Report On Governance Types and Ecosystem Management Characteristics CTMIUCN

Project no: 028827
Project acronym: GEM-CON-BIO
Project title: Governance and Ecosystems Management for the CONservation of

BIOdiversity
Instrument: STREP
Thematic Priority: 7 – Citizens and Governance in a knowledge-based society
Deliverables:
D 2.2 Report on governance types
D 3.2 Report on ecosystem management characteristics
Due date of deliverables: 31/6/2006

Actual submission date: 17/10/2006
Start date of project: 1/2/2006 Duration: 24 months
Organisation name of lead contractors for this deliverables: CTM (D2.2) – IUCN (D3.2)
Revision: final
Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme (2002-2006)
Dissemination Level
PU Public 9
PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services)
RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)
CO Confidential, only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services)
GEM-CON-BIO Ecosystems and Governance
REVISION CONTROL
Deliverables numbers D 2.2 and D 3.2

Report on governance types (D 2.2) and
Deliverables names Report on ecosystem management
characteristics (D 3.2)
WPs numbers WP2 - WP3
WPs responsible CTM (WP2) – IUCN(WP3)
OTHER
EDITION DATE PAGES COMMENTARY AUTHOR
CONTRIBUTORS
V. Galaz – T. Hahn –
1 20/8/2006 60 Draft Version A. Terry All partners
2 7/9/2006 61 Draft Version All partners
A. Terry
All partners and
3 16/10/2006 81 Final Version invited experts during
A. Terry
Stockholm meeting
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GEM-CON-BIO Technical Report
Ecosystem Governance in Europe
Part A: Ecosystem Management in Europe
Part B: The Governance of Natural Resources
Part C: An Integrated Approach
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Contents
Preface ................................................................................................... 6
PART A: Ecosystem Management in Europe ...................................................... 7
1. Introduction.......................................................................................... 8
1.1 Aims and Objectives of GEM-CON-BIO ........................................................ 8
1.2 Outline of the Report ............................................................................ 9
2. Biodiversity and Ecosystems in Europe ....................................................... 10
2. Biodiversity and Ecosystems in Europe ....................................................... 10
2.1 Considering ecosystems and their goods and services.................................... 10
2.2 The role of biodiversity within ecosystems ................................................ 12
2.3 Natural Resources .............................................................................. 15
2.4 Measuring Biodiversity ......................................................................... 15
2.5 Biodiversity in Europe ......................................................................... 15
2.6 Major ecosystems in Europe .................................................................. 16
2.6.1 Europe’s landscapes ...................................................................... 16
2.6.2 Farmland ................................................................................... 18
2.6.3 Forests ...................................................................................... 18
2.6.4 Coastal and Marine Ecosystems ......................................................... 19
2.6.5 Freshwater Ecosystems .................................................................. 20
2.7 Drivers of Ecosystem change ................................................................. 20
2.7.1 Main Direct Pressures on ecosystems .................................................. 22
PART B: The Governance of Natural Resources................................................. 25
3. The Management and Governance of Natural Resources.................................. 26

3.1. The Use and Management of Natural Resources.......................................... 26
3.1.1 The ecosystem approach and sustainable use........................................ 27
3.1.2 Efforts at the global level ............................................................... 28
3.1.3 The Addis Ababa Principles.............................................................. 29
3.1.4 Efforts at the European Level........................................................... 29
3.1.5 Efforts at the local level ................................................................. 32
3.2 Ecosystem management regimes ............................................................ 32
3.2.1 Property rights ............................................................................ 34
3.2.2 Ecological knowledge and social learning............................................. 34
3.2.3 Type of collaboration among actors ................................................... 35
3.2.4 Policy Communities and Bridging Organizations ..................................... 36
3.3 Governance theory and concepts ............................................................ 36
3.3.1 Why is Governance Important?.......................................................... 37
3.3.2 How does GEM-CON-BIO define Governance?......................................... 37
3.3.3 What are the Linkages to Ecosystem Management? ................................. 38
3.4 Interlinked Challenges for Biodiversity, ECM and Governance – Pressing Research
Needs .............................................................................................. 39
3.5 Defining Biodiversity Governance Types.................................................... 40
PART C: An Integrated Approach .................................................................. 43
4. The GEM-CON-BIO Analysis Framework ....................................................... 44

4.1 What should be addressed in a Framework? ............................................... 44
4.2 Review of recent frameworks in the literature............................................ 44
4.2.1 The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. .......................... 45
4.2.2 The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) Framework ......................... 45
4.2.3 The Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Framework (RSES) ................... 45
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4.2.4 The PSR / DPSIR approach ............................................................... 46

4.2.5 The GEM-CON-BIO Framework .......................................................... 47
5. Implementing the Analysis Framework ....................................................... 51
5.1 Key Methodological Issues..................................................................... 51
5.1.1 Using the same framework systematically across cases ............................ 51
5.1.2 The Importance of Assessing Change in the Case Studies .......................... 52
5.1.3 The Need to Study both Biodiversity Governance Failure, and Success.......... 52
5.1.4 Increasing the Number of Observation/Cases ........................................ 53
5.1.5 Quantitative or Qualitative Analysis? .................................................. 54
5.1.6 Concluding Comments.................................................................... 54
5.2 Data sources..................................................................................... 55
5.2.1 Initial Conditions .......................................................................... 55
5.2.2 Governance Capacity ..................................................................... 57
5.2.3 Societal Attributes ........................................................................ 59
5.2.4 Natural Resource Management Objectives and Decision Making .................. 61
5.2.5 Governance Processes.................................................................... 62
5.2.6 Impacts ..................................................................................... 63
5.2.7 Change in the State of Biodiversity .................................................... 63
5.2.8 Evaluation .................................................................................. 63
Conclusions ............................................................................................. 64
Glossary ................................................................................................. 66
References.............................................................................................. 68
Annex 1: The Research Questions ................................................................. 75
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Preface
This report represents the first technical deliverables from the GEM-CON-BIO project.
Originally when the project was being developed two separate studies were foreseen.
These studies would review the state of ecosystems in Europe and present the role of
governance in biodiversity conservation. However as the project has been implemented, it
has become clear that the innovative approach of GEM-CON-BIO is that it takes an
integrated approach to the role of governance and ecosystem management for
biodiversity. The project recognises that only through a study of the processes and
interactions involved in the management of our ecosystems can be hope to gain insight
into the future tools that will foster the sustainable use of natural resources. Thus with
this approach in mind the authors decided to combine their efforts. Andrew Terry from
the World Conservation Union (IUCN) worked on the text concerning the state of European
ecosystems, while Thomas Hahn and Victor Galaz both of Centre of Transdisciplinary
Environmental Research of Stockholm University carried out the review of governance
structures. The authors came together to develop the analytical framework presented
later in the report. It is this integrated framework that is the key output of this report as
it forms the basis for further study within the project. Therefore within this document we
present combined deliverables D3.2 on ecosystem management and D2.2 on governance.
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PART A: Ecosystem Management in Europe
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1. Introduction
In Europe, possibly more than anywhere else, human societies have has 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 (Schröter et al
2005). In fact these two aspects of our living world – biodiversity and human wellbeing -
have become 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 alone, and yet we still
witness strong rates of species decline. Political targets have been established to put in
place the policies that will address this decline. 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 which have greatest impact. It is against this
background that the GEM-CON-BIO project was developed with the view that only through
the equitable and sustainable management of natural resources will it be possible to
maintain levels of biodiversity in Europe. We share the prevailing view of the global
community that we must focus on the ecosystem level and then identify the services that
ecosystems provide. Only through the realistic valuation (in all senses of the term) of
ecosystems will be able to achieve some form of sustainable development. We take the
view that 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. Can we truly manage our
ecosystems in an equitable way to enhance our wellbeing and sustain biodiversity? It is a
fundamental question that this project will undertake to study.
1.1 Aims and Objectives of GEM-CON-BIO
GEM-CON-BIO aims to improve the scientific and conceptual understanding of governance

of biodiversity and natural resources. It will do so by dealing with the following particular
issues.
• Examining the ownership structure of particular areas with importance in the

conservation of biodiversity.
• Examining the governance and management structures of such areas.
• Identifying and studying governance structures and examples at local, national,
regional, European, or global level.
• Assessing the impact that different governance structures have in the conservation of
biodiversity and sustainable development.
• Assessing the socio-economic factors that are involved in the management of the
identified lands in different governance levels and EU countries.
• Recognizing and studying the needs and influence of social groups and economic
sectors in the management of these lands.
• Reviewing the positive and perverse incentives on local actions within current
environmental laws and other instruments of the EU and individual nations.
In order to meet the above outlined objective, GEM-CON-BIO has the following specific
and operational objectives:
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1. Identify existing governance types in relation to conservation of biodiversity; discuss

its findings in a workshop with renowned experts in the field.
2. Identify critical ecosystem management characteristics; discuss its findings in a
workshop with renowned experts in the field.
3. Develop and finalise a governance matrix linking governance types and critical
ecosystem management characteristics.
4. Identify and conduct research on a set of case studies (10-15 case studies) to show how
different governance approaches can be exercised in different ecosystems, using the
governance matrix suggested above.
5. Compare the “success” and “failure” of different approaches in Europe as to whether
good governance practices lead to better outcomes.
6. Draw lessons from the US experience, especially in the context of market-based
instruments for conservation.
1.2 Outline of the Report
This report acts as the opening paper for the project. We discuss the history and legacy of
natural resource management in Europe and we introduce the concepts and ideas that will
shape the later analytical components of the project (Chapter 2). 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 3 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 protect 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 we discuss how the framework we propose compares with the leading
analysis methodologies currently employed (Chapter 4). Finally in Chapter 5 we provide a
detailed discussion of the components of the framework and the types of questions and
data that they should contain.
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2. Biodiversity and Ecosystems in Europe

In Chapter 2 of this report we provide a summary discussion of the main ecological
concepts addressed within this project. We discuss the inter-related topics of ecosystems,
their goods and services, biodiversity and natural resources. Currently this terminology is
usually equally by different specialist and stakeholder groups. Figure 2.1 provides a
summary of how we view the relations between each of these topics. Biodiversity is
identified as providing the fundamental basis for the delivery of ecosystem goods and
services and “natural resources” is an anthropocentric term based on human values.
Not all Natural Resources are

based on biodiversity, e.g.
water.
Ecosystems Natural
Resources
Biodiversity
Biodiversity is seen as providing a For GEM-CON-BIO most interest

basis for ecosystems to deliver is those natural resources that
services. are based on biodiversity
Figure 2.1. A graphic summary of the relationship between the concepts of ecosystems,
biodiversity and natural resources. The figure aims to illustrate that the concepts are highly
related but retain key differences.
2.1 Considering ecosystems and their goods and services
Ecosystems are a relatively recent concept for ecological study, gaining prominence within
the last fifty years. Here we use the CBD definition of an ecosystem as a “dynamic
complex of plant, animal and micro-organism communities and their non-living
environment interacting as a functional unit”1. It is the dynamic interactions, sometimes
termed ecosystem processes, between the components of an ecosystem that define its
boundaries and these are irrespective of scale or location. Ecosystem processes occur at a
multitude of scales and finding the actual boundaries between ecosystems can be
difficult. Generally ecologists take a pragmatic approach that looks for assemblages of
strong links between components within an ecosystem compared to weak interactions with
components outside them. As biological diversity relates to the sum of the variability
within species (e.g. genetic), between species and between ecosystems2, it can be seen as
a key structural feature of ecosystems (MA 2005).
When discussing the different components of an ecosystem and then how they relate to
human wellbeing, there is a wide range of different terminologies used, and sometimes in
1
CBD Article 2
2
CBD Article 2
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a contradictory sense (De Groot et al 2002). Here we try to clearly state how ecosystems
are viewed within the workings of GEM-CON-BIO and these definitions will be used
throughout the project.
Table 2.1: Trends in the human use of Ecosystem Services around 2000 (Source: Millennium
Assessment 2005).
Human Enhanced/
Service Sub-category
Use Degraded
Provisioning Services
Food Crops Ï Ï
Livestock Ï Ï
Capture Fisheries Ð Ð
Aquaculture Ï Ï
Wild Plant and animal
NA Ð
products
Fibre Timber Ï +/-
Cotton, hemp, silk +/- +/-
Wood fuel +/- Ð
Genetic Resources Ï Ð
Biochemical, natural medicines
Ï Ð
and pharmaceuticals
Ornamental Resources NA NA
Fresh water Ï Ð
Regulating Services
Air quality Ï Ð
Climate regulation Global Ï Ï
Regional and local Ï Ð
Water regulation Ï +/-
Erosion regulation Ï Ð
Water purification and waste
Ï Ð
treatment
Disease regulation Ï +/-
Pest regulation Ï Ð
Pollination Ï Ð
Natural hazard regulation Ï Ð
Cultural Services
Cultural Diversity NA NA
Spiritual and religious values Ï Ð
Knowledge systems NA NA
Educational values NA NA
Inspiration NA NA
Aesthetic values Ï Ð
Social relations NA NA
Sense of place NA NA
Cultural heritage values NA NA
Recreation and tourism Ï +/-
Supporting Services
Soil formation Supporting Services
Photosynthesis by definition are not
Primary production included in this
Nutrient cycling analysis, as they would
Water cycling be double accounted
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Generally the starting point for studying an ecosystem comes from its structure, the
organisation and composition of an ecosystem’s components, and the processes which are
the interactions between these components (Naeem et al 2002, De Groot et al 2002). As
expected the structure and composition of an ecosystem are extremely important for its
function. There is considerable variation between the roles of species and functional units
(e.g. groups of species performing similar functions) within an ecosystem, which can also
change between habitats and ecosystems.
Much of the complexity of an ecosystem (its structure and processes) can be reduced to
contain a number of ecosystem functions; each of which represents the sum total of the
processes within one particular system. A definition of an ecosystem function is “the
capacity of natural processes and components to provide goods and services that satisfy
human needs, directly or indirectly” (De Groot 1992, De Groot et al 2002). It is important
to remember that the functions themselves do not need to convey direct or even indirect
benefits or value to humans. Sustained ecosystem processes and functions are necessary
for the production of ecosystem services whether or not we value, or even understand,
these processes and functions. Based on this definition, De Groot et al (2002) broadly
grouped these functions into four categories: 1) Regulation, 2) Habitat, 3) Production and
4) Information.
Out of this group of ecosystem functions, we can identify a set which have observable
benefits to human society and these are termed ecosystem goods and services. In this case
the definition of what is a good or a service is anthropocentric and based on their value to
humans (De Groot et al 2002). The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005) developed
a list of what it defined as Ecosystem Services which include the functions identified by De
Groot et al (2002), but focuses on their anthropogenic role (see Table 2.1). Within this
project we concentrate on the role ecosystem goods and services, as being those elements
that are most easily valued within a system of use of natural resources. It should also be
remembered that different components of an ecosystem will perform different functions,
especially when we consider biodiversity which underpins the delivery of most ecosystem
services.
Finally, when considering ecosystem goods and services, a distinction is often made
between those that provide direct benefits such as the production of a raw material and
those that provide indirect benefits (MA Glossary, MA 2005). This distinction, whereas may
serve in some cases to allow the better differentiation of services in economic and
valuation models, is otherwise difficult to make with most services.
2.2 The role of biodiversity within ecosystems
Biodiversity represents the sum of variation in genes, species and ecosystems (MA 2005).
This includes the variation found within species and also the interactions between
different species and assemblages. As such biodiversity underpins the provision of all
ecosystem services (see Figure 2.2). Although most measures of biodiversity assess species
richness, understanding the role of biodiversity requires data on trophic relations between
species, functional traits, abundance, distribution etc. Much of this information is lacking
and as yet, there have been few studies into the relationship between biodiversity,
ecosystem services and human wellbeing (MA 2005b).
The case of invasive species illustrates the importance of understanding the different
components of biodiversity within an ecosystem. Currently invasive alien species are
identified as one of the leading causes of biodiversity loss (MA 2005b). These are species
that can exist at normal densities within their native ranges, but on introduction into a
novel ecosystem can spread at fast rates usually out-competing local species. Alien species
may exist at low densities in particular habitats before becoming invasive and subtle
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changes in the ecosystem dynamics suddenly supply the necessary conditions for the
species to spread (e.g. Stockwell et al 2003).
Thus the key feature of biodiversity is the functional relationships between species within
an ecosystem. Although we have a good understanding of the role species play within an
ecosystem, for example the role of photosynthesis for primary production, we have only a
very limited understanding of the functional significance of biodiversity, for example the
role of grass diversity in supporting ecosystem productivity (Naeem et al 2002). In nature
conservation terms we assume that biodiversity should be maximized to ensure that
ecosystems can function, but there are numerous theories concerning the form this
relationship takes (Naeem et al 2002). Conversely when looking at extinctions,
considerable attention is placed on halting global extinction, however local extinction and
functional extinction (the reduction of a species population to a point that it can no longer
play a functional role) receive far less attention, but are equally damaging to the provision
of ecosystem services (MA 2005b). Hence, if we are interested in how biodiversity and
ecosystem services sustain human wellbeing we need to broaden our interest in “hot spot”
biodiversity areas and also assess ecosystem processes in “cold spots”, i.e. in areas with
relatively small number of species of which few are endemic but which are crucial to
human wellbeing (Ceballos et al. 2005).
Figure 2.2: The role of biodiversity within an ecosystem (MA 2005)
An important area of study of ecosystem management is functional redundancy. Within an

