Between principles and practice: exploring transformative discourses in a Dutch National Park

Abstract Transformative change is essential to halt the worldwide decline in biodiversity. Therefore, conservation efforts must extend beyond the traditional approach of protected areas to address the complex drivers of this decline. Landscape-oriented partnerships, such as partnership-based national parks, are emerging as potential instruments for this change. To be truly transformative, we assume that such partnerships must be underpinned by a shared discourse reflecting the principles of transformative governance. Drawing on transformative change and transformative governance theory combined with Q-methodology, we have developed an approach to examining the transformative elements of partnership discourses. We applied this approach to National Park Hollandse Duinen in the Netherlands, a partnership-based national park whose vision holds transformative potential. Our study incorporated seven exploratory interviews, twenty-eight Q-methodology interviews, a workshop and participant observation in eleven meetings. Our analysis revealed four distinct partnership discourses, each of which contained transformative elements. However, none of them were fully aligned with our transformative governance framework. This finding highlights that different ideas on transformative governance do not automatically align, and that endorsing one element does not guarantee support for others. Furthermore, partners perceived tensions between transformative governance principles and the realities of partnership practice, raising questions about the potential of such partnerships to contribute to transformative change.