Greece’s protected area system by assessing how formal institutions align with contextual realities. A systematic review of forty-three peer-reviewed studies (1999–2020) is combined with analysis of recent governance-assessment tools to evaluate institutional fit, legitimacy, and equity. Frameworks such as the Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) and the IUCN (2024) guidelines on Advancing Equitable Governance in area-based conservation provide practical metrics for participation, accountability, and fairness, offering a timely benchmark for the Greek case. The review shows that, despite substantial EU-driven legal reforms, Greece’s PA system continues to exhibit governance misfit, weak institutional integration, and persistent implementation gaps. Institutional misfit is understood here as a misalignment between formal governance arrangements and the social, ecological, and administrative contexts they are intended to regulate. Governability remains constrained by centralization, limited stakeholder participation, and fragile accountability mechanisms. By integrating classical theories of institutional fit and interactive governance with contemporary equity-based approaches, the study identifies the structural and contextual barriers that hinder effective and just conservation. The findings highlight the need for more legitimate, participatory, and context-sensitive governance arrangements to ensure that protected areas in Greece deliver both ecological and social outcomes.

1. Introduction

Protected areas have long served as the cornerstone of global biodiversity policy. Their effectiveness, however, depends not only on ecological design and spatial coverage but on the quality of governance; the structures, processes, and relationships through which decisions are made and implemented [1,2]. As conservation has evolved from top-down protection to collaborative management, the governance of PAs increasingly reflects complex social–ecological interactions involving states, markets, and communities [3,4]. This shift from “management” to “governance” foregrounds questions of legitimacy, accountability, and fairness as determinants of institutional success [1,5]. The global biodiversity targets, most recently adopted in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, have called not only for the designation of protected areas, but also for their effective management and equitable governance [6].

In Europe, these concerns have gained renewed policy relevance. The EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 explicitly links biodiversity outcomes to governance quality, calling for inclusive decision-making and transparent management of protected areas [7]. The Nature Restoration Regulation [8], represents the first comprehensive EU law dedicated to ecosystem restoration and has been interpreted as having transformative potential for governance processes, extending beyond ecological targets to wider policy implementation frameworks that can support participatory and inclusive approaches to restoration planning and implementation [9].

Greece provides a revealing test case for these evolving debates. The country’s network of protected areas and Natura 2000 sites and management authorities, established under EU directives and national legislation since 1999, represents an ambitious environmental governance application in Southern Europe. Yet, more than two decades after its creation, the system continues to exhibit chronic “misfit” between its formal institutional design and the sociopolitical context in which it operates [10,11]. Centralization, bureaucratic inertia, and limited trust between the state and local actors have repeatedly undermined the effectiveness and legitimacy of governance arrangements [12].

The year 2020 marked a key turning point in the governance of Greece’s protected areas with the adoption of Law 4685/2020 [13] which reorganized the National System of Governance of Protected Areas and established the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA) as a single, central coordinating authority for environmental actions and the management of Natura 2000 sites [14]. However, legal and policy analyses of Law 4685/2020 highlight tensions between efficiency-oriented reforms and more participatory or community-based models of environmental governance [15,16]. Civil society organizations have similarly warned that the law reduces opportunities for meaningful public engagement, especially by limiting the role of local communities and authorities in the co-management of the protected areas [17,18]. The Greek case, thus, encapsulates a broader governance dilemma: how to pursue functional efficiency without eroding procedural fairness.

Approaches to assessing protected area governance have evolved substantially over the past three decades. Early international frameworks, notably the IUCN management-effectiveness evaluations, focused primarily on managerial inputs, planning processes, and ecological outcomes, often treating governance quality as an implicit or secondary concern. Subsequent good-governance frameworks expanded this perspective by emphasizing institutional design, accountability, legitimacy, and performance, yet they tended to underplay issues of power, recognition, and social justice. More recent assessment tools respond to these limitations by explicitly foregrounding equity. The Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) developed by IIED [19] operationalises participatory, procedural, and distributive equity at the local level, while the IUCN equitable governance guidelines (2024) [20] further translate these principles into measurable governance indicators applicable across scales. In Europe, such tools have been applied in countries such as Italy and Spain to diagnose participation deficits and legitimacy challenges within Natura 2000 governance. Situating Greece within this evolving assessment trajectory allows the present study to reposition long-standing governance debates within a contemporary equity-oriented and comparative European framework.

To address these analytical gaps, the paper introduces a bridged governance framework that integrates classical theories of governability and institutional fit with contemporary equity-oriented assessment approaches. Existing governance frameworks have variously emphasized institutional design, management effectiveness, or participation, but often treat equity, legitimacy, and adaptive capacity in isolation. The bridged framework responds to these limitations by jointly assessing functional performance and procedural fairness across core governance principles. This integrated approach allows for a more nuanced evaluation of why governance reforms may improve administrative coherence without necessarily enhancing social legitimacy or long-term governability. The framework is elaborated conceptually in Section 2 and operationalized in the subsequent analysis.

This paper explores that dilemma between efficiency-oriented governance reforms and the persistent erosion of procedural fairness, participation, and social legitimacy in protected area governance by combining classical and contemporary perspectives on governance. It retains the conceptual foundation of interactive governance and institutional fit while integrating emerging frameworks for equity and reflexivity. By doing so, it seeks to understand the persistent (in)governability of Greek protected areas, in other words, why well-intentioned reforms repeatedly fall short of producing transparent, inclusive, and adaptive governance. Three analytical aims guide the study: First, it reinterprets classical good governance principles such as legitimacy, direction, performance, accountability, and fairness through the lens of equity and institutional fit. Second, it applies this integrated framework to the evolution of Greece’s PA system from 1999 to 2025, highlighting the interplay between decentralization, centralization, and policy learning. Third, it identifies pathways for improving contextual governability in line with the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 [7] and IUCN equitable governance guidelines (2024) [20] standards.

By connecting theory, policy, and empirical experience, the paper contributes to contemporary debates on equitable and adaptive conservation governance. It argues that the governability of PAs depends as much on perceived fairness and social legitimacy as on administrative capacity or ecological performance.