ecosystem there maybe several species, or assemblages, that perform similar functions,
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such as nitrogen fixation. The loss of one of these species may be deemed as acceptable
as other species can perform the same function and therefore there is redundancy in the
system. Conversely there will be some species that have a key function within the
ecosystem and their loss will have highly deleterious effects. With greater redundancy
there is a greater ‘insurance’ that an ecosystem can function in the face of change. This
brings us to the concept of ecosystem resilience. Resilience in this context is defined as
the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so
as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks (Walker
et al 2004). As with many of the terms used within ecosystem studies, resilience has a
broad definition. But it is one that is closely linked to our assessment of the role of
biodiversity within ecosystems and the ability of ecosystems to cope with Human induced
impacts (e.g. habitat destruction and fragmentation). It is important to note that within
an ecosystem, the capacity to buffer negative effects is not enough. The ecosystem must
be able to reorganize after disturbance, adapt to the new situation, and sustain important
ecosystem services. A non-resilient ecosystem facing disturbance will degrade or even flip
into less desirable states (Holling 2001). The importance of resilience needs to be further
borne in mind when considering the value of biodiversity. Biodiversity is often valued for
its components but in the true sense of its definition, the variety of all life, it is valuable
its ability to support ecosystem resilience (MA 2005b)
Table 2.2: Definition of Natural Resources as found in the European Commission Impact Assessment
to the Thematic Strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources (COM (2005) 670 final)
Resource Definition
Raw materials and biomass Including minerals (fossil energy carriers and metal
ores) and biomass. Fossil energy carriers, metal ores
and other minerals (e.g. gypsum, china clay) are non-
renewable in the sense that they cannot be replenished
within a human timeframe. Stocks are finite and are
diminishing because of their use in human activities. In
contrast, biomass is in principle renewable within the
human timeframe. It includes quickly renewable
resources, such as for example agricultural crops, and
slowly renewable resources, such as timber. However,
some of these resources used as raw
materials can be exhausted if they are overexploited
Environmental media E.g. air, water and soil. These resources sustain life and
produce biological resources. In contrast with raw
materials it is their declining quality that causes
concern. It is not a question of how much there is (with
the notable exception of soil), but what state they are in.
Flow resources E.g. wind, geothermal, tidal and solar energy. These
resources cannot be depleted, but require other
resources to exploit them. For example, energy,
materials and space are needed to build wind turbines or
solar cells.
Space Physical space is required to produce or sustain all the

above-mentioned resources. Land-use for human
settlements, infrastructure, industry, mineral extraction,
agriculture and forestry are some examples.
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2.3 Natural Resources
All humans are directly or indirectly reliant on natural resources for survival. Natural
resources in their broadest sense refer to all the elements of the physical environment
that are exploited by humans and hence are ascribed an economic value (monetary or
cultural). It is possible to define natural resources in a number of ways, for example
whether they are biotic or abiotic or by their renewal rate (renewable, semi-renewable or
non-renewable). In its strategy on the sustainable use of natural resources, the European
Commission uses four categories (see table 2.2): raw materials and biomass,
environmental media, flow resources and space (EC 2005). Within GEM-CON-BIO, we focus
on the provision ecosystem goods and services and this will require the analysis of
different natural resource types be they biotic or abiotic, renewable or non-renewable.
The project considers the goods and services that are derived (used and managed) from
major resources in cultivated lands, forests and aquatic (marine and freshwater)
ecosystems.
2.4 Measuring Biodiversity
As discussed above biodiversity plays a critical role in the ability of ecosystems to provide
goods and services to humans. Measuring the state of biodiversity is extremely complex
and as such there are no real measures of biodiversity currently in use. Instead we use a
number of indicators of elements of biodiversity that highlight changes to biodiversity over
time. As we increasingly focus on the goods and services that ecosystems provide, and
consequently the ability of biodiversity to sustain them we must be careful in the choice
of proxy indicators (e.g. hot spot areas and red listed species versus ecosystem processes
in cold spot areas).
When assessing biodiversity we can focus on three major levels: genetic, species and
ecosystem. Monitoring programmes almost completely focus on the species level, primarily
using species richness (i.e. the number of different species in an area) and then
abundance (the number of each species in an area). This approach only allows us to see
one aspect of biodiversity which are the elements that make up ecosystems. There are
also several issues associated with the use of species, primarily that it is a fairly arbitrary
concept that is used rigidly by conservation biologists and fairly liberally by taxonomists
(Isaac et al 2004). Species richness, although it correlates with ecosystem health, does not
yield information on genetic diversity, trophic relationships or functional traits (MA
2005b).
In Europe, there is a relatively rich source of biodiversity monitoring data with all
countries managing species monitoring schemes. Furthermore through the adoption of
indicators at the global level through the CBD and then at the pan-European and EU level,
greater effort and resources are being placed in the developed of a series of state and
trend indicators for elements of biodiversity (the Streamlining European 2010 Biodiversity
Indicators (SEBI2010) process). The best known data is undoubtedly from the long term
monitoring of bird species (e.g. Gregory et al 2002, Birdlife International 2004). Some
countries also have good monitoring data for vascular plants, mammals and commercially
exploited fish species (The Royal Society 2003), but in general we lack sufficient data to
monitor the long term trends in the state of species.
2.5 Biodiversity in Europe
Europe contains a wide range of biomes and habitat types within its 11 distinct
biogeographic regions. In general these terrestrial habitats are estimated to contain 1,000
vertebrate species, 10,000 plants and over 100,000 different invertebrates (EEA 2005).
Species richness varies across Europe, generally increasing in the South, with areas of low
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richness in Northern Europe. The most biodiversity rich areas are to be found in the
mountainous regions and the Mediterranean basin; these areas (the Caucasus and the
Mediterranean) provide Europe’s two biodiversity hotspots3.
Europe is the second most densely populated continent in world (32 people/km2), and
produces 27% of the worlds GDP (UN 2001). Population density decreases across Europe -
ranging from 166 people/km2 in Western Europe to 16 people/km2 in Eastern Europe. As a
result, the state of biodiversity in Europe is characterised by the degree of association
between people and nature. Generally, moving from Western to Eastern Europe and the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Europe’s habitats have received less
modification or conversion. Habitats in Western Europe are largely framed within a
network of farmed and urbanised landscapes, however the CIS contains vast areas of
wilderness (EEA 2003).
Europe contains around 8.5% of all the globally threatened vertebrate species (37% of
which are mammals, 15% birds, 4% amphibians, 10% reptiles and 34% freshwater fish)4. It is
more difficult to accurately gauge the level of threat faced by plant taxa, but Europe
contains approximately 2.5% of all globally threatened species (excluding the Caucasus,
EEA 2003).
2.6 Major ecosystems in Europe
2.6.1 Europe’s landscapes
With the introduction of the ecosystem level focus and the increased attention put on
connectivity, our focus has shifted from habitats to landscapes. Using the term
‘landscape’ is already an anthropomorphism as the notion includes not only the biological
functions of the ecosystem, but also the services it provides to humans (EEA 2005). A view
of Europe’s landscapes can be seen in Figure 2.3. Here it is possible to see that the vast
majority of Europe’s landscapes have been modified by humans for some sort of resource
production; less than one fifth is free from some form of management (EEA 2005). These
changes to the landscape have created many of Europe’s habitats and the opening of
forested areas also presented opportunities for species to expand and colonise new areas.
Now much of the continent’s biodiversity is found on semi-natural grasslands, which
require continuous extensive management to sustain populations. Many of the most
important semi-natural areas are found in South Eastern Europe, including areas such as
puszta and steppe grasslands and alpine meadows (EEA 2005).
The landscape perspective offers an important concept for GEM-CON-BIO. It is broader

than the ecosystem, with some definitions of the landscape as containing two or more
ecosystems (Sanderson & Harris 2000). It also contains a mixture of social and ecological
perspectives as the structure, form and ability of a landscape is shaped by the underlying
ecological conditions and the decisions of policy-makers and land users. Protecting these
landscapes was until recently predominantly achieved through protected areas legislation
(at different organisational levels). However as the area of land under protection
increases, and biodiversity loss continues, we have become aware that species require a
range of habitats that are connected. Protected areas can act as the core zones of much
larger networks of ecosystems allowing migration and dispersal. In this section we provide
3
Defined as an area supporting over 1500 endemic plant species, 0.5% of global total. Also it must have lost over 70% of its
primary vegetation (Myers 1988).
4
Based on IUCN categories.
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a summary review of some of Europe’s dominant land use types (farmland, forestry and
freshwater ecosystems).
Figure 2.3: The dominant landscape types in Europe, based on Corine 2000 land cover data
(reproduced from EEA 2005).
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2.6.2 Farmland
The twentieth century witnessed the mass transformation of natural areas into agriculture
and the modernisation of traditional agricultural practices into intensified production. This
process was at the heart of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) since its inception.
Since the 1950’s the expansion of arable land in Europe has largely stabilized and
increased production has been achieved through intensification (MA 2005b). Currently
arable land and grasslands under some form of management cover about 45% of Europe
and are estimated to contain around 50% of the species (EEA 2005). Therefore they are
very important for biodiversity. At the same time there are some key conservation issues
such as intensification of farming in the new EU Member States and the abandonment of
land in rural areas where intensification is not profitable, which are threatening the status
of species on farmland. Current changes to agricultural lands are a complex mix of
conversion of marginal lands, conversion of arable land to pasture, and abandonment
(either with afforestation or without). These are all largely the responses of farmers to
changing economic and market conditions (EEA 2005), partly in response to changes in the
orientation of the CAP.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) has undertaken considerable work on high nature
value farmland which is estimated to cover between 15-25% of the landscape. Due to
increasing specialization in breeding, global homogenization and intensification there has
been a considerable reduction in the genetic diversity of domestic plants and animals. In
many cases these species are better adapted to utilizing marginal conditions than
currently favoured breeds.
2.6.3 Forests
Forests cover approximately 30% of Europe, and represent an important natural resource
in social, economic and ecological terms and contain a major reservoir of European
biodiversity. Forest areas also form large parts of the European protected area network
and constitute ‘stepping-stones’ and corridors for connectivity between different
protected areas. Since the 1970’s, forested areas have been slowly growing, which is
primarily due to afforestation (either natural or artificial) on abandoned farmland (EEA
2005). However old growth forests, which are important in terms of biodiversity, continue
to decline. About three quarters of these forested areas are considered by the UNECE/FAO
(2000) to be undisturbed, however the vast majority are within the Russian Federation.
Excluding the main boreal forest regions (Russian Federation, Sweden, Finland and
Norway), only 1% of the remaining forest can be categorised as undisturbed (EEA 2003).
Forest condition is generally measured through the condition of the crowns of trees.
Crown condition decreased rapidly in the 1970’s and 1980’s through atmospheric pollution,
e.g. sulphur dioxide emission. However as the pressure from acidification has decreased in
recent years, there is increasing data to suggest that climate change will pose a significant
threat to forests in the future.
Forests serve important ecosystem functions including the maintenance of the physical
and chemical stability of soil, groundwater protection, local climate regulation and refugia
for biodiversity. They are of course mainly exploited for timber, but also non-timber
forest products are very important for rural communities. Central European countries have
started to report declines in the forest available for wood harvest as countries increasingly
utilise forests for nature conservation or recreation (EEA 2005b).
Historically sustainable use has long been a component of the management of European
forests. Unlike other areas of trans-boundary resources in Europe, there is no single
policy, such as the Common Agricultural or Fisheries Policies of the EU, to govern the
- 18 -
management, conservation and utilisation of forests. Instead Europe’s forests are

governed by many different initiatives that act at local, national and international levels.
Currently the EU has a number of strategies, action plans and directives used to manage
its forest resources. This in part reflects the different heritage of forest management
practices in each country and the differing economic and environmental pressures faced.
However such differences lead to difficulties in the generation of inventory statistics and
the monitoring and reporting of changes to forest ecosystems (EEA 2003).
2.6.4 Coastal and Marine Ecosystems
Coastal and marine ecosystems provide important services that people have relied on for
millennia. In Europe they provide some of the most productive and yet threatened
ecosystems (EEA 2006). This change is also continuing unabated; between 1990 and 2000,
the EU lost more coastal wetland than during previous decades primarily due to
infrastructure development (EEA 2006). The most significant threats come from industrial
and recreational uses of coastal areas that concentrate in the areas of high biodiversity
such as the Mediterranean Sea. Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM) is being
promoted to combat this destruction of habitats in coastal areas. This approach can be
viewed as an equivalent of ecosystem management for coastal areas. It recognises three
key principles; the importance of the connection between marine and terrestrial
processes, the role of human activities along the coast and the integration of different
sectors and stakeholders in the management of coastal areas.
With respect to Marine ecosystems, the UN identifies 13 large marine ecosystems in the
pan-European region; of which the most heavily used are the Baltic Sea, North Sea,
Atlantic Ocean (European parts), Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. Each of these
ecosystems has specific features that influence the extent of the impacts they face, for
example the shallow Baltic Sea has a low salinity and long renewal time, whereas the
Mediterranean is rich in oxygen but poor in nutrients. The Baltic Sea is one of the most
threatened regional seas suffering from eutrophication, pollution and invasion of alien
species. All the regional seas suffer from over-exploitation of fish stocks.
Fishery landings in the EU have been decreasing since the 1990’s from 9.1 million tonnes
in 1995 to 7.2 million tonnes in 20035. The majority of the capture is taken by four
countries (UK, Spain, Denmark and France). Outside of the EU the major users are Norway
and the Russian Federation. However, marine fisheries remain a vitally important
economic asset. In 2002, 93 million tonnes of fish were caught globally with a value of 78
billion USD(FAO 2004). Aquaculture is also increasing rapidly and has become the fastest
growing food production sector; growing faster than the global population indicating
increasing resource demands(FAO 2004). However this growth is not so strong in Europe
where production has remained relatively stable, with the exception of the Russian
Federation which is one of the top 10 rapidly developing countries in terms of aquaculture
production.
Both the over-harvesting of marine species and the capture methods used have led to
dramatic declines. The State of the Worlds Fisheries Report from 2002 stated that “An
estimated 25 percent of the major marine fish stocks … are underexploited or moderately
exploited … About 47 percent of the main stocks or species groups are fully exploited …
18 percent of stocks or species groups are reported as overexploited … The remaining
10 percent have become significantly depleted, or are recovering from depletion” (FAO
2002). This situation has changed little and the stocks in most need of recovery are to be
found in European waters: Northeast Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Seas (FAO 2004).
Although recoveries have been witnessed from some stocks depleted to 10% of their former
5
Source: EuroStat (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/)
- 19 -
size, evidence from the cod fisheries from the East coast of Canada show that the
populations may not recover from such depletion.
2.6.5 Freshwater Ecosystems
Europe has a rich network of rivers, waterways and wetlands which are an important store
of biodiversity. They are also vitally important for human well-being and economic
development. Europe’s wetlands have been significantly altered in recent history and few
remain in a natural state (EEA 2005). Europe has approximately 1.2 million kilometres of
rivers and they together with their associate habitats are extremely important for
biodiversity. Most inland waterways have been modified to control water flow often for
irrigation and wetlands have been drained to create agricultural land. In recent years
pollution has been a major impact on aquatic habitats, with the introduction of nitrates
and other chemicals into the water. Considerable effort has been spent on reducing such
pollutions and now there are marked increases in water quality (EEA 2005).
There are approximately 560 species of freshwater (FW) fish in Europe. Although there has
been considerable work on freshwater species, there is little coordinated monitoring
activity. Therefore it has been difficult to gain an overview of the state of European
species. An assessment that will soon be released indicates that 18 species are now
extinct and a further 202 (36%) are threatened (M. Kottelat pers. comm.). Recently a
regional assessment was made for Mediterranean FW Fish by IUCN, which shows that out of
253 endemic species assessed 56% are threatened, of which 18% Critical, 18% Endangered
and 20% Vulnerable, further highlighting the plight of these species6(Smith and Darwall
2006).
2.7 Drivers of Ecosystem change
It is clear that Europe’s ecosystems and the species they contain are under considerable
pressure. Ecosystems have been converted or modified for human use more now than at
any time in Human history (MA 2005b). In its analysis, the MA considers indirect and direct
drivers of change, which at the European level (or within the DPSIR framework) would be
considered drivers and pressures. The principle anthropocentric drivers in Europe are
economic growth and development. Given the pervasive nature of its impacts, climate
change can be considered as a key driver, although the anthropogenic role in exacerbating
climate change is due to economic development. Understanding the relationship between
drivers and pressures is extremely complex as there is rarely a simple linear relationship
with the resulting impacts on ecosystem services. Although there are key drivers that act
at all levels, the impacts and magnitude of these drivers comes from their interaction with
local conditions. Furthermore these drivers have impacts that are expressed over different
time periods and at different organisational levels. Figure 2.4 illustrates some of the key
drivers and their interactions identified within the MA sub-global assessment for Portugal.
The rapid development in the use of natural resources in Europe has led to substantial
gains in well-being and economic development (EEA 2005b). Globally increasing
population, economic growth and patterns of development broadly cause ever increasing
demands on natural resources (the MA also includes cultural and religious factors, and
scientific and technological change as key drivers (MA 2005b)). In Europe,
populations are stabilising or have declined in some countries, and therefore may not
directly place a pressure on natural resources. However as economic wealth increases,
people seek increased living conditions and the people per household decrease.
6
http://www.uicn.org/places/medoffice/noticias/med_fw_fish_en.html
- 20 -
Furthermore as life expectancy increases in Europe so does the relative demand on

