The LIFE PAME-Europe project sets out to create a new framework for Management Effectiveness within Europe. It builds upon the best of what already exists to create unifying approach for Protected Areas and reporting agencies in Europe. The project is supported by an External Advisory Board, made up of experts in Management Effectiveness.
LIFE PAME-Europe External Advisory Board and project partners in Helsinki, June 2025
Created by experts, for practitioners
The demands on Protected Areas are many. As such, the LIFE PAME-Europe project will create a Management Effectiveness framework that supports those on the ground, as well as reporting agencies. By collecting data in a unified way, it will support better understanding trends and developments of biodiversity in Europe. This will ensure Protected Area managers better understand what is working – and what is not – and can adapt their management accordingly.
Purpose
The Advisory Board will be a technical resource centre, providing support, inputs and recommendations for the duration of the whole project. Get to know them here!
Vedran Nikolić – DG Environment
Vedran is a marine biologist and currently deputy head of the Nature Conservation Unit in the European Commission’s DG Environment. He has significant experience in coordinating implementation of EU nature conservation policy and legislation, in particular related to the Natura 2000 network and EU Biodiversity strategy protected area targets. Vedran has initiated and coordinated the current work towards an EU methodology to assess protected areas management effectiveness.
Henk Zingstra – Eurosite & Wetlands International
Henk Zingstra started his career as a site manager for the State Forest Service in the Netherlands managing heathlands, peatlands and other wetland habitats. He was also project manager of several projects in the field of nature protection and integrated water resources management in a various European countries. Amongst others he acted as chief technical advisor of a project that introduced the Habitats and Birds Directives in Slovakia. He was also leading a project that brought the former Yugoslav countries together to support the establishment of the Sava River Basin Commission and to develop an ecological network along the Sava River. While working for Wageningen University and Research he organized various trainings on integrated management planning for protected areas and was leading projects to design protected areas management plans. Currently he is self employed and works for Wetlands International Europe and Eurosite. For Wetlands International he is managing a project that is looking into initiating transboundary river and landscape restoration work on the Latorica River shared between Ukraine and Slovakia. For Eurosite he is chairing the Eurosite Expert Group on Management Planning that is organizing study tours and webinars on topics relevant for site managers and working on the design of a Management Toolkit for site managers.
Sue Stolton – Equilibrium Research
Sue Stolton established Equilibrium Research in partnership with Nigel Dudley in the 1990s. Equilibrium focuses on finding practical solutions to conservation challenges, from concept, to implementation, to evaluation of impact. Much of this work focusses on protected areas including field research and projects, training and production of a wide of range of publications including technical guidelines, research reports, methodologies, journal papers and books.
Sue has developed and applied protected area management effectiveness (PAME) assessment systems around the world. She helped lead the development of the most widely used tool, the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) and has assisted application of the tool in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. She is a co-author of WCPA’s PAME framework and worked with colleagues at IUCN and UNESCO to develop the Enhancing our Heritage methodology, advised on the World Heritage Outlook methodology and the Periodic Reporting tool. Sue recently led a team to undertake a system level assessment of management of all the sites under the government agency Parks and Wildlife Finland. Other current initiatives involve building better links between the METT and the SMART and SAGE tools, thus linking field data and governance approaches to assessments. She also helped develop management standards for tigers (Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards – CA|TS) and most recently for jaguars and river dolphins (CA|RDS).
Dr Brian MacSharry – European Environment Agency
Dr Brian MacSharry is an expert on protected areas at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen. Brian has over 20 years’ experience in biodiversity conservation, with a strong focus on protected area at national, European, and global levels.
Brian began his career managing protected area datasets for the Irish government before moving to work at the European level, on Natura 2000 sites and broader protected area networks. He then played a key role in the redevelopment of the World Database on Protected Areas and the Protected Planet website,
Since 2018, Brian has led the EEA’s work on protected areas, focusing on data reporting, structure, and analysis. His expertise spans the development of web portals, reports, indicators, and policy support for both EU and global biodiversity commitments.
Diego García Ventura – FUNGOBE/EUROPARC-Spain
Diego is an environmental expert who has developed his professional career around the management and conservation of protected areas, both in public and private entities. Since 2010, he has been involved in several projects related to the development of Protected Area management standards and the evaluation and monitoring of the Natura 2000 management in Spain, as part of FUNGOBE/EUROPARC-Spain staff.
He has recently participated in technical assistance focused on systems for Management Effectiveness Assessment in Spanish Protected Areas (Spanish National Parks Network, Natura 2000 Network), and teaches these topics in several master’s degree programmes.
Ben Ross – NatureScot
Dr. Ben Ross – Ben is the Head of Protected Areas, Innovation and Data for Scotland’s Nature Agency, NatureScot. He is leading transformational work in Scotland, catalysed by 30×30, to ensure that existing and new approaches to area-based conservation can work alongside wider conservation policy to play the strongest possible role in reversing biodiversity loss in Scotland. A strong theme in this work is planning, managing and monitoring to Deliver Healthy Ecosystems to ensure management effectiveness. Ben has worked in conservation for over 25 years and prior to his current work has worked on protected species management as well as wildlife regulation. Ben was part of the team of experts responsible for the most recent system-level management effectiveness evaluation of Parks and Wildlife Finland.
Other members of the LIFE PAME-Europe External Advisory Board include Micheal O’Briain, expert in EU policy, Veljo Runnuel, Estonian Environmental Board, and Eva Knizatkova of the Czech Nature Conservation Agency. We thank all members for their essential support in delivering the project outcomes!