2. Theoretical Framework

Environmental management has historically relied on centralized state authority and expert control. However, as socioecological complexity increased, this command-and-control paradigm proved inadequate for dealing with cross-scale interactions, diverse values, and ecological uncertainties [21,22]. The shift toward governance reflects a broader reorientation: from hierarchical steering to networked coordination among multiple actors, institutions, and knowledge systems [4,23]. This transition is particularly relevant for protected areas, which are simultaneously ecological spaces, socioeconomic systems, and political arenas. Governance effectiveness therefore depends not only on institutional design but also on how power, responsibility, and knowledge are distributed [24]. In the European context, this shift to governance coincided with the rise in participatory planning, subsidiarity, and regionalization; principles now embedded in contemporary environmental policy frameworks. Similar governance transitions have occurred across the Global South. In Southern Africa, for example, exclusionary “fortress” conservation models have gradually evolved toward plural, co-managed regimes that integrate state, community, and private-sector actors [25]. This mirrors a worldwide paradigm shift from protecting nature from society toward governing nature with society, reinforcing the contextual relevance of Greece’s transition from centralized control to multi-actor governance.

Within this evolving discourse, the concept of governability extends beyond governance structures to encompass the dynamic interaction between the governing system and the system to be governed [26,27]. A system is governable when institutional capacities, social norms, and ecological processes are aligned; it becomes ungovernable when this alignment breaks down. Governability depends on three interrelated dimensions: system complexity, governing capacity, and the interactive quality of relationships among actors [28]. In practice, governability is constrained when complexity exceeds capacity or when trust, learning, and communication are weak. In Greece, this framework highlights a chronic mismatch between ambitious legal frameworks and limited administrative capacity, compounded by low trust between central authorities and local stakeholders. Recent literature further links governability to reflexive governance—the capacity of institutions to learn from experience, incorporate new knowledge, and adapt over time [28]. Dehmel et al. [29] demonstrate that reflexivity and equity are mutually reinforcing systems that ensure fair participation and recognition of diverse values are more likely to maintain adaptive learning and long-term legitimacy.

A related analytic concept is institutional fit, which assesses how well governance arrangements correspond to the ecological and social systems they are intended to manage [21,30]. when institutions are spatially, functionally, or temporally misaligned with ecological dynamics and/or social expectations. Spatial misfit occurs when administrative boundaries do not correspond to ecological ones; functional misfit arises when overlapping or conflicting mandates impede coordination; temporal misfit results when short-term political or funding cycles conflict with long-term ecological processes [21,30,31]. In Greece, all three types of misfit have been documented. The Natura 2000 framework produced overlapping jurisdictions among ministries, forest services, and local authorities [10]. Short term EU funding cycles, which financed protected area management for more than two decades, undermined continuity, while inconsistent leadership across administrations weakened institutional learning [11]. NECCA’s establishment sought to address these functional misfits through consolidation, yet spatial and procedural misfits, particularly around participation, persist. Increasingly, scholars argue that effective institutional fit requires more than structural alignment; it also demands social fit, where governance mechanisms align with cultural norms, local values, and power relations [31]. Without social fit, institutions risk losing legitimacy even if they appear administratively efficient. This perspective underscores why top-down centralization in Greece may improve coordination but, without additional participatory elements, still struggles to achieve genuine governability.

These developments converge in the evolution from good governance to equitable governance in environmental policy. The good-governance framework, first articulated by Graham et al. [5] and refined by Lockwood et al. [1], identifies five interrelated principles essential for effective environmental governance: legitimacy and voice, direction, performance, accountability, and fairness. These principles have guided global conservation policy for two decades, though their practical implementation has often been uneven.

Table 1. Foundations of Good Governance Principles in Protected Area Management. Adapted from Lockwood et al. [1], Graham et al. [5], and subsequent refinements in governance assessment literature.

Principle	Key Dimensions	Conceptual Focus	Illustrative Interpretation in PA Context	Core Governance Objective
Legitimacy	Participation, transparency, recognition of rights	Ensuring inclusive and transparent decision-making that respects local rights and values	Representation of stakeholders in governance bodies; open access to information; recognition of customary and community rights	Build trust and acceptance among diverse actors
Direction	Strategic vision, coherence, integration	Establishing clear goals and policy coherence across levels and sectors	Alignment of biodiversity strategies with spatial planning, tourism, and rural development policies	Provide consistent and adaptive policy guidance
Performance	Efficiency, effectiveness, adaptability	Achieving conservation and social objectives through sound resource use and adaptive management	Effective implementation of management plans; regular evaluation and learning cycles	Deliver measurable ecological and socio-economic outcomes
Accountability	Answerability, transparency, feedback mechanisms	Ensuring decision-makers are answerable for actions and open to scrutiny	Public reporting, audits, participatory monitoring, feedback loops	Promote transparency, trust, and corrective action
Fairness	Procedural and distributional equity	Guaranteeing equitable participation and benefit distribution	Inclusion of marginalized groups, fair compensation, benefit-sharing mechanisms	Strengthen social justice and long-term compliance

summarizes their conceptual focus and relevance in protected area contexts.

The five governance principles presented in Table 1 draw on a well-established body of literature on participatory, accountable, and just environmental governance. While these principles have been widely endorsed in policy and scholarship, previous studies have shown that they are often applied selectively or in isolation, with limited attention to equity, power relations, and institutional learning. Recent contributions in governance theory emphasize that legitimacy, accountability, and fairness are mutually reinforcing and cannot be meaningfully assessed without considering both functional performance and procedural justice. This insight provides the rationale for adopting an integrated analytical framework in the present study.

These principles increasingly underpin evaluation tools such as the Governance Assessment for Protected and Conserved Areas (GAPA) [32] and the Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) [18,19]. SAGE offers participatory methodologies for assessing recognition, procedure, and distributional equity at the local level. More recent frameworks, including the IUCN (2024) Guidelines on Advancing Equitable Governance [20], translate these normative principles into measurable indicators that assess governance performance across three equity dimensions: recognition (rights and identities), procedure (participation and transparency), and distribution (fair sharing of benefits and burdens). These frameworks mark a paradigmatic shift: from evaluating institutions solely by their structure or outcomes to assessing their fairness and ability to manage power relations. As Dehmel et al. [29] argue, equity is now considered a core determinant of governability rather than an optional add-on.

Building on these developments, this study adopts a bridged analytical framework that integrates classical theories of governability and institutional fit with contemporary equity-oriented governance approaches.

Classical good-governance frameworks provide robust criteria for assessing institutional performance, coordination, and accountability, but have been criticized for insufficiently addressing issues of power, recognition, and distributive justice. Conversely, equity-focused governance frameworks explicitly foreground participation, rights, and fairness, yet often provide limited guidance on institutional robustness, policy coherence, and long-term administrative capacity. The bridged framework responds to these complementary limitations by integrating relevant elements from both traditions, allowing governance performance to be assessed simultaneously in terms of functional effectiveness and procedural fairness. In other words, the bridged framework evaluates the five governance principles: legitimacy, direction, performance, accountability, and fairness, through both functional and procedural lenses.

