sustainability Article Improving Governance Systems of National Parks: How the Instrument of a ‘Governance Scan’ Can Contribute Jasper Hessel Heslinga 1, * and Stefan Hartman 1,2   Citation: Heslinga, J.H.; Hartman, S. Improving Governance Systems of National Parks: How the Instrument of a ‘Governance Scan’ Can Contribute. Sustainability 2021, 13, 10811. https://doi.org/10.3390/ su131910811 Academic Editor: Fabio Carlucci Received: 23 August 2021 Accepted: 25 September 2021 Published: 29 September 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 European Tourism Futures Institute, Academy of Leisure and Tourism, NHL Stenden University, P.O. Box 1298, 8900 CG Leeuwarden, The Netherlands; stefan.hartman@nhlstenden.com 2 Department of Cultural Geography, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, P.O. Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands * Correspondence: jasper.heslinga@nhlstenden.com Abstract: This paper presents a diagnostics tool that we refer to as a ‘governance scan’ and discusses how this tool can contribute to improving governance systems of National Parks. This governance scan combines an analytical framework and an approach to have better understanding of these gover- nance systems. Understanding how National Parks are managed is crucial to achieve improvements and steer towards more sustainable future situations. Governance systems are a fundamental aspect of this, being understood as “associational networks of public, private, civil society actors and how they engage in the making, setting and implementation of rules at various geographical scales”. How these systems are organized and function in practice can greatly shape conservation and development outcomes and hence future states of National Parks. The purpose of this paper is to; (1) elaborate on how this scan is rooted in the literature to explain its theoretical foundation and (2) step-by-step instruct how it is made applicable to use in practice. As an illustrative example, we discuss lessons learned from the application of the governance scan in the real-life context of the recently established ‘New Land’ National Park, located in The Netherlands. We conclude that the scan works as a diagnostics tool, to provide an overview of governance systems in place, facilitate knowledge transfer and discussions among different stakeholders, and set priorities in decision-making processes. Keywords: sustainable tourism; protected areas; landscape management; resilience; governance; stakeholder management; tourism policy and planning 1. Introduction National Parks have a long history and tradition [1]. The concept of a National Park was coined in the United States 150 years ago and has since spread to other parts of the world. Many National Parks find themselves more and more in the process of transition [2]. In recent years, the debate is increasingly focused on the changing role of National Parks. It is no longer solely about fulfilling conservation and protection goals [3]. National Parks are increasingly challenged to anticipate to several societal needs [1,4,5], such as emerging processes such as climate change, pollution/urbanisation (CO 2 , NOx), and especially in the context of tourism: increasing visitor pressure [5,6]. National Parks are challenged to be(come), at the same time, both robust to endure and cope with possible factors that cause disturbance and flexible to adapt to changing needs, challenges and opportunities that continually arise [7]. Hence, robust means that parks have a certain richness and resilience that makes them resistant to impact or disruption. Flexible means that the parks are able to move along with and co-evolve to the dynamics of society. To be able to co-evolve requires (the capacity for) adaptation [8]. Adaptation can involve nature development or species management, embedding new functions such as tourism and recreation or housing, implementing new revenue models, new organizational structures, etc. Ideally, processes of adaptation will enrich the qualities and values of a National Park and thus strengthen Sustainability 2021, 13, 10811. https://doi.org/10.3390/su131910811 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability