Governance & Biodiversity: A Multinational Analysis by the GEM-CON-BIO research project

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Case study report: Use Nationally of Wild Resources across Europe (UNWIRE)

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Policy Guidelines for EU Development Policy: Biodiversity Benefits from Community Governance

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Deliverable D7.2 Report on the state of the art on governance types and ecosystem management

Introduction

In Europe, possibly more than anywhere else, human societies have altered the landscapes and species that occupy them to such an extent that many of our biodiversity rich areas are reliant on some form of human management. In recent times our ability to extract natural resources or modify our ecosystems has increased exponentially and is having strongly deleterious effects on biodiversity and our future wellbeing (Schr?ter et al 2005). In fact these two aspects of our living world - biodiversity and human wellbeing - are so closely intertwined that it is difficult to separate them. With few exceptions, the landscapes we protect for their value in sustaining biodiversity require some form of management and are surrounded by intensively used areas. Coupled with this is the fact that we now protect more of the European continent than ever before, some 18% of the European Union is protected under Natura 2000, and yet we still witness strong rates of species decline. Political targets have been established and policies have been put in place that address this decline. However, much of their focus is not on nature protection legislation or activities, but rather it is focused on those sectors of natural resource use and economic development that have greatest impact on the economy. The GEM-CON-BIO project was developed with the view that only through focusing on the equitable and sustainable management of natural resources important for biodiversity, rather than on economic development, will it be possible to maintain levels of biodiversity in Europe. Biodiversity underpins much of the ability of ecosystems to provide functions and as such is a key component that warrants special attention. Thus throughout this project we study the interaction between the institutions and processes used to govern our ecosystems and their resulting impacts on biodiversity.

This paper presents a summary of the analytical framework of the GEM-CON-BIO project. Chapter 2 identifies key research questions. We then introduce the concepts and ideas that will shape the later analytical components of the project (Chapter 3). We start with concepts associated with ecosystems and the role of biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem functions. Then we consider the processes that have led to the development of the ecosystem approach for both biodiversity conservation and natural resource management. In Chapter 4 we focus on the institutions and processes (i.e. the governance) used to manage natural resources and set out the general features of the analysis framework used within this project. We define "biodiversity governance" as the way society at all scales manages its social, economic, and regulatory affairs with the aim to conserve ecosystem function and biodiversity.

Developing a cogent analytical framework that is able to identify the key features of the process and can identify the areas of study is a difficult task. Within this report we recognise that in addressing the complexity of ecosystems and the diversity of tools and interactions involved in their management there has to be a focus. Our focus is governance and in Chapter 5 we discuss how the framework we propose compares with the leading analysis methodologies currently employed and provide a detailed discussion of the components of the GEM-CON-BIO framework and the types of questions and data that they should contain.

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