Table 2. Bridged Analytical Framework Linking Governance Principles and Equity Dimensions.

Governance Principle	Operational Definition	Equity Dimension/Assessment Focus	Sources
Legitimacy & Voice	Inclusiveness and representation in decision-making processes	Recognition of rights and identities; stakeholder diversity; procedural fairness	[5,19,29]
Direction & Integration	Strategic vision and coherence across scales and sectors	Coordination and leadership across governance levels	[1,7]
Performance & Robustness	Effectiveness, efficiency, and adaptability of governance systems	Learning capacity and stability of resources	[3,33]
Accountability	Transparency, oversight, and clarity of responsibilities	Procedural fairness; public reporting; multi-level responsibility tracing	[10,20]
Fairness & Equity	Just distribution of benefits and access to resources and decision-making	Distribution of costs and benefits; recognition of rights	[34,35]

Note: Framework adapted from Lockwood et al. [1] and updated with SAGE [19], IUCN 2024 [20] and Dehmel et al. [29].

presents the operationalization of these principles alongside their associated equity dimensions and sources.

Within this combined framework, functional fit (efficiency, coherence, capacity) is examined alongside procedural fit (legitimacy, inclusiveness, fairness). Governability is conceptualized as the product of both: institutions are effective only when they are coherent and perceived as just. Applying this hybrid model to Greece enables a deeper re-examination of long-standing governance debates, centralization versus participation and efficiency versus legitimacy, through the integrated language of equity, institutional fit, and reflexivity. By situating Greece’s protected area governance within both classical and contemporary theoretical paradigms, this framework makes it possible to assess not only whether governance arrangements “work,” but why certain configurations persist and why others remain resistant to change. The next section outlines the methodological approach used to operationalize these concepts and evaluate the governability of Greece’s protected area system.

Institutional Evolution of Protected Area Governance in Greece

This subsection provides the institutional and historical context necessary to understand the evolution of protected area governance in Greece. It outlines the main governance phases and legal reforms shaping the national protected area system prior to the empirical analysis presented in the Section 4. The governance of protected areas (PAs) in Greece has evolved through four principal phases since the late twentieth century. These phases reflect successive institutional responses to European integration, administrative reform, and shifting policy priorities, producing alternating patterns of centralization and decentralization that have shaped the contemporary governance landscape.

Table 3. The table synthesizes the evolution of governance models and recurring strengths and weaknesses identified across the reviewed literature.

Period	Dominant Model	Strengths	Weaknesses/Misfits
Pre-1999	Centralized state control	Legal consistency, ministerial authority	Low legitimacy, poor local engagement, rigid hierarchy
1999–2011	Decentralized MBs	Participatory representation, local learning	Weak functional fit, unstable funding, limited authority
2011–2019	Fragmented co-management	Institutional experimentation	Low capacity, trust deficits, overlapping mandates
2020–present	Centralized NECCA network	Administrative coherence, standardized performance	Partial loss of procedural legitimacy, reduced participation

summarizes these four governance phases and synthesizes the dominant institutional models, key strengths, and recurring governance misfits identified in the reviewed literature.

Pre-1999: Centralized Forest-Service Control: Until the end of the 1990s, PA management rested primarily with the national Forest Service under the Ministry of Agriculture. Conservation policy was embedded in a technocratic, command-and-control model derived from forestry law and resource policing [36,37]. Protected areas at the time consisted mainly of national forests and wetlands of international importance, designated under the Ramsar Convention. Decision-making authority was highly centralized, and enforcement depended on hierarchical supervision rather than collaboration. While this model ensured uniform legal coverage, it offered limited opportunities for local engagement or adaptive management, and coordination between ministries and municipalities remained weak. With Greece’s accession into the EU and most significantly the requirements to implement the Birds and Habitats Directives and designate and manage the newly at the time identified Natura 2000 sites, led to provisions that allowed for the designation of new protected areas and mobilized the foundation of a revamped governance structure [38]. This period marked the beginning of a gradual institutional transition, during which the limitations of centralized governance became increasingly visible. Environmental compliance pressures intensified, as illustrated by infringement procedures and rulings related to species protection, including cases concerning the marine turtle Caretta caretta on Zakynthos island [39].

1999–2011: Decentralization and the Rise of Management Bodies: Law 2742/1999 introduced Management Bodies (MBs) for national parks and Natura 2000 sites, representing a major institutional innovation. These bodies included representatives from central government, regional authorities, non-governmental organizations, and local stakeholders, reflecting international trends toward participatory governance [1,5]. In total, over the next decade 28 MBs had been established, covering only part of the country’s Natura 2000 sites, which continued to expand with new scientific knowledge. In practice, the new governance model faced significant implementation challenges. Funding relied heavily on short-term EU project cycles, staff appointments were temporary, and administrative authority remained dependent on ministerial approval. Overlapping responsibilities between MBs, the Forest Service, and regional administrations created coordination challenges [10]. As documented in the literature, stakeholder participation was often consultative rather than decisional, limiting the effective exercise of shared governance [12].

2011–2019: Austerity, Fragmentation, and Institutional Instability: The economic crisis that began in 2009 ushered in a prolonged period of fiscal austerity that reshaped public administration, including environmental governance. At the same time, responding to EU compliance obligations under the Habitats Directive, Law 3937/2011 sought to integrate protected area categories and Natura 2000 sites into a unified national system. However, financial constraints and administrative restructuring delayed the implementation of management measures and institutional consolidation, despite repeated calls for reform [40,41,42]. Indeed, it was even followed by a legal provision to merge or abolish the MBs (Law 4219/2013), which never realized but created a sense of instability and insecurity with respect to the governance system of the country’s protected areas [43]. Subsequent legal provisions, including proposals to merge or abolish Management Bodies (Law 4219/2013), were not fully implemented but contributed to institutional uncertainty. During this period, protected area governance was characterized by fragmented responsibilities, limited operational capacity, and delayed formal recognition of sites and management plans, many of which remain pending. Toward the end of the decade, mounting EU pressure led to Law 4519/2018, which expanded the Management Body network to cover the entire Natura 2000 system. Jurisdictions were enlarged and eight new bodies were established, resulting in a total of 36 MBs. A key innovation of this reform was the introduction of a dedicated national funding commitment for protected areas, marking a shift away from exclusive reliance on EU project-based financing. This reform laid important groundwork for subsequent institutional restructuring.

