Castro-Pardo, Mónica dePérez-Rodríguez, FernandoMartín-Martín, José MaríaAzevedo, João2018-02-192020-01-032018-01-192020-01-032019Castro-Pardo, Mónica; Pérez-Rodríguez, Fernando; Martín-Martín, José María; Azevedo, João C. (2019). Planning for democracy in protected rural areas: Application of a voting method in a Spanish-Portuguese reserve. Land. ISSN 2073-445X. 8, p. 1-17http://hdl.handle.net/10198/20113The planning of protected rural areas is usually defined by institutional decision-makers without considering the preferences of the local communities that live on the land, which frequently leads to conflicts in landmanagement. This paper proposes a votingmethod based on the Borda count to rank themanagement goals of a protected rural area. Themethodwas applied in a Spanish-Portuguese reserve called Iberian Plateauwith the aimof collecting the preferences of institutional decision-makers (government and scientists) and rural landowners (farmers and businesspersons). Regarding the conservation and development objectives, the results show differences in spatial planning when only the preferences of institutional decision-makers are taken into consideration, as opposed to when the preferences of landowners are included within the analysis.engLand planningParticipatory techniquesProtected rural areaVotingjournal article10.3390/land81001452073-445X