resources. This pressure of increased development continues to exert an ever increasing
pressure on natural resources both through extraction and habitat modification (EEA
2005b). Currently within the European Union, the Lisbon Strategy is focussed on the
creation of jobs and economic growth at the expense of its other objective of
sustainability. Global economic development has seen the gap between developed and
developing countries become broader, even as the pace of economic development in
developing countries is faster than that of the industrialised countries. Considerable work
remains to be done on the connections between ecosystem services and continuing
economic development. Part of this needs to include more inclusive valuation methods to
better integrate ecosystems into national or regional economic planning. For example the
MA showed that a broader valuation of the ecosystem services provided by particular
habitats meant that they had a greater economic value than being converted to
production alone (MA 2005). The supposition from this is that economic growth may be
rapid and immediate with the conversion of habitats to production or infrastructure, but
longer term total economic value will suffer.
Figure 2.4: the feedback and interactions between drivers in the MA sub-global assessment
for Portugal (MA 2005b).
European countries have become increasing efficient in their extraction and use of natural
resources, primarily through technological development. This has in some cases reduced
the pressure on resources, but in others it has been offset by an increased demand for the
resources. As a greater proportion of the economy shifts from direct resource use
industries (e.g. extraction) to both manufacturing and services, the pressure on resources
can be further reduced. European economies have witnessed a relative decoupling of
development and resource use in the past 20 years (EEA 2005b). Since the 1980, the
European (EU) economy has grown by 50%, however natural resource extraction has
remained largely constant. However it should be remembered that the absolute use of
resources remains and therefore this decoupling may not have led to an absolute
reduction in environmental impacts (EEA 2005b). A further caveat to this view of economic
development in Europe is that there is considerable variation among EU countries
generally moving from West to East in the intensity of resource use.
- 21 -
2.7.1 Main Direct Pressures on ecosystems
The MA identified five key drivers resulting in the decline in the provision of key
ecosystem services (see Figure 2.5): habitat change, climate change, invasive species,
over-exploitation and pollution. In Europe we view this slightly differently. For the
purpose of this project we view climate change as a main driver of change and do not
group it with the more proximate pressures, this is primarily an issue of scale and the
appropriate level of response. We also look at habitat change in more detail, expressing
the distinction between habitat destruction, fragmentation and conversion.
Figure 2.5. The direct drivers of global ecosystem change (MA 2005)
Habitat Change
Globally habitat change is identified as the key direct pressure forcing ecosystem change;
only those ecosystems which are of little agricultural value have escaped with little
impact (e.g. tundra, desert and boreal forest) (MA 2005b). We can identify three key types
of habitat change: destruction, conversion and fragmentation. The separation between
these classifications is based on the impacts on biodiversity with destruction removing any
ability of the area to maintain its function (e.g. urbanisation), conversion involving the
change to some form of productive use (e.g. agriculture or plantation) which can still
support some functions, and fragmentation acting as the pervasive degradation of habitat
- 22 -
quality. As mentioned above, the majority of Europe’s habitat conversion has taken place
in historic times, leading to the mosaic of semi-natural landscapes we know today.
The modification of habitats is treated as the leading cause of biodiversity loss. The MA
identified that temperate grasslands, temperate broadleaf forests, and Mediterranean for-
ests each experienced 55% or more conversion prior to 1950 (MA 2005b). There is
considerable variation in the extent to which different habitats have been modified and
the rate of change of that modification. Throughout the twentieth century, temperate
grasslands have lost much of their extent (70% before 1950 and 15.6% afterwards),
whereas Mediterranean forests had lost the majority of their range by 1950 and have only
witnessed a small decline since (MA 2005b). This is most likely to due to most of the
useable land being converted to agriculture, with only marginal areas remaining.
Current important pressures that are changing Europe’s habitats are the growth of the
tourism industry (especially on coastal ecosystems), continued urbanisation and the
development of transport networks (EEA 2005). In the 1990’s the dominant form of land
cover change was urbanisation, largely at the expense of agricultural and natural areas
(EEA 2005). As urbanisation continues, most development is in suburban areas which tend
to contain more green areas, which can be important for biodiversity. However due to
reduced prices for agricultural land, considerable development is occurring outside cities
and principle urban areas, and in rural areas. This will have important impacts on natural
ecosystems. At present these changes have been most strongly expressed in Western
Europe, however the indications are that very similar processes will occur in the new EU
Member States and South Eastern European countries in the near future. These areas still
contain Europe’s large stores of biodiversity.
Invasive species
Increasing global trade and the transport of goods and people has enabled societies to
benefit from the unprecedented movement and establishment of species around the
world. Many industries and consumers are entirely dependent on raw materials that are
native to distant parts of the world. Within the European Community the free movement
of goods and people are fundamental principles, and with the establishment of the single
market in 1992, the only controls to movement are found at the EU’s external borders.
With the recent expansion of the EU to contain 25 countries this internal market has
grown to incorporate an area of 3.9 million km2. Furthermore the development of trade
agreements between the EU and other organisations and regions, such as the Euro-
Mediterranean Free Trade Area, further enhances the ease with which goods are
transported.
This movement of goods and people, although providing considerable opportunities for
societal enrichment, has also enhanced the intentional and unintentional movement of
species. In many cases these species have, and continue to have, a negative impact on
local ecosystems, economies, human health and welfare. It is now a considerable
challenge to identify these species, and minimise their impacts whilst still promoting
continued sustainable economic and societal development.
Every species that becomes established within an ecosystem has an impact on it and on
the biological communities within it. Often established species can spend considerable
periods of time at low densities, before undergoing (if at all) the explosive population
spreads associated with such examples as Zebra Mussels (Dreissena polymorpha), Caulerpa
seaweed (Caulerpa taxiflora) or the Water Hyacinth (Eichornia crassipes). The timing of
this release, which usually results in the dramatically harmful impacts on ecosystem
services, may largely depend on the effects of natural or artificial disturbance, changes to
the invading species or chance. The ecological impact of the species as it spreads is then
dependent on the links between that species and native species and their role in
- 23 -
delivering ecosystem functions. Although all ecosystems are able to open to invasion,
particularly vulnerable ecosystems include those that are isolated (e.g. islands) or those
that are heavily disturbed either through natural or more likely anthropogenic factors.
Therefore ecosystems associated with human resource use (e.g. forests and grasslands)
are also vulnerable. In Europe after island ecosystems, inland water bodies are the most
widely impacted ecosystems.
Climate change
It is clear from a multitude of data sources that average global temperatures are currently
rising faster than at any time in modern human history, and in Europe they have risen
more than the global average (EEA 2005). The effects of climate change are being
witnessed across Europe as droughts increase, extreme weather events become more
common and snowfall decreases. The main cause of this is now identified with a high
degree of certainty as the increased release of so called ‘greenhouse gases’, principally
CO2, into the atmosphere. These gases remain in the atmosphere for approximately a
century before being assimilated into marine and terrestrial ecosystems.
Our understanding of the complex relationships between Carbon stores in the atmosphere
and within ecosystems is still in its infancy and studies are identifying how ecosystems
respond to climate change. It is clear though that climate change will become one of the
key driving forces behind ecosystem change in coming years. In general increasing
temperatures have increased plant growing periods and therefore plant productivity.
However in the Mediterranean, where temperature increases are the strongest, this has
resulted in more forest fires and droughts (EEA 2005). Changing temperatures are changing
the distributions of plant and animal species, and already it is possible to measure
differences in bird migration times and reproductive behaviour (Stenseth et al 2002, Visser
& Both 2005). Those species that are unable to adapt to these changes (e.g. range limited
species) will be put under severe pressure. Studies are showing that as populations of
species that are mistiming their migratory and reproductive behaviour with respect to
changing climates are experience severe populations declines (Both et al 2006). The two
latitudinal extremes of Europe, the Arctic and the Mediterranean, have been identified as
the most vulnerable and ecosystems and human well-being is already being impacted in
both. Coastal zones are also likely to undergo changes as increased water levels,
phytoplankton growth and more sever storms will change their ecology (EEA 2005).
Carbon sinks such as forests and soil represent an important tool that could assist efforts
to control CO2 emission, however research indicates that soils may be releasing far more
Carbon than previously thought (Bellamy et al 2005) and that forests may also release
more carbon once temperatures increase above a threshold level. Currently there is
considerable interest in the development of alternative fuel sources to offset the
emissions from fossil fuels. However the growing of bioenergy crops raises a number of
concerns for biodiversity conservation and the significant amount of land required to meet
targets for bioenergy fuels threatens to dramatically increase the homogenisation of
landscapes. It is also further clear that the combined effects of climate change and
habitat fragmentation from anthropogenic activities will also limit the ability of species to
respond and adapt to changing conditions.
- 24 -
PART B: The Governance of Natural Resources
- 25 -
3. The Management and Governance of Natural Resources

Ecosystem management (ECM) “integrates scientific knowledge of ecological relationships
within a complex socio-political and values framework toward the general goal of
protecting native ecosystem integrity over the long term” (Grumbine 1994). To analyze
the management of ecosystems, GEM-CON-BIO addresses several issues including property
rights (ownership and management regimes), management objectives, type of knowledge
used in management, and type of collaboration among actors. To analyze governance, we
address general governance capacity at national level, institutional arrangements that
enable multi-level governance, and societal attributes including social capital and policy
networks. Indeed, management and governance are intertwined and most of the issues
mentioned above have both a management component (how to manage ecosystems) and a
governance component (the institutional framework governing management activities).
For instance, advocating an adaptive ecosystem approach, Boyle et al. (2001) suggest a
triad of activities, where governance is the process of resolving tradeoffs and providing a
vision and direction for sustainability, management is the operationalization of this vision,
and monitoring provides feedback and synthesizes the observations to a narrative of how
the situation has emerged and might unfold in the future.
In this chapter we discuss these issues and how they are inter-connected and linked to
conservation of biodiversity.
3.1. The Use and Management of Natural Resources
Natural Resource Management (NRM) was developed in response to the rapid development
and expansion of countries in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In the US,
people were moving west and irrevocably changing the landscapes and species (e.g.
through the removal of bison and deforestation). In Europe the ever expanding need for
natural resources to fuel post-industrial development at home and expansion abroad saw
the dramatic decline of forests and wetland resources. At the time, the prevailing outlook
was strictly utilitarian, and management aimed to ensure that sufficient resources
remained to supply our expanding needs (Meffe et al 2002). The end of the Second World
War, witnessed another rapid increase in the demand for natural resources. Again in the
US, post-war development prospered from and supported a strong economy as people
moved away from rural areas to cities and suburbs (Meffe et al 2002). In Europe, the
destruction of the war placed large burdens on the economies of the countries to supply
basic functions to their populations such as the provision of food. These pressures
witnessed some of the greatest changes to landscapes and the rise of industrialised food
and fibre production.
By the seventies people started to notice the impacts of such intense resource use on
species and ecosystems and there was a rapid development of legislation to protect
species. Natural resource managers were also being required to take into account an ever
increasing range of factors including ecological, social and economic values (Kessler &
Thomas 2006). From the seventies until the present day, this raising of awareness of the
changing state of natural resources (and the development of conservation biology),
coupled with the development of ecological and ecosystem concepts has moved natural
resource management from a traditional perspective of single resource extraction to the
much more holistic and contextual approach of ecosystem management (see below, Meffe
et al 2002, Kessler & Thomas 2006).
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3.1.1 The ecosystem approach and sustainable use
The ecosystem approach to management brought many important advantages including a

reliance on science-based knowledge for policy development and planning (Lamont 2006,
Kessler & Thomas 2006). Building on ecosystem functioning, the ecosystem approach (or
Ecosystem Management), provides a framework for the integrated management of aquatic
and terrestrial resources. At the basis there is the goal of maintaining the long term
ecological integrity of an area. Management objectives and decision-making processes
then build on the scientific understanding of this integrity to combine both ecological and
societal requirements (i.e. the needs of stakeholders). Table 3.1 shows the set of
principles by which the Ecosystem Approach should be implemented. This approach and
the guiding principles were endorsed by the Fifth Conference of Parties to the CBD in 2000
and have become the primary framework of activities implemented within the Convention.
Table 3.1: Principles of the Ecosystem Approach
1. The objectives of management of land, water and living resources are a matter of societal choices.
2. Management should be decentralized to the lowest appropriate level.
3. Ecosystem managers should consider the effects (actual or potential) of their activities on adjacent and
other ecosystems.
4. Recognizing potential gains from management, there is usually a need to understand and manage the
ecosystem in an economic context. Any such ecosystem-management programme should:
a) Reduce those market distortions that adversely affect biological diversity;
b) Align incentives to promote biodiversity conservation and sustainable use;
c) Internalize costs and benefits in the given ecosystem to the extent feasible.
5. Conservation of ecosystem structure and functioning, in order to maintain ecosystem services, should be a
priority target of the ecosystem approach.
6. Ecosystems must be managed within the limits of their functioning.
7. The Ecosystem Approach should be undertaken at the appropriate spatial and temporal scales.
8. Recognizing the varying temporal scales and lag-effects that characterize ecosystem processes, objectives
for ecosystem management should be set for the long term.
9. Management must recognize that change is inevitable.
10. The Ecosystem Approach should seek the appropriate balance between, and integration of, conservation
and use of biological diversity.
11. The Ecosystem Approach should consider all forms of relevant information, including scientific and
indigenous and local knowledge, innovations and practices.
12. The Ecosystem Approach should involve all relevant sectors of society and scientific disciplines.
This shift in the objectives of natural resource management has brought it much closer to
conservation biology, in fact under the present paradigm of ensuring the future protection
of ecosystems and their ability provide goods and services, there is little to choose
between the two disciplines (Kessler & Thomas 2006). In fact, the Ecological Society of
America has gone even further by integrating natural resource management with the
social capacity to create organizations and institutions that sustain the flow of ecosystem
goods and services (Kinzig et al 2002).
The Ecosystem Approach offers a number of advantages when compared to traditional

management approaches (see table 3.2), but it also contains a number of challenges. For
example, there are practical implementation issues associated with the merging of
ecological boundaries (i.e the extent of the ecosystem being managed) and the structure
of administrative and political boundaries. In Europe, which has an extremely dense
- 27 -
network of national and sub-national boundaries this poses a significant issue.