Post-2020: Re-centralization under NECCA: Law 4685/2020 established the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), consolidating all Management Bodies into a single national entity under the Ministry of Environment and Energy with 24 decentralised Management Units covering all Natura 2000 sites [13]. This reform marked a new governance phase, characterized by administrative consolidation and standardized coordination mechanisms. The establishment of NECCA was the result of the need for the national central authorities to assume a supervisory and coordinating role, providing operational support to the protected areas management bodies, which were still in a transition phase, as well as uniform guidelines and common standards for site management. Because empirical assessments of this system are still emerging, its performance and implications are examined in detail in the Section 4 and Section 5.

3. Materials and Methods

3.1. Research Design and Analytical Logic

This study employs a qualitative, theory-informed synthesis to examine the governability of Greece’s protected area (PA) system between 1999 and 2025. The design follows the logic of contextual diagnosis [4,26], in which governance is analyzed as the interaction between institutional structures, social actors, and ecological complexity. Rather than evaluating ecological outcomes per se, the analysis focuses on institutional performance, that is, the extent to which governance mechanisms embody the principles of legitimacy, direction, performance, accountability, and fairness.

A multi-layered analytical strategy was adopted. The conceptual layer drew upon interactive-governance theory, institutional-fit analysis, and the good-governance framework; the normative layer integrated equity and reflexivity principles from the SAGE [19] and the IUCN equitable governance guidelines (2024) [20] and the empirical layer synthesized evidence from peer-reviewed literature, national legislation, and EU policy documentation. This triangulated approach allows an assessment of both functional fit that focuses on how coherently institutions operate and procedural fit that focuses on how fair and inclusive they are in practice.

The choice of a qualitative interpretive design is deliberate. Quantitative governance metrics remain underdeveloped for most European PAs, and the diversity of social–ecological contexts complicates cross-case comparability [1,29]. By combining document analysis with theory-guided coding, the study identifies patterns of institutional alignment and misalignment that explain the enduring governability challenges of Greek PAs.

The empirical base consisted of three categories of sources, chosen to capture both historical evolution and contemporary developments. First, peer-reviewed studies published between 1999 and 2020 was conducted using Scopus, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate. The particular time-frame was chosen because it covers the period during which the pre-2020 governance system was in operation. Post-2020 reforms constitute a distinct institutional phase, for which peer-reviewed empirical evaluations are not yet available, thus we will address developments after 2020 through policy and legal analysis rather than systematic literature review. The searches for relevant studies were originally conducted prior to manuscript preparation, and downloaded records were manually screened and archived. Because exact database hit counts were not retained at the time of searching, transparency regarding study identification, screening, and inclusion is ensured through explicit reporting of databases, search strings, and included studies in Supplementary Table S1, complemented by asterisk-marked references and detailed coding presented in Appendix A. Appendix A consolidates the coding outputs by governance principle and criterion. For each criterion, it juxtaposes (i) formal institutional provisions (laws/policy) and (ii) empirical evidence from the reviewed literature and then records the inferred fit/misfit classification.

The search terms included “protected area,” “Natura 2000,” “governance,” “Greece,” “institutional fit,” and “equity” (full search strategy reported in Supplementary Table S1), and resulted in forty-three peer reviewed studies. Studies were included if they addressed governance arrangements, management effectiveness, or participatory processes in terrestrial or marine protected areas and provided empirical data or critical evaluation. These studies form the backbone of the longitudinal assessment of governance evolution (Appendix A). Second, relevant policy and legal documents were analyzed to capture reforms since 2020, including the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 [7], the Nature Restoration Law [8], and Greek national legislation—Law 2742/1999 (establishing Management Bodies), Law 3937/2011, Law 4519/2018, and Law 4685/2020 (establishing NECCA). All Greek national laws referenced in the analysis are listed in Appendix C, together with their year of adoption and relevance to protected area governance. These texts outline the evolving institutional architecture and reveal the degree of alignment with EU governance expectations. Third, governance-assessment frameworks and international guidelines provided operational benchmarks. The Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) [19], the 2024 IUCN Advancing Equitable Governance Guidelines [20], and the IPBES Values Assessment (2022) [44] were used to translate abstract principles into practical indicators such as inclusiveness, transparency, and benefit-sharing. These tools, though not yet applied systematically in Greece, establish the reference standards against which institutional fit can be judged. All documents were reviewed and coded manually using a structured coding sheet developed for the study. References included in the systematic literature review are included in Appendix A.

3.2. Coding and Analytical Procedure

The coding process proceeded in three stages. First, each document was coded under the five good-governance principles [1,5]: legitimacy & voice, direction & integration, performance & robustness, accountability, and fairness & equity. Coding units consisted of paragraphs or sections referring to governance structures, participation mechanisms, funding arrangements, and monitoring processes. Second, a secondary equity-coding layer was applied, aligning each principle with the corresponding SAGE/IUCN equity dimensions, recognition, procedural fairness, and distribution [19,20]. For example, passages describing stakeholder diversity or procedural inclusion were tagged under legitimacy and voice recognition; those addressing transparency and oversight were coded under accountability/procedural fairness. Finally, evidence was synthesized into evaluative categories: functional fit (FF), procedural fit (PF), and misfit (MF), reflecting the degree of alignment between formal design and empirical performance. The use of this tripartite typology allowed a nuanced assessment: while earlier analyses often treated governance as either effective or ineffective, this approach distinguishes partial fits (e.g., strong coordination but weak participation).

3.3. Triangulation and Validation

Findings from the literature coding were triangulated with legislation documents, official reports and comparative cases. Key non-academic sources used for triangulation and validation are listed in Appendix B. Comparative references to other Southern European countries were used solely as contextual benchmarks to support interpretation and validation of findings, rather than as full comparative case studies. National monitoring summaries and NECCA Action Plan (2021–2023) were consulted to verify institutional changes and ongoing implementation challenges. Comparative reference was made to Italy, Spain, and Portugal, countries that share similar administrative legacies and Natura 2000 governance structures [45]. This triangulation ensures that observations of governance misfit in Greece are interpreted within a broader Southern-European context rather than as exceptional cases. To further strengthen internal validity, provisional results were cross-checked against key policy evaluations, notably the European Commission’s (2019) Environmental Implementation Review [46], which highlighted coordination deficits and limited stakeholder participation in Greek environmental governance. Consistency between independent sources and coded evidence enhances confidence in the analytical inferences drawn.

3.4. Analytical Framework: The Bridged Model

The analysis applies the bridged framework introduced earlier to link theory and evidence. Each governance principle is evaluated through both functional and procedural lenses (

Table A1. Institutional Fit and Misfit Across Good Governance Principles and Criteria in Greek Protected Areas (1999–2020). Indicates that this governance principle is identified in the referenced documents and/or supported by empirical evidence, ☹ Indicates that this governance principle is NOT identified in the referenced documents and/or supported by empirical evidence, N/A indicates that this governance principle is not addressed, not applicable, or not evidenced in the referenced documents or empirical literature.

