The ecosystem services of forests and specially protected areas and the effectiveness of local self-governance in Armenia. Interdisciplinary perspectives

The present project proposes to assess the effectiveness of LCAs in the fields of forest and protected areas on the basis of both internal and external criteria. The legal objectives and purposes of the legislation on local governance will serve as internal criteria, whereas the ecosystem-services and benefits of forests and protected areas as external criteria for the evaluation. The assessment of effectiveness against the objectives of the legislation in force has the promise to uncover the current state of local governance in the field of forests and protected areas, whereas the application of the external criteria allows to rethink the role of ecosystem-services, and secondly, to evaluate the effectiveness of local governance from the perspective of the sustainable use and conservation of those services and benefits.