Furthermore for ecosystem management to be effective, it must successfully translate
scientific approaches and solutions into social and political ones (Lamont 2006). To date
work on the implementation of the ecosystem approach has shown that for it to be
successful, the four key areas of the approach must be incorporated; collaborative
governance, scientific foundation, integrated planning and adaptive management (Lamont
2006). The reliance on aspects of collaboration, integration and adaptation also mean that
concepts of ‘good’ governance are critical to the successful implementation of the
ecosystem approach.
Table 3.2: Characteristics of traditional and ecosystem management approaches (Redrawn from
Lamont 2006).
Characteristic Traditional approach Ecosystem approach Benefits of EA

Management Isolationist Horizontal/inclusive More holistic
Structure
Management Single issue focused Ecosystem focused Reduces chance
objectives of cumulative
effects and
opposing
objectives
Over-arching Economic/environment Maintaining More science
objective al trade-offs ecosystem integrity focussed
decisions
Management One size fits all Place specific Objectives
approach relevant to
particular
systems
Stakeholder Limited consultation Extensive Transparent
engagement collaboration decisions, more
support for
stakeholders
Decision-making Linear, top down Integrative (top Better
process down and bottom up) integration of
multiple views
Follow-up Limited Adaptive Increased
management opportunity to
learn from
experience
3.1.2 Efforts at the global level
At the same time that the disciplines of Natural Resource Management were going through
their period of paradigm shift towards the ecosystem perspective, there were concerted
efforts at the international level within the conservation movement to provide guidelines
on the use of resource and, importantly, the equitable sharing of costs and benefits.
Although many of concepts associated with ecosystem management were being developed
in developed countries, such as the USA, the rapid extraction of natural resources from
developing countries most often bypassed the local communities most reliant on those
resources for survival.
International concern about environmental degradation and the future of development

assistance also prompted the United Nations to establish the World Commission on
Environment and Development (WCED), or what later became known as the Brundtland
Commission after its Chairman. The Commission prepared a report in 1987 which stated
that global environmental problems were primarily caused by unsustainable use in
developed countries and extreme poverty in developing countries. The report set out a
strategy for sustainable development, which it defined as development that “meets the
- 28 -
needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet
their own needs” (UN 1987).
The Summit on Environment and Development which took place in Rio de Janeiro in 1992
and gave birth to the Convention on Biological Diversity was a direct response to the
Brundtland Report. At its core, the CBD has three goals of protecting biodiversity, ensuring
its sustainable use and the promoting equitable sharing of costs and benefits arising from
the utilisation of genetic resources. The CBD has become the single most important global
convention affecting the protection of biodiversity and the governance of natural resource
management.
Since its ratification, the CBD has gone a long way to solidifying and adopting many of the
concepts that were being developed in the last three decades. The 2004 Seventh
Conference of Parties saw the adoption of the Ecosystem Approach (CBD VII.11) and also
the adoption of the Addis Ababa Principles and Guidelines for the Sustainable Use of
Biodiversity (CBD VII.12).
3.1.3 The Addis Ababa Principles
The sustainable use of natural resources is a central pillar of the CDB, and considerable
work over several years resulted in the adoption of a set of principles and guidelines to
support stakeholders in the use of biodiversity. The so-called Addis Ababa Principles and
Guidelines (AAPG), aim to apply to all stakeholders at all organisational levels. Although
they are also supposed to apply to all forms of natural resource use, the AAPG do not fully
deal with the use of agricultural biodiversity. The principles are very broad and emphasise
the importance of coordinated legal and policy frameworks at all organisational levels, the
participation of local communities (including the devolution of management to the
appropriate level) and the equitable sharing of costs and benefits. As with sustainable
development principles and the ecosystem approach, the AAPG call for the empowerment
of local users, awareness-raising, education and transparency in decision making
processes. The key role of the AAPG is to empower local users within resource
management frameworks to not only give them legitimacy and a voice in the process, but
to also ensure their responsibility as the ones utilising the resource.
3.1.4 Efforts at the European Level
Policy
Unlike other inter-governmental organisations, the European Union (EU) has strong
regulatory powers, being able to adopt legislation that is binding for Member States. The
EU is a Treaty-based organisation, and the EU institutions can only act if the Treaties give
them powers to do so. Although European environmental policy got underway before 1987,
based on parts of the existing Treaty, the 1987 Single European Act for the first time
established an explicit legal basis for the Community’s environmental policy, including
provisions for nature conservation.
The development of Environmental policy is arguably one of the success stories of the EU.
Early on it was realised that environmental issues did not just affect member countries
but were a problem across the whole continent. Pressures such as air and water pollution
flowed from the country of source into neighbouring regions. This gave the EU an area of
competence for policy making at the super-national level. Here we consider the EU’s
legislation that is directly relevant to natural conservation, the use of natural resources
and sustainable development.
- 29 -
From the initial 1987 Treaty, one of the main ways of the supporting the environment as
through the integration of environmental considerations into existing or future policies. In
general, and as with the Member States, the EU has faced the fundamental trade-off of
having to develop policies that foster economic development and harmonisation across a
diverse range of countries while at the same time safe-guarding the sustainable use of its
natural resources. This trade-off has been more or less well managed within the different
policy sectors, for example pollution issues such as sulphur dioxide emissions have been
dealt with successfully, but the environmental components of the Common Agriculture and
Fisheries Policies (CAP, CFP) have been disastrous.
The current dominating political agenda for the EU is the so-called Lisbon Strategy with its
core goal of making the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy
in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and
greater social cohesion”. This was to be achieved through increases in access to labour
markets for more jobs, more efficiency in European bureaucracy and more investment in
research and development. The progress being made in implementing the Lisbon Strategy
was reviewed in 2004 and found that little progress had been made in the five years since
its launch (EC 2004). Within the original strategy, development was designed to be
environmentally sustainable with the aim of decoupling growth from resource use and in
the speech of policy-makers, developing ‘win-win situations’ through innovations in
efficiency, pollution reduction and lower resource use (EC 2004). As with other sustainable
development agendas, the Lisbon process has the potential for being very supportive to
environmental protection and the sustainable use of resources. However in practice such
considerations fall low on the agendas of Member States which try to maximise their
opportunities for direct economic development (in terms of infrastructure and jobs).
Along side the Lisbon Strategy, is the EU’s Sustainable Development Strategy, adopted in
2001 in Gothenburg. Within this framework, the EU adopted its 6th Environmental Action
Programme (6EAP), which sets out the activities to be undertaken within the EU between
2002 and 2012 for the environment. It was through the 6th EAP that the 2010 target to halt
the loss of biodiversity within the EU was adopted. Contrary to previous EAPs this did not
use time defined targets and objectives; instead it developed a series of seven Thematic
Strategies. These strategies quickly became bogged down in review and consultation
processes, especially as their requirements were identified as restricting the economic
development of Member States. Currently five of the seven thematic strategies have been
adopted.
Already before the SDS, and in response to its commitments to the CBD, the EU adopted
its Biodiversity Strategy which contained four action plans for the sustainable use of
natural resources, agriculture, fisheries and economic cooperation. Most recently these
documents went through an extensive stakeholder consultation and review which resulted
in a conference in Malahide, Ireland in 2004 and a Communication from the European
Commission on Biodiversity which was finally adopted in 2006. This process, which has
been long and drawn out, has finally delivered a ‘road map’ containing time defined
targets and goals for action to halt biodiversity loss at the European level. As expected it
is an ambitious document, with targets that will be difficult to meet. However it has
achieved a number of objectives. It has united much of the scientific, NGO and state
agency community around the goal of halting biodiversity loss. Second it has raised the
profile of biodiversity on the sustainable development agenda, although still considerable
work remains and it has further integrated policy on the use of natural resources with the
goals of sustainability and the ecosystem approach. It should be remembered that in the
parlance of the EU, a ‘communication from the Commission’ is agreed by all components
of the EU and is therefore a binding document that they must follow. Within this project,
the Biodiversity Communication and its associated targets are the most relevant and
strongest piece EC policy.
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Community Law and Regulations

There are several important pieces of legislation passed by the EU for the environment,
especially those that relate to the use of Environmental Impact Assessments, which is a
requirement for all major development projects. Here we focus on the two pieces of
Community legislation for nature conservation, the 1978 Birds and 1992 Habitats
Directives and the major natural resource use regulations the Common Agricultural Policy
and Common Fisheries Policy.
The Birds and Habitats Directives provide the core of the EU’s nature conservation
legislation. When the Birds Directive was implemented it was a highly innovative piece of
legislation and set standards for bird protection across Europe. The Directives identify
species and habitats of European importance and state that they must be protected in
“their wild state” (Birds Directive) or to a “favourable conservation status” (Habitats
Directive), both terms emphasising the long term survival of populations. The Directives
required Member States to identify areas within the countries that would protect the
species and to protect them under national law. This network of protected areas became
Natura 2000.
As of June 2006, the Natura 2000 network comprises 20,582 sites under the Habitats
Directive, including 1,250 marine sites (12% of the area of the European Union), and 4,317
sites under the Birds Directive, including 459 marine sites (9% of the area of the European
Union). The process of implementing the Nature Directives gives valuable insight into the
process of governing natural resources and biodiversity conservation. The Directives
recognised the importance of managed habitats and therefore allowed the continued use
and exploitation of sites within limits. However implementation in the former EU-15
Member States was extremely difficult with considerable resistance met at all levels,
particularly from landowners and users. Invariably these problems stemmed from the lack
of due communication between Member States and the stakeholders, with landowners
often being unaware of them becoming a Natura 2000 site! Furthermore a lack of
understanding of the activities possible within Natura 2000 led to losses of land value and
more resistance. When 10 new countries joined the EU in 2004, the process was started
again. Some lessons were learned from the EU-15, but many mistakes were repeated.
Currently there is considerable difference between countries in their implementation of
the Directives.
The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

The CAP is the single largest common policy in the EU accounting for almost 50% of the
total budget. Its origins lie in the need to build food security after the destruction of the
Second World War and it has arguably achieved that goal. Its principle tool was the
provision of payments to support agricultural production in Europe to and to protect
European producers on the global market. The impacts on biodiversity of paying farmers
to produce or latterly to not produce are well documented. As increasingly intensified
methods were employed to increase production, pollution and habitat change caused
massive declines on biodiversity. This is probably best highlighted by the indicators of
farmland birds in Europe, which showed dramatic declines (Gregory et al 2005). Since its
inception the CAP has gone through several periods of review and reform, the most recent
being in 2003, each of which has improved the environmental integration of its
mechanisms. Some of the most important changes have included the integration of
environmental conditions for direct income support (“cross compliance”), stewardship and
set-aside. Increasingly the rural development component of the CAP (2nd Pillar) has been
used for agri-environmental schemes that support direct actions for the environmental on
agricultural lands. These schemes have to date met with mixed success and there is
generally a paucity of data concerning the ability of agri-environmental schemes to
support biodiversity (Kleijn & Sutherland 2003). In general important factors seem to be
the people implementing the schemes and the taxa studied. The CAP has a long way to go
and reforms continue.
- 31 -
3.1.5 Efforts at the local level
To date most of the actions to protect and sustainably use biodiversity have come from a
top-down policy or legal perspective. For example the use of species can become
restricted or areas can become protected. In most cases this centralised approached was
based on the advice of scientific experts and the relevant statutory agencies or Ministries.
However rarely were the considerations of users at the local level who may be completely
reliant on natural resources, taken into consideration. In developing countries this
approach leads to the marginalisation of rural communities and exacerbates poverty.
Individuals who are exploiting natural resources are motivated primarily by the need to
support and enhance their livelihood within the social and cultural contexts. Therefore
economic considerations usually come first and are shaped by both the relevant regulatory
framework and the current environmental conditions. A balance between local economics
and central regulation can greatly affect the cost-effectiveness of conservation
management, and hence its socio-economic sustainability. Protection of areas, habitats
and species may be defied at great enforcement cost if the loss of local opportunity cost is
too great (Hutton & Dixon 2000, Adams et al. 2004). Rather than regulatory constraint
that creates economic loss, it may be better to deliver or enable incentives for preserving
ecological services, non-consumptive use (e.g. eco-tourism) or limited extractive use
(Inamdar et al. 1999, Getz et al. 1999). Despite the success of protecting species and
reserves for maintaining biodiversity (as species inventory) at national levels, restoration
efforts to reverse continuing rapid loss at local level (e.g. Thomas et al. 2004) are most
likely to benefit from incentives.
Centrally directed agri-environment schemes, based on recent changes in Common

Agricultural Policy, can create much economic incentive to conserve biodiversity. Public
funding (taxation) might be expected for ecological services from which all benefit, but
must compete with electorally attractive funding of security, healthcare, education, etc.
Beyond an adequate species complement to ensure resilience, the prevention of floods
and refreshment of air, water and soil may not require high biodiversity. With so much
biodiversity loss attributable to intensified land use, governance that encourages local
generation of incentives for de-intensification may also become increasingly important
(Kenward & Visi Garcia 2005).
In order to understand the processes that change ecosystems and biodiversity, and hence
to affect those decisions most efficiently for long term sustainability, one needs to
understand how individuals make the decisions that summate to the change. Crucial
questions for policymakers therefore concern the balance between constraints and
incentives (‘sticks’ and ‘carrots’), as well as the balance of flexibility and other factors if
governance of ecosystem management is centrally directed (‘top-down’) or locally
enabled (‘bottom-up’).
3.2 Ecosystem management regimes
Based on the standard theory on property rights regimes (e.g. (Bromley 1991)), GEM-CON-
BIO recognizes four major ecosystem management regimes:
A. Government management: Authority and accountability for management is with a

government agency which may consult with other stakeholders prior to making
decisions. The responsible order of government may be at the national or provincial
(in a federal state) level, or at the local or municipal level. Management may be
delegated by government to a designated organization (e.g. a local government body,
- 32 -
indigenous peoples organization, private corporation, environmental NGO or a multi-

stakeholder group) which makes certain decisions within mandated directions. Legally
protected areas under government management are no guarantee against biodiversity
loss. Hence, an important challenge for government management is to set aside
bureaucratic planning and instead allow experimentation based on monitoring and
local ecological knowledge (Folke et al. 2005). This probably requires organizational
change and leadership within governmental agencies (Danter et al 2000).
B. Multi-stakeholder management: Authority and accountability for management is

shared in various ways among a number of parties, e.g. government agencies, local
communities, NGO’s, private landowners, industry representatives. In collaborative
management (co-management), formal authority for decisions rests with one party
(often a governmental agency) but the agency is required to collaborate with other
stakeholders. In joint management, accountability for management rests jointly with
various actors who sit on a management body with decision-making authority (e.g.
this has been suggested as an approach for high seas marine areas beyond the
jurisdiction of any one country). An important challenge for multi-stakeholder
management is coordinate multiple actors with multiple objectives in social networks
across sectors (horizontal collaboration) and organizational levels (vertical
collaboration). Leadership that emphasizes trust-building is important here (Hahn et
al. 2006).
C. Local community management: Authority and accountability for management is with

local communities, who collectively own or claim rights to the lands based on
traditional use and occupancy. The term local community is used to mean a socially
and geographically networked group of people, not necessarily homogeneous, who
live close to or care for the natural/cultural resources in a protected area. Local
communities may include individuals or groups with tenurial and customary rights of
use or ownership in an area, and those who have a direct dependency on the area.
Members of local communities who do not have tenurial rights may also be active
contributors to areas governance along with the relevant landowner(s). Management
is through a locally agreed form of governance, which may have roots in traditional,
customary or ethnic practices. Negotiations with government may result in
recognition of specific rights, definition of broader accountabilities to society and
possibly a joint management arrangement. Challenges for local community
management include empowerment, clarifying legal issues and establishing vertical
links for institutional and financial support.
D. Private management: Authority and accountability for management is with the

private (non-government) owner or owners of the lands. In some cases, the owner
would be an individual or a group of individuals. In other cases, the owner might be a
private for-profit corporation or a not-for-profit organization. Much of the benefits of
biodiversity accrue to society at large whereas the costs (smaller harvests of cash
crops) fall upon the private landowner. Challenges include the provision of effective
economic incentives and information so that private landowners can afford becoming
the good stewards for biodiversity that most of them want. Government agencies also
need to adopt new approaches and attitudes (give social incentives) to learning and
collaboration by identifying win-win opportunities for biodiversity conservation
(Pretty 2003).
Open access is also a de facto regime but typically a result of failure to implement any of
the four de jure regimes above. Some resources in abundance, e.g. some berries and
mushroom, are governed by an explicit open access regime in countries like Sweden and
Finland. However, it is difficult to implement management objectives under an open
access regime and hence it falls outside our framework.
- 33 -
3.2.1 Property rights
In the property rights literature the notion of “landowner” is quite complex (e.g. (Becker
1977), Bromley 1991, Ostrom & Schlager 1996). Indeed, what a person may own is not the
land itself but a bundle of rights vis-à-vis other persons. These rights may be shared
among different stakeholders and they may also vary for different ecosystem services. For
instance, on private land, the landowner may have exclusive rights to timber but share
hunting rights with indigenous groups and share rights to pick mushrooms with everybody
(open access). Hence, on the same land, timber may be managed under a private property
rights regime and hunting under a multi-stakeholder regime. Hence, the concept of
“landowner” is theoretically awkward. The difference between an “owner” and a user or
“claimant” depends on which rights they have vis-à-vis other stakeholders (Table 3.3).
Table 3.3. Property rights may be distributed to different stakeholders in a cumulative way.
(Modified from (Ostrom and Schlager 1996).)
“Owner” “Proprietor” “Claimant” Autho- Autho-

(may sell (may exclude (management rised rised
rights) others) rights) User entrant
Access x x x x x
Withdrawal x x x x
Management x x x
Exclusion x x
Alienation x
For ecosystem management, the most important property rights issue is management
authority/right. Several actors may have access and withdrawal rights but the contents of
these rights (e.g. fishing gears or quotas) belong to management authority. Under private
management regimes, management rights reside at the private landowner contingent upon
regulations by governmental agencies. Other stakeholders have usually no management
authority but may of course try to influence public policy. Under government management
regimes, many stakeholders may claim a share in management authority. Often
stakeholder involvement is limited to consultation but sometimes management authority is
shared (co-management). Different types of collaboration are discussed under 3.1.3
3.2.2 Ecological knowledge and social learning