Good Governance Principle	Criterion	Greek PA Governing System (Legal Provisions)	Greek PA Governability (Empirical Evidence)	Institutional Fit/Misfit
Legitimacy & Voice	Decentralized democratic institutions	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.1; 4519/2018 Arts.2–3)	☹ [60]	Misfit
	Decentralized democratic processes	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.2; 4519/2018 Art.4)	☹ [47,61]	Misfit
	Citizen participation	☹	☹ [34,60,62,63,64]	Participation largely consultative, not deliberative
	Collaborative decision-making/stakeholder influence	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.3–4; 4519/2018 Arts.4 par.1.11, 4 par.2, 5–6)	☹ [10,47,51,60,65]	Misfit
	Trust/confidence in institutions	N/A	☹ [12,47,56,60,66,67,68]	N/A
	Respect for human rights	(2742/1999 Art.1)	N/A	N/A
	Input from multiple sources/diverse stakeholders	(4519/2018 Arts.4 par.2, 5)	☹ [34,47,51,69,70]	Misfit
	Recognition and respect of all relevant actors (knowledge, values, institutions)	(2742/1999 Arts.1–2; 4519/2018 Arts.4 par.1–2)	☹ [34,70]	Misfit
Direction & Integration	Shared vision/defined goals/alignment of priorities	(1650/1986; 2742/1999 Arts.1–2)	☹ [11,51,66,71,72,73,74,75,76]	Misfit
	Effective leadership	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.4; 4519/2018 Art.5)	☹ [51,77]	Misfit
	Coherent legislative framework	(1650/1986; 2742/1999; 4269/2014; 4432/B/2017; 4519/2018)	☹ [71]	Misfit
	Consistency with international directions	(4432/B/2017)	N/A	Fit
	Management plans integrated into system-wide plan	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.2b, par. 2e)	☹ [11,51]	Misfit
Performance & Responsiveness	Efficiency	(2742/1999 Arts.1–2; 4519/2018 Arts.6–8)	☹ [11,47,51,56,71,76,78,79]	Misfit
	Achievement of conservation and other objectives/evaluation	(2742/1999 Arts.1–2)	☹ [80]	Misfit
	Monitoring	(2742/1999 Art.5 par.2b; 4519/2018 Arts.4 par.1c, par.1g, par.9)	☹ [11,51,81]	Misfit
	Administrative capacity	(2742/1999 Arts.15§§2.5–2.6; 2, 16; 4519/2018 Arts.6–8, 10)	☹ [51,60,77]	Misfit
	Coordination (across actors, levels, sectors)	(2742/1999 Arts.15 par. 1b, par. 3; 4519/2018 Art.4 par.2)	☹ [47,71,81]	Misfit
	Information diffusion/connectivity	(2742/1999 Arts.15 par.2, par.3–4, par.2.7–2.8)	☹ [11,48]	Misfit
	Enforcement of laws and regulations	N/A	☹ [51]	N/A
	Long-term/anticipatory planning	(2742/1999 Arts.15 par. 1c–1d, par. 2g–2h; 4519/2018 Art.4 par.1)	☹ [11,51,56,71,77,78,79]	Misfit
	Flexibility/adaptability/learning/innovation	(2742/1999 Arts.1–2; 4519/2018 Arts.6–8)	☹ [11,47,51]	Misfit
Accountability	Responsibility/accountability	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.2; 4519/2018 Arts.1 par.2, par. 6, par. 9)	☹ [47,71,81]	Misfit
	Institutions of accountability	(2742/1999 Art.15 par.1)	☹ [47]	Misfit
	Transparency	(4519/2018 Art.4)	☹ [62]	Misfit
	Clarity of goals/objectives	(4519/2018 Art.4)	☹ [11,51,81]	Misfit
	Appropriateness	(4519/2018 Arts.4.7, 4.11)	☹ [47,49,71,82]	Misfit
Fairness & Access to Justice	Rule of law/enforcement/compliance assurance	(2742/1999 Art.15 par. 2; 4519/2018 Arts.1 par.2, par. 6, par. 9)	☹ [62,73]	Misfit
	Supportive judicial context	N/A	[62]	N/A
	Effective remedies/dispute resolution	N/A	☹ [74,83]	N/A
	Accessibility to justice	N/A	[62]	N/A
	Equity/impartiality/access to information	N/A	N/A	N/A
	Measures to mitigate local impacts/just benefit distribution	(2742/1999 Arts.1–2)	N/A	N/A
	Cultural sensitivity/local communication preferences	N/A	☹ [11]	N/A

, Appendix A).

• Functional Fit (FF): assesses coherence, coordination, and resource stability.
• Procedural Fit (PF): assesses participation, transparency, and fairness.
• Misfit (MF): identifies misalignment between formal intent and practice.

The bridged framework integrates classical good-governance criteria with modern equity indicators. For instance, accountability is analyzed not only as legal clarity but also as relational transparency; fairness encompasses both legal recognition of rights and tangible benefit-sharing mechanisms. This dual focus enables an understanding of why Greece’s PA system, despite successive legal reforms, continues to experience constrained governability.

Several limitations should be acknowledged. First, the analysis is based on secondary data: although Greece hosts a vast Natura 2000 network, site-level governance evaluations remain scarce. Consequently, equity indicators are inferred from qualitative descriptions rather than standardized metrics. Second, the emphasis on documentary evidence risks under-representing informal governance practices, such as community self-organization or local conflict mediation, that seldom appear in official records. Third, while the study incorporates the latest policy and theoretical advances, it does not conduct new empirical fieldwork; its contribution lies in conceptual integration and longitudinal synthesis. Despite these limitations, the approach provides a robust diagnostic of institutional dynamics. By situating national reforms within broader theoretical and comparative frames, it highlights the persistent factors that shape Greece’s capacity to govern its protected areas effectively and equitably.

The methodology thus bridges theoretical ideals and empirical realities. By combining interactive governance, institutional fit, and equity assessment, it operationalizes the abstract notion of governability into analyzable dimensions. The bridged framework enables a systematic evaluation of how Greece’s PA system has evolved from decentralized management bodies to a centralized agency while maintaining a consistent analytical focus on legitimacy, coordination, performance, accountability, and fairness. The next section presents the empirical results, tracing the historical evolution of governance reforms and assessing their implications for both functional and procedural fit.

4. Results

4.1. Governance Performance by Principle

Each governance dimension from Table 1 was assessed for functional and procedural fit using coded evidence from peer-reviewed studies, national and EU legal provisions, and official policy and evaluation documents. The full evidentiary basis supporting each assessment is reported in Appendix A, which integrates empirical findings with corresponding institutional and legal provisions.

4.1.1. Legitimacy: Participation, Voice, and Decision-Making Influence

Legitimacy in protected area governance rests on participation, transparency, and the recognition of diverse rights and knowledge systems [1,2]. In governance theory, legitimacy is derived not only from who participates in decision-making but also from how these decisions are made and justified. In Greece, Law 2742/1999 represented a significant institutional innovation by establishing Management Bodies for the country’s protected areas with stakeholder boards having decision-making power, marking an early step toward participatory legitimacy. While the Boards had decisive authority, this was limited due to the lack of official (gazetted) recognition of protection areas and management plans. In those cases, where at least partial institutional provisions were made and a combination of dedicated Board members, supporting actors and operational capacity, the MBs could implement management measures. However, lack of consistent and streamlined support from the Ministry of Environment and Energy, the central overseeing authority, led to implementation gaps and delays and, even, diverging operational and management approaches among the protected areas. The reform under Law 4685/2020 replaced the local management boards with advisory councils under the newly established Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), effectively re-centralizing governance authority within a national administrative structure, which allows for homogeneous and consistent decision-making. Empirical studies consistently reveal that participation within Greek protected areas remains weak and largely consultative rather than co-decisional, even at the time when the Boards of Management Bodies had limited decisive authority [11,47]. Local stakeholders frequently perceive their involvement as symbolic, and trust deficits persist, amplified by limited transparency and the widespread perception that decisions are predetermined by central ministries. This situation illustrates a procedural misfit between normative ideals of legitimacy and their functional expression: while participatory institutions exist on paper, their restricted influence undermines fairness and accountability. Nevertheless, localized experiences demonstrate that when non-governmental organizations, academic institutions, or local associations act as intermediaries (such as in the Amvrakikos Wetlands or the Samaria National Park) legitimacy and trust can be partially restored. These bridging organizations help align national policy frameworks with local priorities, mitigating structural deficits and providing a model for hybrid governance arrangements that can strengthen perceived legitimacy within a centralized system [30].

4.1.2. Direction: Strategic Coherence and Policy Integration

Direction in protected area governance refers to the clarity, coherence, and long-term consistency of strategic vision guiding conservation policy [1]. A strong sense of direction ensures that protected areas function as part of an integrated ecological and socio-economic system, with objectives that transcend administrative cycles. In the Greek context, the establishment of Management Bodies (MBs) under Law 2742/1999 and subsequent biodiversity strategies (notably the National Biodiversity Strategy of 2014) sought to create a unified strategic vision for nature protection. Yet, implementation has been uneven and fragmented, primarily because of overlapping jurisdictions and a lack of coordination among ministries responsible for environment, tourism, and agriculture. The creation of NECCA in 2020 aimed to address these shortcomings by consolidating governance functions under a single entity, thereby promoting vertical policy coherence. However, while this centralization improved administrative direction and efficiency, it also reduced opportunities for local innovation and adaptive learning. Empirical evidence indicates that although strategic plans exist on paper, they often remain disconnected from local realities and socioeconomic priorities [48,49]. This has produced what might be termed a functional misfit, a situation where formal coherence masks the absence of genuine cross-sectoral alignment. In practice, Greece’s protected area system demonstrates strong top-down strategic direction but limited adaptive capacity, as policies are formulated at the national level with little iterative feedback from site managers or communities. The resulting rigidity constrains the emergence of context-sensitive solutions, suggesting that true directional effectiveness requires not only administrative consolidation but also mechanisms for horizontal dialogue and adaptive revision.

4.1.3. Performance: Effectiveness, Learning, and Adaptive Capacity

Performance in protected area governance reflects the system’s capacity to achieve conservation outcomes efficiently, effectively, and adaptively, emphasizing institutional learning and the optimization of resources [50]. In Greece, performance-related mechanisms were progressively introduced as part of efforts to align national practice with European Union standards. Early initiatives under the Management Bodies (MBs) emphasized the preparation of management plans and reporting for EU directives, yet many of these plans were drafted without full implementation due to financial instability and limited administrative capacity. The establishment of NECCA marked a significant step toward integrating management effectiveness through standardized monitoring protocols and digitalized biodiversity databases. Performance indicators and centralized data systems were introduced to facilitate coordination and compliance with EU reporting frameworks. Empirical assessments indicate that ecological monitoring has improved, reflecting advances in data quality and consistency, but socio-economic integration remains underdeveloped [48,51]. Initiatives of collaboration with local actors and civil society organizations continue, but are ad hoc. Although NECCA has strengthened technical oversight, bureaucratic rigidity and administrative bottlenecks continue to constrain the system’s responsiveness. Most significant bottleneck is the continuous absence of the proper legal recognition and approved management plans of Greece’s Natura 2000 sites and national protected areas. Overall, performance in Greece’s protected area governance has improved functionally, through clearer standards and procedural efficiency, but remains limited adaptively. The weak linkage between monitoring results and policy revision reveals a persistent deficit in institutional learning. The governance system thus tends to “report rather than learn,” a characteristic feature of administratively driven models where accountability is prioritized over reflexive adaptation [52].

4.1.4. Accountability: Transparency, Oversight, and Responsibility

Accountability constitutes a cornerstone of effective governance, ensuring that decision-makers are answerable for their actions and that transparent mechanisms for feedback and correction are in place [1]. It reinforces both legitimacy and institutional learning by linking authority to responsibility. In Greece’s protected area system, accountability has historically been structured through formal, hierarchical channels. The only comprehensive assessment of Greece’s protected areas system was undertaken by the Nature 2000 committee in 2011 [53]. Its conclusions were instrumental together with proposals by other actors to reform the system’s protected areas governance. Although NECCA, established in 2020, introduced a new administrative architecture, it largely inherited these pre-existing accountability patterns. NECCA operates under supervision of the Ministry of Environment and Energy and reports to the Parliament, ensuring a strong form of upward accountability. However, citizen-based and horizontal accountability mechanisms remain minimal. The Nature 2000 committee proposed to develop a system of assessment, including also the equity dimension, but the decision has been postponed until progress on the institutional recognition of the country’s protected areas is concluded. Advisory management committees introduced by the 2020 reform have not yet become fully operational. Earlier empirical studies of the pre-NECCA system indicate that public awareness of management decisions was limited and communication between administrative agencies and local actors predominantly vertical [12,54]. These dynamics continue to characterize the system under NECCA. This imbalance between hierarchical oversight and participatory engagement has produced a governance framework that is procedurally accountable but socially opaque. In governability terms, Greece’s system demonstrates vertical accountability but lacks the reflexivity and responsiveness associated with horizontal and social accountability. Strengthening accountability therefore requires embedding inclusive mechanisms such as participatory evaluation and open-data practices—linking central oversight with local legitimacy and transforming control-based reporting into a dialogic process of shared responsibility and continuous improvement.

