Sustainable Management of Natural Areas: The Role of Population to Support the Protection Categories

The increase of environmental problems due to the tourist activity has given rise to conservation of environment in destinations. In this sense, regional, national, and international regulatory provisions have proliferated during the last years. This article analyses the perception in the society about this kind of distinguishing signs, for the specific case of protected natural areas. Since local population participates in the appropriate development of protected areas, the knowledge and the communication of protection’s forms are necessary to achieve the purpose for which they were created. This article uses a structural equation model to know the relationship between implication of local population, knowledge and perception of forms to protect natural areas, and the influence on the support of actions related with these forms of protection. This article represents a sustainable innovation with the aim of getting recommendations about the use of distinguishing signs by tourist authorities, to achieve a good knowledge and communication of these signs, and an optimal management of destinations. The main result is that the perception of the effects produced by figures of protection influences on the support of actions related with these figures; in this way, the more positive perception is, the higher the support is.