Monitoring and responding to environmental feedback in a way that sustains ecosystem
services requires a thorough understanding of ecosystem processes at different scales.
Managers need to mobilize different sources of knowledge, scientific (experimental) as
well as local (experiential) to understand how long-term trends are linked to natural
variation across spatial scales.
Mobilization of different knowledge systems may take place in a social learning process
i.e. “learning that occurs when people engage one another, sharing diverse perspectives
- 34 -
and experiences to develop a common framework of understanding and basis for joint
action” {(Schusler et al. 2003). Hence, social learning integrates issues of knowledge
generation, working out objectives, solving conflicts, and action.
The challenge is to promote a social learning process in the context of adaptive

management practices. Successful management is characterized by continuous testing,
monitoring, and re-evaluation to enhance adaptive responses acknowledging the inherent
uncertainty in complex systems. Management needs to adapt to new knowledge and build
this into management plans rather than striving for optimization based on past records
(Berkes et al. 2003). Forming a learning environment that accepts continuous testing and
changes requires leadership within management organizations (Danter et al. 2000) and
collaboration within social networks.
3.2.3 Type of collaboration among actors

Collaboration between government agencies and civil society has lately emerged as a key
strategy for governing social-ecological systems. In the US there are literally hundreds of
success stories of collaboration, labelled ecosystem management, collaborative
stewardship, community-based environmental protection, civic environmentalism, etc.
(Wondolleck and Yaffee 2000). The reason is simple: no organization or government has
sufficient authority, knowledge and resources to implement management objectives of
larger ecosystems like watersheds (Imperial 2005). Due to their interdependence, no
stakeholder can fulfil its objectives in isolation from actions of other stakeholders.
Collaboration simply becomes necessary to build relationships and trust which is needed
for constructive conflict resolution. Or in the words of the range manager in Applegate
Watershed: “We got to the point where we just had to sit down and start talking”
(Wondolleck & Yaffee 2000:7).
Public-private collaboration is ubiquitous for larger ecosystems where land ownership

generally is mixed. For areas under exclusive government management, there is little
incentive for government agencies to share the power they hold (Berkes 2002). For
privately owned land, government agencies may influence or even regulate management
as nature reserves but private landowners have protested to what they perceive as
insensitive implementation, especially of Natura 2000 reserves (Young et al. 2005).
Several, if not most, state initiatives for collaborative natural resource management (co-
management) are no real co-management, meaning formal sharing of management
authority but rather some kind of multi-stakeholder consultation (Berkes 2002:302). Such
consultation may however be of great value and involve deliberation, social learning,
trust-building, and facilitate conflict resolution. A quite different management regime is
joint management in which management authority resides at a multi-stakeholder board.
One example is the Laguna Lake in the Philippines: the governance was
compartmentalized and non-participatory before the authorities formed 33 River
Rehabilitation Councils (RRCs), which all included several stakeholders. The RRCs are
capable of making comprehensive and effective responses to declining trends addressing
social as well as ecological drivers (Folke et al 2005:461).
Collaboration can be described as social networks of actors. Collaboration among local

stakeholder groups ensures that multiple objectives (ecological, social, cultural,
economic) are addressed in an integrative way. Such horizontal (multi-sector)
collaboration involves public agencies as well as nongovernmental organizations. On the
other hand, vertical (multilevel) collaboration may be important for mobilising legal,
political/moral, and financial support to local ecosystem management initiatives.
Besides, vertical collaboration increases the probability that responses have a positive
impact on the social and ecological drivers of ecosystem change. To the extent that these
- 35 -
drivers occur at a continuum of social and ecological scales, governance (responses) may
be more effective if they involve decision-makers (and action-takers) at multiple
organizational levels. Governance, to be effective, often needs to address a range of
drivers and interactions of social and ecological systems, to match the reach and
interactions of those drivers. The existence of several actors, at various organizational
levels, managing the same natural resource, results in a redundancy in governance. This is
generally criticized in policy analysis, although it has been defended in the management
of complex adaptive systems like ecosystems (Low et al. 2003), which require institutional
flexibility. An array of institutions at different organizational levels enhances the diversity
of governance options (Hahn et al. 2006). This has been referred to as scale-matching (Lee
1993), institutional fit (Folke et al. 1998); (Brown 2003), or multilayered or polycentric
governance (Ostrom 1998); (McGinnis 2000).
3.2.4 Policy Communities and Bridging Organizations

When analyzing governance processes in dynamic social networks we should be careful
with how we perceive stakeholder collaboration: are there groups (agencies, companies,
organizations) collaborating or individuals who somehow represent these groups but
without contracts and formal agreements? Are the multilevel networks formalized or have
they emerged and self-organized, maybe in response to rigid governmental structures? The
latter has been referred to as new governance by Lee (2003) who defines it as a
polycentric form of social coordination in which actions are coordinated voluntarily by
individuals and organizations with self-organizing and self-enforcing capabilities.
The leadership of key persons developing policy communities (networks) for ecosystems
management has been highlighted by Olsson et al (2004). A policy community has been
defined as a diverse network of individuals representing public and private organizations
generally associated with the formation and implementations of policy in a given resource
area (Shannon 1998). Policy communities are similar to epistemic communities (Haas 1992)
but not with the same focus on scientific consensus.
Policy communities and related forms of collaboration do not emerge automatically; some
leadership is required. In a synthesis of 18 sub-global assessments within the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), Malayang et al (2006) found a strong correlation between
the number of stakeholder groups collaborating and the effectiveness of response. In
several of the most effective responses a “bridging organization” was involved. A bridging
organization provides an arena for trust-building, sense-making, identification of common
interests, social learning, vertical and/or horizontal collaboration, and conflict resolution
(Folke et al. 2005). Bridging organizations create the space for institutional innovations,
i.e. new norms and rules for cooperating for sustaining biodiversity and ecosystem
services. Bridging organizations differ from “boundary organizations,” which synthesize
and translate scientific knowledge to make such knowledge relevant for policy-making
(Cash and Moser 2000).
3.3 Governance theory and concepts
Both scientific and policy-related discussions on biodiversity tend to put a large emphasis
on discussing the need to implement “good governance”, or elaborate the changes
required in present governance systems as a strategy to protect biodiversity. In addition,
the scientific literature analyzing the emergence of new governance patterns at various
political levels, and their general implications for society, has experienced a large
increase the last decades (Pierre and Peters 2000). But what is “governance”, and why is
it important? Which are the known impacts of different types of governance on
biodiversity? And which are the most pressing research needs in the intersection between
- 36 -
governance, ecosystem management, and biodiversity? The following section intends to

provide an initial answer to these questions, and define a number of key concepts to be
used throughout the report, and the project.
3.3.1 Why is Governance Important?
Both the destruction and protection of biodiversity seems to be tightly interconnected

with governance issues. It is often argued that countries facing the most serious challenges
in biodiversity conservation often are nations with meagre state capacity and poor
governance (Laurance 2004, Smith et. al. 2003). Economic globalization combined with
government policy priorities, the presence of corruption (Transparency International
2005:235ff, Welsch 2004), weak public environmental administrations, and inadequate
legislative regimes all seem to contribute to a continued destruction of biodiversity around
the world (Brechin et. al. 2002).
High governance capacity on the other hand, as manifested by most European countries, is
no guarantee that government will take environmentally positive measures, or implement
effective management of ecosystems (Katzner 2005). Under the pressure of strong
political lobbyists, governments may be reluctant to implement scientifically grounded
and cost-effective environmental policies.
In addition, even with the best intentions, policy can be adopted based on inadequate
theoretical foundations. Policy initiatives can be seen as a simultaneous experiment with
all resources and their management. If this initiative is based on erroneous data about one
key structural variable, one false assumption about how actors or ecological systems will
respond, or create implementation that is unable to adapt to changing social and
ecological environment, the result can be a collapse in the whole system. Central policy-
makers without a coherent and effective theory of how the dynamic social-ecological
systems work, may easily be misled, and create policy that is to more harm than good
(Ostrom 1999, Anderies et. al. 2004, Dietz et. al. 2003, Ostrom et. al. 1994:18f).
Hence the linkage between “governance” and biodiversity is far from simple. At the same
time, any attempt to understand the drivers of change in biodiversity, or to concretely
cope with the destruction of vital ecosystem services, requires a deep understanding of
these poorly understood linkages. As we argue in the following sections, this can only be
done by unfolding the characteristics of biodiversity governance, and by trying to assess
their linkages to the state of biodiversity.
3.3.2 How does GEM-CON-BIO define Governance?
The term “governance” has many different meanings, and has been employed by
researchers in a large variety of empirical settings, ranging from studies of local politics,
multilevel analysis of cross-national institutions, to investigations of international
organizations (i.e. global governance) (Pierre 2000, Rhodes 2000, Stoker 1998). In its most
general expression the concept of governance can be understood as the coordination of
the public sphere taking place parallel to the formal legal-bureaucratic framework for
public policy formulation (Pierre and Peters 2005, Kjær, 2004). “Governance” is a more
inclusive concept than government as it embraces the relationship between a society and
its government at various scales. Governance generally involves modifying behaviour via
values, norms, and, where possible, through laws. The concept of governance of course
encompasses laws, regulations, and institutions but it also relates to government policies
and actions, to domestic activities, and to networks of influence, including international
market forces, the private sector and civil society.
- 37 -
A related concept is “good governance”, a concept often used to denote the

characteristics of management that lead to an effective and equitable implementation of
the ecosystem approach (see Chapter 3). The use of the term is in addition frequent by
other scholars as well, yet with a slightly different meaning. “Good governance” here is
used as an umbrella-term for the quality of central governing institutions, including the
absence of corruption, effectiveness, transparency, impersonality, and adherence to the
principles of rule of law (Paavola & Adger 2005, Rothstein 2003). Scholars in this latter
tradition seek to understand how “good governance” is related to goals such as poverty
alleviation and environmental management (Welsch 2004, Easty & Porter 2005).
In the following report, we will refer to “governance” as the way society as a whole
manages the full array of its political, economic, and social affairs. We will refer to
“biodiversity governance” as the way society at all scales manages its social, economic,
and social affairs with the aim to protect ecosystem function and biodiversity. This latter
definition includes not only central policy-initiatives and legislation, but also attempts by
actors at other political scales to introduce or modify current ecosystem management. A
fundamental assumption in this definition is that biodiversity governance radically shapes
the incentives political actors, individuals and communities face in their daily activities
and interactions, hence either facilitating or hindering biodiversity conservation.
We would like to stress the importance of making a distinction between uses of the term
“governance” as 1) a normative conception (i.e. the demands of “good governance” as
discussed by e.g. the UNDP), and 2) using the term as an analytical concept. In the former
case, “good governance” is used as a blueprint to which existing and malfunctioning
governance is contrasted (Grindle 2004). The second approach uses the term as a way to
unpack, and systematically assess the characteristics of biodiversity governance that seem
to lead to diverse outcomes (i.e. state of ecosystems and biodiversity (e.g. Smith et. al.
2003, Sampford 2002). This report follows the latter perspective as we believe that it
addresses the most interesting, and pressing research needs.
As will be discussed in detail in the next chapter, the main components of biodiversity
governance are related to the both the willingness, and capacity of central and local
actors to promote biodiversity protection, but also the governability of the social and
ecological system. Governability here refers to the ability of social actors at various scales
to steer the development of social and ecological systems (c.f. Pierre and Peters 2005:66f,
Kooiman 2003). Complex ecosystem feedbacks make ecosystems less governable and
conflicting social goals further reduces the governability of the social-ecological system.
3.3.3 What are the Linkages to Ecosystem Management?
The factors presented above are all crucial for a comprehensive, interdisciplinary
understanding of biodiversity governance. Although presented parallel in the above
section, we would like to stress that there are important linkages between the different
components of biodiversity governance. To be precise, the characteristic of governance as
defined by governance capacity, and the realization of policy initiatives, provide the
institutional, economic and socio-political setting for ecosystem management. These
initiatives determine the incentives local stakeholders face, define their capacity to deal
with emerging threats to ecosystems, and define the degrees of freedom for local
initiatives, and affect local actors’ ability to innovate.
The question is how to sustain or develop a desired social-ecological trajectory (Carpenter

et al., 2001) in the face of change and uncertainty (Folke et al., 2003). This has lately
been referred to as adaptive governance of ecosystems or social-ecological systems (Dietz
et al. 2003); Eckerberg and Joas, 2004; (Ostrom 2005), Folke et al., 2005).
- 38 -
Folke et al. (2005) and Hahn et. al. (2006) analyze the features of successful adaptive
approaches for ecosystem management under uncertainty. As illustrated in Figure 3.1,
these features involve a diversity of interacting social, economic, institutional and
ecological factors.
Social norms
and rules
External
drivers, Know-
change ledge
and Management: systems
surprise actors, organizations
Ecosystem functions +
dynamics
Figure 3.1. A conceptual model of the dynamics facing a linked social-ecological system (SES). A
SES consists of an ecosystem, the management of this ecosystem by actors and organizations, and
the formal (rules) and informal (social norms and conventions) institutions underlying this
management. The resilience of a SES depends on ecological dynamics as well as the organizational
and institutional capacity to adapt to ecosystem dynamics. This requires a learning environment
and links between key persons across organizational levels. To be resilient, the social-ecological
system also needs capacity for dealing with external change. (Modified from (Hahn et al. 2006)
As a case in point, well intended ecosystem management (ESM) initiatives are likely to be
predestined to fail if central states are corrupt, social capital across organizational levels
is low, institutional and economic incentives are perverse, or existing legislation is
absence, or is paralleled by non-existing enforcement. These tight linkages motivate why
issues of biodiversity governance, and ecosystem management can not be treated as
separable entities.
3.4 Interlinked Challenges for Biodiversity, ECM and Governance –

Pressing Research Needs
Governance systems are as dynamic as ecological. Scholars seldom recognize that threats
to biodiversity take place parallel to a number of changes in governance around the world.
Decentralization initiatives, the growth of partnership arrangements, the augmented
importance of non-governmental organizations and epistemic communities, and the
increased influence of multi-lateral agreements in a diverse set of fields, have all
diminished the command-and-control nature of governing in favour for more indirect
steering. At the same time, trust in political institutions and party membership in the
Western world is in decline, which implies that the legitimacy of the political system
seems to be less stable compared to a couple of decades ago. (Pierre and Peters 2005:66,
- 39 -
Pierre and Peters 2000:83-91, Rodhes 1994, Kooiman 2003). The reduced capacity and,
perhaps also legitimacy, of national governments to implement environmental policies,
combined with the complexity of dynamic social-ecological systems, imply a joint and
tough challenge: the need to develop new forms of effective and adaptive biodiversity
governance.
But which forms of governance seems to be most effective from the perspective of
biodiversity? How do we strike a balance between top-down initiatives and local
innovations? When does biodiversity legislation make a difference? And which kind of
collaboration forms and ownership structures seem to be most effective in promoting
adaptive approaches to ecosystems? Despite the pressing need to provide policy-makers
and societal actors in general with clear answer to these questions, our understanding is
limited, fragmented and at worst shallow.
GEM-CON-BIO is particularly concerned with some research issues that are in the interface
between governance, ecosystem management, and changes in biodiversity.
• How do different governance models impact biodiversity conservation?

• For different scales and institutional settings, which governance structures
(institutions) and processes (collaboration, transparency, benefit-sharing etc.) are
most effective for biodiversity conservation?
• What governance features seem to be correlated to adaptability in ECM?
• Does the level of authority and accountability match the scale of management?
• How important is interaction between governance at different levels for
biodiversity conservation?
• Can poor government initiatives be compensated by strong local action, or is local
action fruitless in the wrong institutional context?
• Have changes in governance patterns led to more flexible and effective local
initiatives or has the “hollowing-out” of the state led to poor local action?
• How important is the governability of social-ecological systems to the effectiveness
of government initiatives to protect biodiversity?
• Which property rights structures seem to lead to the most effective collaboration
patterns and hence local action?
These issues are further elaborated in the rest of this report and in Annex 1: The Research
Questions
3.5 Defining Biodiversity Governance Types
An important ambition of GEMCONBIO is to assess the linkages between different

governance types, and their outcome for biodiversity conservation. But what is a
“governance type”? Which are the main components, and how are they linked to the
suggested GEMCONBIO-framework? In the following sections, we define a number of
biodiversity governance types, and their main characteristics.
The role of governance issues in biodiversity conservation has been discussed in earlier
sections of the report. We suggest that the wide variety of biodiversity governance
objectives and characteristics can be reduced analytically to six general models: state
dominated, community based, corporatist, policy network based, adaptive management
and market based governance (Table 3.4). Each of these models display its own type of
governance with regard to the degree of stakeholder involvement, the policy instruments
preferred, the adaptability and feed-back characteristics, the importance of multi-level
governance and leadership and other.
- 40 -
It is important to recognize that the models of biodiversity should be viewed as ideal

types. This kind of typology will help to communicate the types of biodiversity governance
types that are studied in the project, and very roughly link some of their characteristics
with the outcome of interest. This latter point is important: the governance types
presented here are intended to be more than a non-theoretical classification system.
Indeed, the biodiversity governance models presented here should be viewed as
theoretical statements that can and should be subjected to quantitative modelling and
empirical testing in the case studies (c.f. Doty and Glick 1994).
To be more precise, the models imbed a number of logical arguments that specify a set of
relationships among variables (examples from mainstream governance literature that
apply the same strategy include Jordan et. al. (2005), Pierre and Peters (2005), Pierre
(1999), Yee (2004)). As an example, the impact of visionary leadership for biodiversity
conservation is hypothesized to be limited in a context dominated by state actors, and
where corporatist structures dominate important decision-making processes (corporatist
biodiversity governance). Another hypothesis is that epistemic communities will play only
a limited role in market-based biodiversity governance since farmers and other actors are
expected to change management based on price signals rather than scientific knowledge.
While the causal statements are likely to be controversial, they should provide a
parsimonious and rich ground for hypothesis testing. Hence the ideal type governance
models and their characteristics suggested here can be modified and elaborated during
the research process depending on the how the empirical results of the project unfold.
Another important point is that the governance models should be linked to a defined set
of outcomes as defined in the suggested GEMCONBIO framework. To be more specific,
GEMCONBIO can study whether the different governance models meet the requirements of
the resource management objectives, and the requirements of broader commitments
made at the international level (e.g. CBD). The rich data to be gathered according to the
suggested GEMCONBIO framework also allows a more detailed elaboration of the factors
that seem to lead to biodiversity governance success and failure.
- 41 -
Table 3.4: Models of Governance for biodiversity identified within GEM-CON-BIO
Defining State Dominated Community Based Corporatist Policy Network Based Adaptive management Market Based
Characteristics*)
A. Local community
Low High Limited High Limited Variable (Low-high)
participation
B. Integration of
Low High Limited High High High to low
local knowledge
C. Main Ownership
State/Mix Community/Mix Unimportant Mix Unimportant Private
structure
Decentralized formal
D. Key policy Legislation and Legislation and
and informal Mix None/Mix Economic incentives
instrument information information
institutions
E. Adaptability to
Low Low to High Low Variable (High-Low) High Variable (Low-High)
ecosystem feed-back
F. Natural resource Enhance resilience of

Sustainability at Depends on corporatist Sustainable management, Sustainability and economic
management Economic development SES/maintain ecosystem
community level setting, often multiple yet often multiple efficiency
objectives services
G. Epistemic
Unimportant Low importance Important Important Important Unimportant
communities
H. Multi-level Only within state

Limited Possible Important Important Unimportant
governance organizations
J. Leadership Very Limited Important Possible Important Important Unimportant

Objectives are politically defined,
Objectives and tools Objectives and policies Objectives and processes are yet main policy tools are market
Objectives and main
The objectives and selected as a result of are negotiated defined by expertise aiming to based by providing actors with the
processes of ESM are
processes defining ESM formal agreements andimplemented among test and continuously evaluate economic correct incentives.
defined by self-
are strictly defined by between State agents local stakeholders, hypothesis. Issues of multi- Stakeholder participation is likely to
organized communities
government actors at and organized government agencies and level governance and be low, and the integration of local
depending on
all scales. Stakeholder interests. Adaptability NGOs. Strong horizontal leadership are important, knowledge varies depending on
Comment/Example ecosystems for their
participation is highly is limited as local and vertical although stakeholder context. Adaptability is high if linked
livelihood. Adaptability
limited hence making knowledge and local collaboration. participation can be limited to economic incentives, but can be
can be high or low
effective ecological participation is low. Adaptability depends on due to strong scientific low if ecological and economic feed-
depending on the
feedbacks and adaptive Example: The EU what goals are participation. Example: backs are decoupled. Multi-level
features of social
capacity very low. Water Framework emphasized. Example: Everglades, Wisconsin, governance arrangements are not a
networks. Example:
Directive in Sweden. Kristianstad Vattenrike, Rangelands in Australia. central issue. Example.Agro-
environmental incentives
Reference Ostrom, E. (1990), Galaz (2005) Imperial (2005), Hahn et Folke et. al. (2004), Walker et Huang and LeBlanc (1994)
Berkes (1998) al (2006) al. 2006
*) These defining characteristics are assessed by The Research Questions in Annex 1, e.g. A: 3.3.1 and 3.3.4, B: 3.3.2, C: 1.2.1, D: 1.4 and 3.1, E: 2.1.9 and 3.3.3, F: 2, 1.4.10, G: 3.3.5, H: 3.1, J: 3.3.6
PART C: An Integrated Approach
4. The GEM-CON-BIO Analysis Framework

Understanding the linkages between the social, economic, political and ecological drivers
and biodiversity is far from a simple task. Not only are the number of drivers of change
that directly and indirectly affect biodiversity very high, ranging from demographic and
cultural change, to changes in land use, species introduction and climatic change. The
number of scales raging from local to the global, the interactions, and the time span
comprised in these drivers are also difficult to grasp scientifically (e.g. Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment 2005:vii), and difficult to govern (Cumming et. al. 2006). As an
example, as many as 35 factors have been identified being critical to the organization,
adaptability and sustainability of natural resource regimes – ranging from resource system
characteristics to socio-political circumstances (Agrawal 2001). Indeed, we lack explicit
theory that is able to assess the degree of correlation among these and other variables,
and identify causal chains or propose plausible causal mechanisms (Stern et. al. 2002).
4.1 What should be addressed in a Framework?
A framework for analysing governance and management for the conservation of

biodiversity needs to include insights from, and explore links between, several disciplines,
e g. political science, economics, organisational studies, ecosystem management, and
ecology. We argue that the following three issues are to be addressed in such a framework:
a) An integration of “governance theory” (e.g. Pierre and Peters 2005). Governmental

institutions and policy processes can be evaluated in terms of how they are capable of i)
providing an institutional framework that enable ecosystem management and ii)
stimulating collaboration with, or within civil society, and iii) the capacity of multilevel
´biodiversity governance to respond to environmental change
b) An integration of insights from collective action theory in natural resource management

(Ostrom 1990, 2005; Pretty and Smith 2003) and collaboration research (Wondolleck Yaffee
2002), with special focus on how collective action in policy networks emerge and self-
organise.
c) An integration of insights from research of social-ecological resilience (Gunderson and

Holling 2002, Berkes et. al. 2003, Folke 2006). Knowing how to adapt, without creating
higher costs for the future, requires an understanding of ecosystem dynamics and
thresholds, distinguishing “natural” variation from regime shifts and abrupt unwanted
changes. Knowledge about ecosystem functions and processes underlying the production of
ecosystem goods and services, and the vulnerability of these processes, is essential.
These three issues provide the basis for the GEM-CON-BIO framework. Before elaborating
on these issues we provide a very short review of four existing frameworks that we have
used as bench-marking.
4.2 Review of recent frameworks in the literature
There are a number of similar analytical frameworks for the study of natural resource
management. In the following section, we review four of the most widely used research
frameworks in the field of governance and natural resources, to elaborate the advantages
and transdisciplinary focus of the suggested framework.
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4.2.1 The Institutional Analysis and Development Framework.
In her seminal work Elinor Ostrom (1990) identifies a number of factors behind institutional
choice in natural resource management (Ostrom 1990:194f). Various situational variables
such as the number of decision makers, heterogeneity of interests, past strategies of
leaders affect, whether the appropriators live near the CPR and other variables have all
proven to be important (Ostrom 1990:205f). Refined and extended versions of the
framework called the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework has been
applied to several and widely differing settings around the world such as the evolution of
coffee cooperatives in Cameroon to the regulation of the phone industry in the
U.S.(Ostrom 2005), indicating its significance and wide spread use.
Though the framework has helped to clarify the important role self-organized
institutions plays in natural resource management, it suffers from an important drawback
that can be circumvented in part by the suggested framework. As Agrawal argues, studies
based on this highly institution-focused framework are “negligent in examining how
aspects of the resource system, some aspects of user membership and the external social,
physical and institutional environment affect institutional durability and long-term
management at the local level” (Agrawal 2001:1650-1). A related shortcoming is the fact
that the IAD-framework lacks an explicit strategy to elaborate to what extent changes in
“outcome” (in our case biodiversity) are the results of the institutions created by local
natural resource users, or the result of natural fluctuations, changes in government policy,
or other external non-institutional changes linked to the state of biodiversity. The latter is
important in discussing how governance affects biodiversity as degradation often results
from government initiatives at higher institutional levels than self-organized natural
resource management institutions (c.f. York et. al. 2003, Agrawal 2001, Baland and Platteu
1998).
4.2.2 The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) Framework

The complex interactions and poorly understood linkages between ecosystem services and
human wellbeing have been the rational of the widely acknowledged Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment. The ambitions of the MEA framework are very similar to those of GEM-CON-BIO
but the MEA framework does not assess governance in any detail. As discussed earlier, the
capacity and quality of government, and the governability of the system, (i.e. the
existence of social networks, public support for biodiversity, the level of trust etc.) all
have fundamental impacts on changes in biodiversity. The MEA framework however, does
not include nor elaborate these factors in the presented framework (MEA 2005:vii) despite
their importance. In addition, this implies that the MEA was “unable to answer a number of
important policy questions related to ecosystem services and human welfare” (MEA
2005:101).
These policy questions were to some extent addressed by the sub-global assessments (MEA
2006) which did not belong to the original plan for the MEA but were appended after
criticism at one early science meeting. The sub-global assessments were approved after
application to the MEA Board and although they promised to follow the overall MEA
Framework, the assessment was carried out by researchers focussing on quite different
issues. Hence, the process of synthesizing the findings from the 34 sub-global assessments
proved to be very difficult since the data were not really compatible (see e.g. (Malayang
et al. 2006).
4.2.3 The Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems Framework (RSES)

The RSES is not a framework in the same strict sense as those described above, but could
instead be characterized as joint research agenda with an explicit focus on interlinked
- 45 -
social and ecological systems across scales, the structure and feature of ecosystem
management, and the system’s ability to buffer, recover or reorganize from crises, stress
or change (Gunderson and Holling 2002, Berkes et. al. 2003). Research within this
framework also has an explicit ambition to analyze non-linear behaviour in social-
ecological systems, including both path dependence and abrupt change (ecological
surprises and social responses to such crises).
It is important to highlight that the RSES “framework” also lacks an explicit agenda for the
study of the impacts of governance capacity and governability on ecosystems and
biodiversity. An exception here is Folke et. al. 2005, yet the framework suggested for GEM-
CON-BIO includes more detailed governance issues. Related to this is the fact that the RSES
framework has not yet been applied systematically in large cross-national studies (c.f.
Berkes and Seixas 2005) although attempts are underway (Olsson et al. 2006, Walker and
Salt 2006).
4.2.4 The PSR / DPSIR approach
The application of indicators to describe the causal relationships between society,

economy and environment is a frequently utilized approach. These interactions can be
described and visualized by a common approach developed by the OECD. The PSR approach
(pressures – state - responses) and its extension, the DPSIR approach (driving forces -
pressures - state - impact - responses) was developed to both, monitor, and clarify the
linkages between human society and the consequences for environment and ecosystems,
but also to point out the needs for action. Because of the complexity of the interactions
between human societies and environment, the limited capacity of the original model was
well known (OECD 1994). Therefore, the model was extended to the Driving Forces-
Pressures-State-Impact-Responses-Model. Now the focus also involves the reasons (driving
forces) for environmental pollution and the consequences (impacts) for environmental
state changes. To be more precise, the framework assesses the following (Pirrone et al.
2005):
- Driving forces are processes and anthropogenic activities (production, consumption,

recreation etc.) able to cause pressures;
– Pressures are the direct stresses, deriving from the anthropogenic system, and
affecting the natural environment, i.e. pollutant release;
– State reflects the environmental conditions of natural systems (air, soil and water
quality);
– The Impact means the measure of the effects due to changes in the state of
environmental system;
– The Responses are the evaluations of actions oriented to solve environmental problems
in terms of management strategies.
The simplicity of the model is often raised as strength of the PSR/DPSIR approach. Not only
does it make the framework easy to understand, and therefore easy to apply on other
cases, furthermore the approach is flexible enough to adjust on more detailed questions
(OECD 2003:21).
The similarities between the work assumed by users of the PSR/DPSIR approach, and the
ambitions of GEMCONBIO are obvious: Both describe the interactions and causalities
between human decisions and activities and their consequences for the environment. At
the DPSIR framework the societal responses related to biodiversity governance are not as
detailed compared to the suggested GEMCONBIO framework. While the first approach
merely includes indicators of societal responses such as legislation, taxes and subsidies,
waste recycling rates etc. (OECD 2003:21, Pirrone et al. 2005), the latter elaborates the
- 46 -
importance of, and the interactions between governance factors such as co-management,
social networks and others (Dhakal and Imura 2003). In this way, the suggested GEMCONBIO
framework can be considered as a detailed elaboration of governance responses in the
field of biodiversity protection. Figure X (see below) elaborates the linkages between the
suggested GEMCONBIO framework and the PSR/DPSIR approach.
4.2.5 The GEM-CON-BIO Framework
This framework is developed in the rest of this report, especially in section 5.2 and Annex
1: The Research Questions. Important ingredients have been mentioned above in 4.1 “What
should be addressed in a framework?” In short, the GEM-CON-BIO Framework draws on the
insights and experiences from the other three frameworks described here. We expand the
issues of governance without neglecting ecosystem dynamics and adapt the framework to
the European ecological and policy context.
The GEM-CON-BIO framework is scale-free, i.e. works for all institutional scales and
explores links between institutional processes at different scales (Figure 4.1). Each cycle
starts by assessing the Initial Capacity (ecological capacity including drivers and threat,
socio-economic capacity, governance capacity, regulatory capacity, and general social
capacity). Based on this general capacity, we assess how management objectives are
determined, whether an integrated perspective (e.g. the ecosystem approach) is
employed, and whether efforts to monitor are taken (which is necessary for an adaptive
management).
Then our framework calls for detailed analysis of the governance processes, how
regulations are linked between multi-level institutions, how rules are enforced, how
monetary and social incentives are provided, whether and how stakeholder groups
collaborate in horizontal and vertical networks, how local ecological knowledge is
embedded in management plans, the role of leadership, and so on. Since our framework
focuses on governance and ECM, we assess the impacts of these on market opportunities,
on social organization (changes in stakeholder collaboration and local social capital) and
ecosystem services including the threats (drivers and pressures) to ecosystem services.
Hence, by “impact” we don’t mean impact of drivers and pressures but impact of
governance (which of course sometimes can be regarded as drivers, e.g. the Common
Agricultural Policy or economic policies). In this respect the GEM-CON-BIO framework
differs from both the MEA and the DPSIR frameworks.
The GEM-CON-BIO framework focuses on the Change in the State of Biodiversity resulting
from the impacts of all governance processes. This is followed by the important
evaluation: did the biodiversity governance actions meet the management objectives
and/or the requirements of broader commitments (e.g. the CBD)? Were major drivers and
pressures identified, targeted, and influenced? If this was not the case, or if governance
actions were based on inadequate understanding of ecosystem dynamics, the actions are
bound to be ineffective, no matter how democratic the governance processes have been
and how much “good governance” we have experienced. A response at a local scale may
appear effective and successful at the local scale but unless drivers and trends at larger
scales have been influenced the effectiveness can be questioned. This was the case for
some of the Sub-Global Assessments within the MEA (Malayang et al. 2006).
Table 4.1 provides an overview of the differences between GEM-CON-BIO and the other
presented frameworks and Figure 4.2 is a stylized representation of the relationship
between the GEM-CON-BIO analytical framework and the DPSIR framework and relate it to
the policy development cycle.
- 47 -
European level
National level
Local level
Evaluation
Governance Processes Impacts

Initial Capacity
Regu- Economic
latory and
Ecological Financial
Capacity
Natural Resource
Management Economic
Objectives and Change in
Governance Social
and Financial State of
Capacity
Decision- Biodiversity
Making
Social
Capacity
Social Ecological
Figure 4.1: The GEM-CON-BIO multi-scale analytical framework

Table 4.1. Alternative Frameworks Linking Governance, Ecosystem Management and
Biodiversity.
Framework Potential strengths Potential shortcomings
Detailed and systematic understanding Lacks an explicit strategy to analyze

Institutional Analysis of the importance and emergence of important external non-institutional drivers.
and Development self-organized natural resource Lacks an explicit research approach to
Framework (IAD) management institutions. understand the dynamics of ecosystems.
Transdisciplinary and broad Lacks a detailed discussion and analysis on

understanding of the direct and indirect how key governance aspects (such as state
drivers of change in biodiversity and and government capacity, governability)
Millennium Ecosystem ecosystem services. affect biodiversity.
Assessment (MEA)
Framework
Clear link between ecosystem Framework not applied systematically across
management types and processes and sub-global cases, which leads to limited
changes in ecosystems and biodiversity. possibilities to draw general conclusions.
Global scale assessment and scenarios

including a detailed discussion of the
health and dynamics of ecosystems.
Transdisciplinary and broad Lacks a detailed discussion and analysis on

understanding of the direct and indirect how key governance aspects (such as state
drivers of change in biodiversity and and government capacity, governability)
Resilience Framework ecosystem services. affect resilience and ecosystem services.
Framework never applied systematically on
Detailed and state-of-the-art focus on large N samples
the dynamics of linked social-ecological
systems.
Simply understood approach that Use of indicators implies that governance
assesses the linkages between human responses and characteristics are not
society and the consequences for elaborated in detail.
environment and ecosystems. Points out
The PSR/DPSIR the needs for action in a diverse set of
approach societal responses. Linkages between key governance aspects not
stated nor studied explicitly.
Applied systematically across countries

and ecosystems/natural resources by
both scholars and policy-researchers
such as the OECD.
Transdisciplinary and broad The framework is not prescriptive in the sense

understanding of how different types of that drivers and pressures on ecosystems are
multi-level governance arrangements studied in detail with the aim to derive policy
are linked to ECM. Assesses stakeholder prescriptions. Instead, the starting point of
GEM-CON-BIO collaboration and adaptability to analysis is existing governance systems.
Framework changing conditions.
Assessment is not made on global scale, and
Identifies and analyzes how key does not include scenarios.
governance aspects (such as
government capacity, governability)
affect resilience and ecosystem
services. Includes focus on the dynamics
of linked social-ecological systems.
Initial Capacity
Ecological
Governance
Societal
Evaluation
Drivers
Pressures
Change in
State of
Biodiversity
State
Natural Resource Development Initative Impacts

Management
Objectives Economic/Financial
AND Social
Decision-Making Implementation Monitoring Ecological
Impact
Response
GEM-CON-BIO
Governance
DPSIR Processes
Policy cycle Economic/Financial

Social
Regulatory
Figure 4.2: A stylized representation of the relationship between the GEM-CON-BIO analytical framework and the
DPSIR framework and also the policy development cycle.
5. Implementing the Analysis Framework
Linking social, political, economic and ecological components across scales is a complex
scientific task. Establishing causal links in such a context requires a thorough
understanding of a number of methodological challenges. The following sections elaborate
a number of research design strategies and recommendations to the application of the
GEM-CON-BIO framework as a way to increase the explanatory power of the case studies
assumed within the project.
5.1 Key Methodological Issues
When a large number of causal variables potentially affect outcomes, the absence of
careful research design makes it almost impossible to be sure that the observed
differences in outcomes are the result of claimed causes (Scharpf 1997). This is most clear
in case studies or small N studies where the causal model is not carefully or explicitly
specified. The drawbacks here have the potential to produce an emphasis on causal factors
that may not be relevant, ignoring other factors that may be relevant, and the generation
of spurious correlations (Agrawal 2001:1661, King et. al. 1994, Scharpf 1997).
This is not to say that large-N multivariate studies are free from research bias and
problems in assessing causal relationships. Limitations here are the range and quality of
measures available for all cases in the data sets. Sometimes, variables of theoretical
importance are not measured at all, or can be measured only by using rough proxies.
Hence even though large-N studies can be very fruitful in formulating and testing
hypothesis, they can also fail in properly elaborating the causal paths, or assume false
correlations (Hedström and Swedberg 1998, Stern et. al. 2002:451f.7
These challenges are obviously common to all research activities. The important question
at this point is how to overcome them. One often suggested strategy to approach these
methodological problems is to deploy a careful research design by assuming 1)
theoretically motivated comparative case analyses to identify the most important causal
mechanisms, and narrow the range of relevant theoretical variables, and 2) conduct large-
N studies to identify the strength of causal relations (Agrawal 2001:1662-5, Stern et. al.
2002:468f). The benefits of the suggested approach should not be underestimated.
Theoretically guided comparative case studies, combined with multivariate analysis can
contribute to empirically supported causal hypothesis, particularly in dealing with
transdisciplinary challenges (Stern et. al. 2002:467f, Coppedge 1999, Agrawal 2001).
5.1.1 Using the same framework systematically across cases
It is of great importance that as many variables of the suggested framework are measured
in each case study. There are two main reasons for this. First, a systematic use of the
framework allows the research programme to expand it explanatory potential, compared
to a scenario where the framework is applied unsystematically and ad hoc (King et. al.
1994:43ff, George and Bennett 2006). As a case in point, the IAD-framework and its
systematic use over a large number of natural resources, has been widely acknowledged as
solid knowledge base of great importance for our increased understanding of how natural
resource users overcome the “Tragedy of the Commons” (Drama of the Commons, Ostrom
2005).
7
For elaborations of the argument see Durlauf 2002 on social capital and Galaz 2006 on heterogeneity and
collective action in natural resource management).
Second, a systematic use of the framework across the case studies allows the research
program to elaborate the linkages between different biodiversity governance factors, and
changes in biodiversity. As one example, whether the use of market-based instruments is
effective across differing institutional contexts (e.g. national and international legislation,
degree of compliance etc), can only be answered in a convincing way if these dimensions
are captured in all case studies.
We recommend that the program avoids a situation where the included case studies differ
considerably in the data collected (e.g. some cases are rich in ecological data, and poor in
social data, or vice versa), or the framework is applied in a disjointed manner. Hence we
recommend that the project management makes sure that the balance between social,
institutional, economic and ecological is taken in serious consideration in the choice of
case studies.
5.1.2 The Importance of Assessing Change in the Case Studies
One often raised point of criticism to large N studies is the lack of dynamics in the studied
phenomena (Agrawal 2001). In the case of GEMCONBIO, the linkages between the
independent variables (i.e. biodiversity governance), and the outcome of interest
(biodiversity conservation) risks to be studied measuring non-changing variables as a way to
keep the analysis simple. The cost of this simplified approach on the other hand, is that
the project overlooks how the factors change and interact over time. To be precise, a
static analysis within GEMCONBIO might lead to highly limited possibilities of understanding
how shifts in biodiversity governance affect changes in the state of biodiversity, or vice
versa. The importance of assessing these dynamics is of high scientific and policy value.
Hence we recommend that the case studies include an analysis of ex ante, and ex post of
both ecosystem state and biodiversity governance. Due to financial and time limitations of
the project, this requirement should be applied on changes on the identified biodiversity
governance modes/types, and a number of strategically selected biodiversity indicators.
5.1.3 The Need to Study both Biodiversity Governance Failure, and

Success
The number of success stories and “good examples” are more than common in the field of
natural resource management. Only analyzing success stories in the case of the ambitions
of GEMCONBIO is, however, a potentially problematic approach. The main reason for this is
the risk that the selection process builds in a selection bias that seriously limits the case
studies explanatory power. The logic is that non-random samples of case studies (such the
one assumed in GEMCONBIO) must allow for a variation in the dependent variable (state of
biodiversity). The reason is, bluntly put, that to be able to explain variations in the state
of biodiversity, we must allow the state of biodiversity to vary to maximize the
explanatory power.
As an example, imagine a study trying to identify the governance features behind

“successful” ecosystem management. The selection of cases builds on small samples of
case studies which have all been “successful” according to the selected biodiversity and
social indicators. While scholars will not have any problems in identifying a number of
common features (variables) that led to success in the case studies, many would argue that
there are reasons to question the conclusions. To be precise, without a control group of
unsuccessful cases, the research group has no way of knowing whether the identified
conditions for “success” are not also associated with failure. Clearly stated, how can the
- 52 -
research group be sure of that the governance features they identified as leading to
success, were not also present in other non-studied cases linked to ecosystem management
failure? (This sort of selection bias is elaborated explicitly in King et. al. 1994:128-149,
however see Dion 1998).
We recommend that GEMCONBIO and its collaborating case study partners attempt to
include both successes and failures in biodiversity governance in the sample of case
studies. Ideally and if possible, these observations can be assumed within case studies as
discussed in the section above concerning the need to assess change in the case studies.
5.1.4 Increasing the Number of Observation/Cases
It is important to acknowledge that the amount of data gathering required as suggested in

the GEMCONBIO framework, put fundamental restrictions on the possible number of case
studies that can be systematically assessed. The implications are two. First, the non-
existing possibility of assuming a random sample of cases requires the program to seriously
think through the nature of the cases to be included in the analysis (c.f. sections 5.x.2-3).
The risk is otherwise that the data is incomplete, that the causal argument fails to
acknowledge the changing nature of both biodiversity governance and ecosystems, and
that the selection process builds in serious selection biases.
Second, the low sample number (between 12-17 at this time) is likely to be considered as
too low by biodiversity scholars used working with large-N samples. Although there is no
definite solution to the low number of case studies, we suggest three possible ways to
partly deal with the problem.
First, the recommendation to study change in the respective case studies is applicable here
as well. This strategy increases the number of observations hence contributing to
increasing the explanatory power of the GEMCONBIO-framework (see King et. al. 1994).
Second, there are a number of existing databases that include case studies in the field of
ecosystem management that can be integrated into the final analysis of the project.
Examples here are the OECD Database on Incentive Measures for Biodiversity8, the webpage
ConservationEvidence.com9 that includes a collection of cases that range of subjects
including habitat restoration, to species management etc., and the University of Michigan
Ecosystem Management Initiative database “Learning from Experience”10. In addition,
there exist a number of case studies in the field of natural resource management in the
academic literature that also can be included to increase the sample size.
We would however like to stress that the likelihood of finding cases that fit all dimensions
(social, economic, and ecological) of the GEMCONBIO framework is very low. Hence
integrating other existing case studies should only be done if the project is interested in
elaborating specific linkages between a few variables, or test specified hypotheses
formulated by the project.
Allow us to exemplify with a scenario. The GEMCONBIO framework acknowledges the

importance of collaboration patterns for successful ecosystem management. The projects
suggest a number of structural (e.g. linked to biodiversity governance capacity) factors
(based on the GEMCONBIO case studies) that seem to be coupled with collaboration
success. In a final phase, the project could strengthen the causal argument by reanalyzing
case studies published in the “Learning from Experience” database and Conservation
8
http://www.oecd.org/document/57/0,2340,en_2649_33713_34316473_1_1_1_1,00.htm
9
http://www.conservationevidence.com
10
http://www.snre.umich.edu/ecomgt/cases/index.htm
- 53 -
Evidence which both includes a number of in depth studies of collaboration in ecosystem

management. In the same manner, project partners can formulate a number of hypotheses
of the biodiversity governance context that seem to enhance the potential of market based
mechanisms in ecosystem management. These hypotheses can then be tested by using
existing case studies in e.g. the OECD database mentioned earlier.
5.1.5 Quantitative or Qualitative Analysis?
The amount of data to be collected according to the suggested framework forces the
project to think through how data is to be summarized and analyzed. The alternatives are
several, ranging from a compilation of narrative case studies, to strictly steered analytical
case studies with a systematic application of a joint framework. As discussed above, we
suggest the latter alternative. Although the GEMCONBIO’s core activities will evolve around
a limited number of case studies, a number of quantitative techniques can be used to
facilitate dissemination activities, and the final analysis. Figure 5.1 illustrates such a
technique from the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Multiscale Assessement. In addition,
the Research Questions in Annex 1 identify a number of variables that can be condensed
into rough categories to simplify the final analysis. (This issue is to be elaborated in the
forthcoming case study manual for GEMCONBIO.)
Actors
5
4
3
2
1
Instruments 0 Organizational levels
Atacama/Advisory
Committee
KW-Sweden/Cranes
Philippines/River
Know ledge systems Rehabilitation Councils
Figure 5.1 A quantitative comparison of four features for three of the Sub-Global
Assessments (Malayang et al. 2006).
5.1.6 Concluding Comments
The sections above have all dealt with a number of key methodological issues of interest
for the GEM-CON-BIO framework. Our main objective has been to identify a number of
practical ways to increase the explanatory power of the suggested GEM-CON-BIO
framework, and hence the scientific and policy contribution of the project as a whole. It is
important to highlight that the framework and methodological strategies suggested in this
report can contribute to the first transdisciplinary and systematic analysis of biodiversity
governance, and its linkages to the state of ecosystems. This is not a small contribution. At
the same time however, it is important to recognize that no framework or research
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strategy is able to capture the full complexity of social and ecological factors relevant in
field settings. Considering that the project will build its scientific conclusions and policy
recommendations on a low and a non-random sample of case studies, the issues discussed
above should be taken seriously.
5.2 Data sources
In this section we discuss each of the elements of the framework in more detail and
elaborate some of the possible data sources that could provide information. This discussion
is not meant to be exhaustive and we also recognise that it will not be possible to extract
data in all cases. Furthermore there will be numerous discussions concerning the use of
proxies, for example the use of species richness as a measure of state of biodiversity.
Therefore the components of this chapter should be viewed as work in progress. We should
also bear in mind that the aim of the framework is to analyse the processes and institutions
used to manage the use of natural resources and how these relate to changes in the state
of biodiversity.
5.2.1 Initial Conditions
The starting point for any analysis is the condition faced within a particular site at a given
time. This may be the current situation for present day case studies or it could be a
historic condition for case studies assessing the situation occurring in sites in the past. We
consider it important to have data not only on the ecological processes occurring within
the area, but also the societal and organisational processes. The basic site information is
the same as that required for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA):
5.2.1.1 Ecological Capacity
GIS data and land cover information
This data can yield information concerning land cover at one point in time and also
changes in land cover over time (e.g. Corine), which is very important when studying
changes in the ability of ecosystems to provide goods and services.
To standardize the methodology between case studies, the most internationally accepted
land cover data should be used to derive a map of the land cover types within each case
study site. Within Europe this will be the Corine Land Cover data administered by the
European Environment Agency (EEA) and globally it can be the Global Land Cover (GLC)
data which is currently being updated (2006) and should be released by the end of 2006.
The MA was based on the GLC2000 database, which is based on SPOT vegetation sensors
(MA ch2 2005). Both Corine and GLC have open access policies and should be compared
with local GIS data if it exists.
The use of remote sensing data to determine changes in land cover over time is still in its
infancy and is best suited to studies of large areas and broad habitat classifications, e.g.
tropical forest cover (Lepers et al 2005). Within the case studies it may be possible to
collect data on land cover changes over time through maps and past inventories.
Ecosystem Goods and Services
Once the area is defined and the dominant land cover types are identified, we can identify
the major ecosystem goods and services that contribute to human wellbeing in the area.
The MEA defined ecosystem goods, like food and fibre, as provisional ecosystem services:
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- provisioning services – this includes the resources most commonly identified for
ecosystems such as food and fibre. This data is usually readily available through
inventories carried out by the relevant national authorities such as agriculture or
forestry services. Depending on the availability of local data it may be possible to
compile information from different data sources into a meta-analysis of ecosystem
provisioning services.
- Supporting services – these include services such as soil formation, nutrient cycling
and primary production. Although this data is not systematically collected it may be
possible to either collect data during the case studies or to use proxies (such as past
research and/or inventories).
- Regulating services – these include water and climate regulation. Generally it will not
be possible to collect data on these services.
- Cultural services – these include the non-material benefits from ecosystems. Although
often systematic data has not been collected, there is a wealth of information from
local sources which could possibly be compiled for the case studies. Further
information may be yielded through the pan-European case study on the valuation of
the use of wild resources.
In the GEM-CON-BIO framework the provisioning ecosystem services are referred to as

ecosystem goods.
State of Biodiversity data
As discussed in Chapter 2, biodiversity measures usually use species richness indicators as a

proxy. At the national and European levels we will only be able to use these proxies to
measure changes in the state of biodiversity. However for case studies at the local level it
may be possible to use a suite of more accurate indicators to reflect the underlying state
of biodiversity. Case studies should utilise the most accurate data they have available,
especially that which allows the extrapolation of trends in species over time.
For habitats, inventories should already exist to identify the major habitat types, based on
the land cover data required above. For each of the habitat types, it should be possible to
gather data on changes in the extent of different habitats and also major degradations. It
may be possible to measure the ability of certain habitats to provide ecosystem functions.
It is likely however that measures of species (richness, abundance and trends) and diversity
and extent of habitat types will be the only biodiversity information that can be gathered.
However additional sources of information should be considered including domestic genetic
diversity.
It is also important to have an understanding of the framework of designations used to

protect areas or species within the area studied. These may include national legal
designations (e.g. Natura 2000 sites, national parks, nature parks, Ramsar site etc) or non
formal designations such as important bird or plant areas. This latter designation is also
important for identifying the areas important for biodiversity. The interaction between
formal designations and private ownership in the use of natural resources is an important
aspect of this project. There are numerous examples of successful collaborations between
private owners and State organisations, such as the Neusiedler-See National Park in
Austria, which manages primarily privately owned land.
Drivers and Pressures
It is beyond the scope of this project to tackle the underlying drivers of change (e.g.
economic development, see Chapter 2), however they obviously play an important role in
the decision-making process that affects resource management from the local to national
levels. Therefore we treat drivers as part of the starting conditions within which resource
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managers have to act. Through actions they may be able to make progress towards tackling
the drivers, but this can only be viewed as part of contributions to international
agreements and not as a priori objectives for the project. Therefore for each case study
data should be collected on the major threats to biodiversity and ecosystem services and
which drivers of change they correspond to.
To understand the pressures being placed on biodiversity and also the local communities,
we need to collect data on existing and identified negative pressures from the perspective
of biodiversity. This can include infrastructure development, pollution, habitat
fragmentation, introduction of invasive species etc. A list of the common threats can be
formulated and case study leaders will be able to identify the extent of the threat posed.
Furthermore case study leaders should identify past threats and actions taken to address
them. It will be important to identify the success of these actions and the level of
participation from different stakeholders that was involved.
5.2.1.2 Demographic and Socio-economic data
Population data
Changes in the population and distribution of the population within a given area can be
powerful drivers of change in the use of natural resources and the distribution of the costs
and benefits that subsequently arise. For example demographic shifts in rural areas with
people moving to cities has resulted in wide scale abandonment which is now one of the
leading threats for agricultural biodiversity. Therefore an important start is have data on
local population and changes in population density over time. It is also important to have
an understanding of any major issues associated with human wellbeing. For example the
MA sub-global assessment that took place in Portugal highlighted access to key facilities,
illiteracy, health and education as major issues affecting the study area (Pereira et al
2005). These will have an impact on the societal attributes of the community.
Economic data
Economic indicators can provide an insight into the resources that are exploited and what
proportion of the economy of the area that they make up. Understanding how resources
are currently used and how people benefit from them, allows a better understanding of the
options for future management decisions. Furthermore information is required on the flow
of resources to identify what proportion of resources or their income remains in the area
studied. This further adds dimensions to the study of incentives for sustainable
management and conservation.
5.2.2 Governance Capacity
National governance capacity