4.1.5. Fairness and Equity: Recognition, Participation, and Distribution of Benefits

Fairness in governance encompasses the recognition of rights, procedural equity, and the equitable distribution of benefits and costs, forming a foundational pillar for both legitimacy and compliance [2]. In the Greek protected area framework, fairness was conceptually acknowledged but rarely operationalized. The early participatory model under Law 2742/1999 provided for stakeholder representation in Management Bodies, yet it lacked mechanisms for benefit-sharing, compensation, or local co-ownership of conservation outcomes. The subsequent reform under Law 4685/2020 retained advisory participation but did not incorporate explicit provisions for social equity or distributive justice, reaffirming a technocratic rather than participatory orientation. Empirical studies reveal that local communities surrounding protected areas frequently shoulder the restrictions associated with conservation without receiving proportional benefits or compensation [55,56]. Such inequities are particularly visible in regions where conservation regulations intersect with traditional livelihoods, such as fisheries and ecotourism zones, leading to persistent tensions and perceptions of exclusion. In response to these deficiencies, international frameworks like the Site-level Assessment of Governance and Equity (SAGE) [19] developed by IIED and tested in two protected areas in Greece, offer promising avenues for improvement. By assessing governance through three core dimensions: recognition, procedure, and distribution, the SAGE methodology enables participatory evaluation of inclusivity and fairness. Integrating this framework into NECCA’s monitoring and assessment processes could enhance social legitimacy while preserving administrative coherence. Overall, fairness remains the weakest dimension of Greek protected area governance: although functional efficiency has improved under centralization, normative alignment with principles of equity and inclusiveness continues to lag behind. Without participatory redistribution mechanisms and recognition of local rights, long-term compliance and trust in conservation governance are likely to remain fragile.

Table 4. Governance Performance and Evidence of Institutional Fit or Misfit in Greek Protected Areas (1999–2024).

Governance Dimension	Institutional Provision	Observed Performance	Type of Fit/Misfit	Illustrative Peer-Reviewed Sources
Legitimacy & Voice	Stakeholder boards (Law 2742/1999); regional advisory councils under NECCA	Participation consultative, limited influence	Procedural misfit—tokenistic participation; low trust	[10,28]
Direction & Integration	National Biodiversity Strategy; Natura 2000 coordination	Partial cross-sector coherence; fragmented planning	Functional partial fit—coordination gaps persist	[7,11]
Performance & Robustness	EU-funded MBs; NECCA central budget	Improved stability; weak learning capacity	Temporal misfit—short-term cycles, limited adaptation	[45,55]
Accountability	Multi-level jurisdiction pre-2020; centralized NECCA oversight post-2020	Clearer hierarchy; limited public reporting	Procedural misfit—opacity in transparency mechanisms	[10,20]
Fairness & Equity	Constitutional rights; NECCA consultative committees	Minimal benefit-sharing; unequal representation	Social misfit—recognition and distribution deficits	[34,35]

synthesizes the results across governance principles. Illustrative sources refer to representative peer-reviewed studies, while the underlying peer-reviewed, legal, and policy evidence informing each classification is documented in Appendix A.

5. Discussion

Synthesis and Comparative Insights

The evolution of Greece’s protected area system shows that governance reforms can address functional deficiencies without necessarily enhancing overall governability. Across the last twenty-five years, the system has continually oscillated between phases of decentralization and recentralization, each attempting to correct the failures of the previous institutional model. This pattern reflects what governance theory describes as the ongoing tension between administrative order and participatory inclusion in complex socio-ecological systems. While each reform improved certain aspects of coordination or participation, none succeeded in aligning institutional capacity, social legitimacy, and ecological complexity in a stable configuration.

When assessed through the bridged framework, Greece’s PA governance exhibits a mosaic of partial fits. Administrative coherence and resource stability have improved substantially, but equity, participation, and transparency lag behind. Legitimacy and voice remain the most significant weaknesses: despite formal structures for inclusion, deliberative influence is minimal. Direction and integration show moderate improvement due to centralized coordination. Performance and robustness are strengthening under NECCA’s programmatic funding, while accountability is partially restored but constrained by limited transparency. Fairness and equity continue to register as weak fits, primarily because benefit-sharing and recognition of local rights remain underdeveloped. The persistence of these misfits indicates that governability is constrained less by legal gaps than by institutional culture, a pattern consistent with other Southern-European cases [29,45,57]. Greece has achieved structural consolidation but not yet social legitimacy. Functional integration without procedural fairness risks perpetuating ungovernability through stakeholder disengagement and low trust.

The creation of Management Bodies (MBs) in 1999 marked an important shift toward participatory legitimacy, yet fragmented competences, limited funding, and incomplete institutional recognition undermined their effectiveness. Subsequent reforms attempted to strengthen coherence, culminating in the 2020 establishment of the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA), which consolidated governance under a single national authority. This centralization improved coordination, standardized procedures, and even through the integration of national funding and ETS-derived revenues, introduced a more stable domestic funding basis for protected areas, which continues being complemented by EU co-funded programs. At the same time, it constrained local influence by replacing decision-making boards with local management committees whose role remains consultative. The result is a governance landscape that is administratively coherent but socially thin, with participation that is structured yet rarely influential.

Placed in a broader Southern-European context, these patterns are not unique to Greece. Comparative analysis reveals that Greece’s trajectory mirrors broader Mediterranean trends. Italy and Portugal have experienced similar cycles of decentralization of environmental competences, fragmented implementation of EU nature directives, and subsequent efforts to re-centralize or better coordinate governance to meet EU compliance demands [45,57,58]. Spain, with stronger regional institutions, has developed more participatory Natura 2000 arrangements but still struggles with cross-regional consistency in planning and management [57,59]. In this context, Greece’s centralized model appears as a pragmatic adaptation to administrative capacity limits rather than a normative departure from participatory ideals. It exemplifies what Dehmel et al. [28] term reflexive centralization: a process in which consolidation becomes a precondition for subsequent equity integration. Achieving full governability will therefore depend on whether NECCA can evolve from hierarchical efficiency to reflexive, equitable governance.

Table 5. Comparative governance deficits in EU protected-area/Natura 2000 governance (illustrative Southern-European cases).

