Abstract—Urban planning, in particular on protected landscape areas, demands an increasing role of public participation within the frame of the efficiency of sustainable planning process. The development of urban planning actions in Protected Landscape areas, as Sintra-Cascais Natural Park, should perform a methodological process that is structured over distinct sequential stages, providing the development of a continuous, interactive, integrated and participative planning. From the start of Malveira da Serra and Janes Plan process, several public participation actions were promoted, in order to involve the local agents, stakeholders and the population in the decision of specific local key issues and define the appropriate priorities within the goals and strategies previously settled. As a result, public participation encouraged an innovative process that guarantees the efficiency of sustainable urban planning and promotes a sustainable new way of living in community. Keywords—Protected landscape areas, Public participation, Sustainable development, Sustainable planning, Urban planning. I.

Abstract: Building a more environmentally stable future clearly requires some vision and as a basic component of any nationally strategy it should be sustainable and sound. Environmental problems are not recent developments, and in attempting to remedy them in the past, we have created solutions utilizing the existing scientific and economic framework that has been available. However, in recent decades it has become apparent that these problems encompass more than just science and economics, and a new innovative model is needed to supplant the traditional decision-making methods. This new model is called Collaborative Environmental Planning (CEP), and it is being used increasingly as an approach to solving resource issues and problems. In this paper we will discuss the theory behind CEP and how it has been utilized to date and compare it to how it was theoretically anticipated to work, especially in the revitalization of faltering resource-based economies.