Country	EU-Driven Reform Pattern (High Level)	Recurring Governance Deficits Highlighted in Literature	How Greece Compares/What Differs
Italy	EU compliance pressures; mixed governance models	Participation gaps; stakeholder inclusion often weaker in practice than design	Greece similar on participation deficits, but more pronounced re-centralization under NECCA
Spain	Natura 2000 implementation with strong regional role	More participatory arrangements, but cross-regional inconsistency and uneven implementation	Greece has stronger national coherence post-2020, but weaker local influence
Portugal	Europeanization-driven reforms; administrative legacy constraints	Fragmented implementation; coordination challenges typical of Southern Europe	Greece follows similar cycle, but “reflexive centralization” is especially explicit post-2020

synthesizes recurring governance deficits identified in selected Southern-European cases, drawing on existing literature rather than new empirical comparison.

A key contribution of this study is that it re-interprets persistent Greek protected-area underperformance as a governability problem rather than primarily as a financing or ecological-design problem. While earlier literature has often emphasized project-based funding gaps, administrative capacity shortages, or ecological shortfalls, our synthesis shows a more counter-intuitive pattern: even as Greece moved toward more stable domestic resourcing (including post-2018 national provisions and post-2020 financing streams), core procedural deficits, limited stakeholder influence, weak transparency, and underdeveloped equity mechanisms, continue to constrain governability. This finding supports the argument that functional consolidation can improve coordination without automatically generating social legitimacy, and it highlights why equity-oriented governance indicators are necessary to understand reform outcomes under EU-driven conservation frameworks.

Institutional fit in Greece thus remains partial. Functional fit has improved through clearer mandates, unified oversight, and more consistent monitoring systems. Yet procedural fit (alignment with rights, expectations, and local realities) continues to lag. Research consistently shows that many local communities perceive conservation interventions as externally driven and insufficiently attentive to local knowledge, livelihoods, and distributional impacts. These perceptions weaken legitimacy and reduce compliance, even where legal frameworks and administrative procedures appear robust on paper. Comparative evidence from Southern Europe reinforces this pattern: reforms that centralize control may solve coordination problems but often exacerbate social misfits unless accompanied by mechanisms that cultivate trust, transparency, and meaningful local input.

At the same time, the Greek system struggles with reflexive learning. Monitoring data are collected, and NECCA has strengthened national biodiversity databases but these data rarely trigger revisions to management measures or institutional practices. The persistent gap between reporting and learning remains one of the central barriers to governability. Without structured feedback loops that connect evaluation to decision-making, institutions tend to reproduce existing routines rather than adapt to changing ecological and social conditions. This rigidity limits innovation and reinforces a pattern in which governance arrangements are periodically redesigned rather than continuously improved.

Equity further conditions these dynamics. Although equity frameworks are formally acknowledged, they are not operationalized in processes of participation, recognition, or benefit-sharing. Where communities experience the costs of conservation without receiving proportional benefits or compensation, governance becomes brittle and trust declines. International frameworks such as SAGE and emerging IUCN equity guidelines highlight the importance of recognition, procedural fairness, and distributional justice for durable governance, yet these principles remain largely aspirational within the Greek context. Embedding equity would require participatory assessments, transparent data practices, and mechanisms that tie conservation obligations to tangible social returns.

Taken together, the Greek case demonstrates that governability arises not only from institutional architecture but from the quality of interaction among state agencies, civil society, and local communities. Strengthening governance, therefore, requires combining the advantages of central coordination with structured, meaningful participation at the regional and local levels. Transparent reporting, participatory monitoring, co-designed management priorities, and open-data systems can bridge these levels, aligning national strategic direction with local legitimacy. The challenge ahead is to move beyond formal inclusion and toward a governance culture that values learning, fairness, and shared responsibility.

6. Conclusions

This study examined the (in)governability of Greece’s protected area system through a bridged analytical framework that integrates classical theories of institutional fit and interactive governance with contemporary equity-oriented assessment approaches. By assessing governance performance across the five core principles: legitimacy, direction, performance, accountability, and fairness, the analysis shows that successive institutional reforms have improved administrative coherence but have not yet produced a fully governable or socially legitimate system.

Empirically, the analysis confirms a persistent imbalance between functional and procedural dimensions of governance, already detailed in the Discussion. The recent re-centralization of protected area governance under the Natural Environment and Climate Change Agency (NECCA) has strengthened coordination, standardized procedures, and improved resource stability, addressing long-standing functional misfits related to fragmentation and capacity. Direction and performance show moderate improvement, particularly in relation to EU compliance, monitoring, and reporting obligations. However, these gains have not been matched by equivalent progress in legitimacy, accountability, and fairness. Participation remains largely consultative, transparency mechanisms are limited, and equity considerations, especially benefit-sharing and recognition of local rights, remain weakly institutionalized.

While the absence of clear legal and institutionally approved provisions for each protected area remains a major bottleneck for the evolution of Greece’s protected areas system, a distinct, the core governance challenge is identified: a deficit in procedural fit and social legitimacy. While Greece’s protected area system has evolved toward greater administrative efficiency, however, it continues to struggle with trust deficits, limited stakeholder influence, and weak reflexive learning. Monitoring and reporting systems tend to prioritize upward accountability and compliance rather than adaptive feedback and co-learning, reinforcing a pattern of “reporting without learning.” As a result, governance arrangements risk remaining technically robust but socially fragile. From a comparative perspective, the Greek case reflects broader Southern European patterns, where EU-driven conservation reforms often prioritize coordination and compliance over participatory depth. However, Greece’s post-2020 trajectory illustrates a particularly pronounced form of re-centralization, which may be best understood as a transitional phase is still evolving. The analysis suggests that functional consolidation can create the conditions for improved governability, but only if it is followed by deliberate efforts to embed equity, transparency, and meaningful participation within centralized structures.

Looking forward, improving the governability of protected areas in Greece requires moving beyond institutional redesign toward governance refinement. Priority actions include strengthening participatory mechanisms with real decision-making influence, and co-management opportunity, institutionalizing equity assessments (such as SAGE) within the protected areas governance monitoring framework, enhancing transparency through open-data and public reporting, and creating feedback loops that link evaluation results to policy revision. Such measures would align national practice more closely with the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and the IUCN (2024) guidelines on equitable governance [20].

In conclusion, the governability of protected areas depends not only on coherent administrative systems but also on perceived fairness, trust, and shared ownership of conservation outcomes. Greece’s experience demonstrates that conservation effectiveness is ultimately a social as much as an ecological achievement. Embedding equity and reflexivity within governance structures is therefore not an optional normative ambition, but a necessary condition for durable and adaptive protected area governance.