As discussed in previous sections, it would be highly simplistic to assume that societies’
motivation to protect or destroy biodiversity is strictly determined by basic material and
economic conditions. In addition, even with the best intentions, the capacity to actually
implement and monitor the outcome of ecosystem management initiatives might differ
considerably across social systems. The clearest example of this is corruption, a problem
known to seriously distort priorities, reduce effective funding levels, and provide a difficult
obstacle for self-organizing local ecosystem management (Smith et. al. 2003, Laurance
2004). Consider timber, a multi-billion dollar business in the tropics. Corruption is
considered to be so endemic in the tropical timber industry that the relationship has been
described as ‘symbiotic’, with each activity feeding the other making it difficult to change
perverse incentives. Corruption enables loggers to ignore environmental regulations, flout
timber quotas, log outside designated harvest areas, and evade timber taxes and export
duties (from Laurance 2004).
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Yet, the lack of effective biodiversity governance is not an issue for developing countries
only. On the contrary, a number of countries with high governance capacity have low
levels of species richness. Hence it seems like highly efficient capitalist economies are
usually capable destroyers of natural systems (Katzner 2005). As a case in point, although
the governance capacity of Sweden is likely to be one of the highest according to all
accepted indicators of “good governance”, problems of eutrophication and loss of aquatic
biodiversity remain endemic despite changes in legislation, national funding and NGO
involvement (Galaz 2006).
The implications of high governance capacity (c.f. “good governance”) and biodiversity
conservation are hence far from simple. As discussed in previous sections, there are a
number of poorly elaborated, yet fundamental interactions between this capacity, and the
outcome of ecosystem management. The outcome of the presented biodiversity
governance models/types (Table 3.4), are also likely to be affected by the general
institutional context as defined by different societies’ governance capacity.
But which are the main indicators of what we denote as “governance capacity”? To
simplify the analysis, we have chosen three governance indicators identified by the World
Bank and the organization’s database “Governance Matters”. The indicators are based on
several hundred individual variables that cover over 209 countries. The indicators that we
suggest to be used within GEMCONBIO are the following:
i) Government Effectiveness – these indicators measures the competence of the

bureaucracy and the quality of public service delivery.
ii) Control of corruption – measures the exercise of public power for private gain, including
both petty and grand corruption and state capture
iii) Rule of law – measures the quality of contract enforcement, the police, and the courts,
as well as the likelihood of crime and violence.
It is important to recognize that these indicators can only be used as rough estimates of
the capacity of central policy makers to achieve set up biodiversity conservation targets.
On the other hand, the advantages and scientific novelty of using already existing
governance data, with comparative in-depth studies of ecosystem management should not
be downplayed. It is worth highlighting that the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment did not
elaborate the detailed linkage between ecosystem change and the capacity of societies to
govern their societal affairs, something that clearly limits the assessments policy
evaluations and recommendations.
The full dataset and detailed explanations of the database can be found at
www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/govdata/
Multi-level Governance
The multi-scale character of ecosystem change has been widely acknowledged in both the
policy and scientific community the last decades. Ecological and social scales operate at a
wide variety of scales – from very small and short to very large and slow – creating
important driving forces for both human and environmental systems (Millennium Ecosystem
Assessment 2003, Gibson et. al. 2001). Climate change, demographical change,
technological innovations and fluctuations in world markets all illustrate fundamental
drivers that can have vast impacts on local ecosystems and biodiversity. It is important to
recognize that these cross-scale interactions do not add up in a linear manner. On the
contrary, they can be predominated by both positive and negative feed-backs operating
over a range of spatial and temporal scales which often result in “surprises” with immense
consequences for ecosystems and human welfare (Kay et. al. 1999:722, see Geist and
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Lambin 2004 on desertification, Schneider and Root 1995 on ecosystems, Downing et. al.
2005 and Moench 2005 on freshwater).
The multi-scale character of ecosystem changes has its multi-level governance

equivalence. The European Common Agricultural Policy, The Convention on Biological
Diversity and the incentives provided by the World Trade Agreement provide three
illustrative examples of the multi-scale, contradicting and poorly understood multilevel
institutional driving forces behind ecosystem change (Young et. al. 2006, Winter 2006). As
discussed in the section dealing with governance theory, the increased networking across
public and private actors and shifting responsibilities from the public to the private sector
has lead to new forms of environmental governance often with strong multi-level
characteristics (Eckerberg and Joas 2004).
Interesting in the context of GEMCONBIO, is that social actors in biodiversity conservation

under certain non-specified circumstances are able to navigate such a complex cross-level
institutional landscape and promote radical changes in policy outcomes that would not
have been possible by using formal decision-making structures (Olsson et. al. 2004,
Fairbrass and Jordan 2001).
The fact that a particular ecosystem is governed by institutions at different organizational

levels means there are, at least potentially, overlapping authority. The interaction
between institutions and agencies at different organizational levels may be benign or
malign depending on the degree of congruence and collaboration (Young, 2002). Benign
interaction allows agencies at one level to assume authority, supported by institutions and
agencies at other organisational levels. In this case the institutional redundancy does not
cause conflicts and high transaction costs, but may enhance governance (response)
options. Malign interaction, on the other hand, results from conflicting management
objectives or otherwise high transaction costs. Hence, it is an open, empirical, question to
assess whether the existence of overlapping management authority may improve effective
governance or not. The answer is not obvious; what seems effective under a scenario of
“steady-state” may look different if sudden change and surprise are taken into account
(e.g. left part of Figure 3.1).
5.2.3 Societal Attributes
Another issue related to why well-intended biodiversity conservation initiatives might fail,
despite high governance capacity, is related to the “governability” of the social and
ecological system. Governability here refers to the ability of social actors – independent of
scale – to steer the development of social and ecological systems (c.f. Pierre and Peters
2005:66f, Kooiman 2003). Simply put, systems that imbed highly dynamic and poorly
understood ecological systems, and uninterested or opposing social forces (such as policy
networks for conservation and a public that opposes biodiversity conservation) will be
difficult to manoeuvre towards defined ecosystem management aims. Hence the outcome
of well-intended biodiversity conservation initiatives at local or central level is highly
dependent of issues related not only to the capacity to govern, but also the governability
of the social-ecological system.
Operationalizing governability is far from a simple task. We suggest that GEMCONBIO uses
four attributes to identify governability in the case studies.
1) The existence and structure of social networks – The possibilities of self-organization

amongst natural resource users has been widely acknowledged among scholars of
environmental policy (Ostrom 1990, Dietz et. al. 2003). Locally evolved institutional
arrangements governed by communities and buffered from outside forces seem to have
sustained resources successfully for centuries. The role of self-organized networks have
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also been recognized as crucial in over-bridging institutional fragmentation and promoting

sustainability in natural resource management (Rydin and Falleth 2006). In addition, social
networks also seem to increase the ability of natural resource users to reduce vulnerability
of social and ecological systems. As elaborated by (Olsson et. al. 2004), social networks
might provide the arena where local groups learn, and actively adapt to ecological
surprises and crises by connecting institutions and organizations across levels and scales,
and by facilitating information flows.
Under other circumstances however, social networks might provide a conservative

social force that might decrease the capacity of natural resource users to cope with
environmental change (Galaz 2006b, c.f. Pierre and Peters 2005). Hence it is important to
recognize the not all social networks have the same effect on ecosystems. Networks
composed of “bridging” links to a diverse web of resources strengthen a community’s
ability to adapt to change, but networks composed only of local “bonding” links, which
impose constraining social norms and foster group homogeneity, can reduce resilience
(Newman and Dale 2005, c.f. Granovetter 1983).
2) The existing public support for biodiversity conservation - Governing for biodiversity
tends to involve tough trade-offs that might trigger conflicts between stakeholders and
between local users and governmental agencies. These latter conflicts typically involve an
effort from the agency to preserve or protect a certain species perceived by people living
in the area as harmful or unwanted in some way. In some instances, these conflicts have
even held displays of violence, sabotage, and explicit disobedience of laws. Conflicts of
this kind provide fundamental obstacles to biodiversity conservation initiatives (Wilshusen
2002), social learning processes (Galaz 2005), and ecological restoration efforts (Diggelen
et. al. 2001).
3) The trust actors have for existing institutions and government initiatives in general -
Although trust and social networks among stakeholders in ecosystem management is likely
to be important, the importance of vertical trust should be recognized. Vertical trust here
refers to the social capital existing between local stakeholders and government actors and
institutions. Low vertical poses a number of challenges for ecosystem management. First,
self-organized multi-level biodiversity governance relies heavily on collaboration among a
diverse set of actors operating at different levels, from local users to municipalities to
regional and national organizations. These vertical linkages are fundamental for linking a
variety of sources of information and knowledge and hence avoiding set prescriptions of
management superimposed on a particular place, situation, or context (Olsson et. al.
2004). Second, the ability to reorganize and renew a desired social-ecological system state
following disturbance and change, will strongly depend on the influences from dynamics at
scales above and below which highlights the need for creating institutional linkages across
scales (Gunderson and Holling 2002), and the importance of vertical trust. Third, low levels
of vertical trust can seriously diminish the incentives for self-organization and innovations
by local actors in ecosystem management as exemplified by the case of corruption.
4) Dynamics and uncertainty of ecosystem - The degree of governability is also dependent

of the degree of complexity and uncertainty in the ecological system. This has been
elaborated in detail by researchers of common property institutions that highlight the fact
that the uncertainty of ecological systems can generate serious obstacles to the collective
action capacity of natural resource users (Wilson 2002, Ostrom 1998, Ostrom et. al. 1994).
Hence although the capacity to govern might be strong at the local or central level,
uncertainties and poorly understood interactions in the ecological system might put serious
limits to the capacity of local and central actors to arrive at agreements or reach assumed
targets.
As a case in point, conflicts amongst natural resource users seem to intensify on

issues marked by considerable scientific and/or environmental uncertainty (Sebenius 1992,
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Alcock 2002). Actors uncertain about the future may simply discount it and focus on short-
term gains, or resist establishing any agreement that potentially may disfavour them hence
intensifying conflict (Knight 1992). A noteworthy insight reviewing experiments made by
social-psychological researchers is that ecological uncertainty tends to drive an outcome-
desirability bias among natural resource users in harvesting experiments (Gustafsson et. al.
1999, Budescu et. al. 1992), which illustrates the destructive effects of high ecosystem
uncertainty.
5.2.4 Natural Resource Management Objectives and Decision Making
For the area under consideration, it may be wholly or partially contained with a
Management Plan, either as a protected area or as a natural resource. In fact it is likely to
contain a number of management plans either for different areas or for different
authorities. Therefore within this section it is important to identify what the prime
objectives of managing the area are and what mechanisms are used to achieve these goals.
First of all we have to identify who are the stakeholders currently involved in the
management of ecosystems. During this process we will be able to see whether resources
are managed by State authorities, privatised agencies, community administrations or a
combination of each. It will be important to understand which resources are managed in
which way and under which supporting legislation.
Once data is derived for the set of ecosystems that are managed, the following sources of
information are required to understand the features of the management process or
planning:
- Objectives – the main objectives of the management plan or approach need to be

identified. These objectives may include biodiversity conservation or they may not. But
the scientific, social, economic, and conservation objectives need to be identified and
then classified as to their priority within the management plan.
- Time plan – traditionally areas have been managed with short term objectives however
as management moves to consider the ecosystem level, the time horizon should extend
to the long term health of the ecosystem.
- Main ecosystem services utilized – this may be the same as for the ecosystem
characteristics assessed above, but with resource use, it is likely that there are
dominant resources that the area is managed to produce (i.e. not an ecosystem
management perspective).
- Monitoring – the implementation of management plans needs to be constantly
monitored to identify whether action is effective in reaching the stated goals. As such
management plans are a continuous process rather than a static event.
Decision-making structures and processes
Decisions made on how and what natural resources to use are implemented at all levels.
Decisions are made by central government all the way down to individual landowners. A
common feature for each of these “decision-makers” is that they make their decisions in
an imperfect world (ie. with uncertainty) and in the face of a set of conflicting demands
(Dietz et al 2003). Governments are faced with complex and conflicting demands and
interests from different sectors, and individuals are trying to balance different aspects of
their lives to maximise their well-being. This dynamic process which is responding to
changing ecological and social conditions informs the trade-offs that each decision-maker
has to make. To understand the decisions made and how they can be influenced to support
both human wellbeing and the protection of biodiversity, we must be able to gauge these
trade-offs.
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5.2.5 Governance Processes
In the implementation of management objectives within the study area, we identify three
broad categories of mechanism that can be used. We have identified these as governance
processes to emphasise that it is the structures and processes involved in the
implementation of the management tools that are the focus for this project. In most cases
even the most innovative tool will not be successful without effective processes behind it.
We take the view that the implementation of management objectives, be it by an
individual land owner or a government will use a combination of economic (and financial),
social and regulatory processes. It is likely that the relative balance of the use of these
different tools and their interaction with the different stakeholders involved will be one of
the key areas of investigation for this project.
Regulatory Processes
Under this category we investigate how many institutional levels are involved in the
regulation of biodiversity conservation in the studied area. Regulations are developed
within institutional contexts and are often administered and enforced by different agencies
or actors. Levels of enforcement can different between sectors and regions, leading to a
patchy implementation of regulations and an unbalanced use of regulatory tools. To assess
the level of implementation of such approaches we view the interaction between
institutions and government agencies at different levels. This is related to the more
general question of multi-level governance (section 5.2.2) but here the issues are applied
directly to the study area and its actors.
Economic and financial processes

Within this category we group financial incentive schemes such as the use of rural
development payments within the Common Agricultural Policy, together with open market
tools to support biodiversity conservation. Major incentive schemes usually have a
regulatory foundation. The CAP, for example, contains elements that are compulsory for
farmers to receive payments (e.g. cross-compliance). However the policy also contains
voluntary measures that will provide financial support to farmers to increase the ecological
integrity of their land. Again there is considerable regional and national variation in the
ability of stakeholders to access and then implement such mechanisms.
An important first step is to understand if and how wild resources are valued within the
study area. This approach which looks at components of biodiversity that do not include
farming or forestry commodities, but can include resources found on farmland or in forests
(e.g. non-timber forest products), is often not fully incorporated into the economic
decision-making concerning an area. Therefore one part of the study is to understand what
resources are currently utilised within different countries and what their combined value
to users could be. This initial approach will limit itself to activities directly related to wild
living resources (both consumptive and non-consumptive).
A further important question addressed here is the relationship between those who bear
the cost of managing an area or resource for biodiversity and those who may benefit from
it. One of the key provisions of global biodiversity conventions is the equitable sharing of
costs and benefits. Examples of this include the extractive use of forest resources or the
impacts of tourism which invariable leave the negative impacts to the local community,
but the economic benefits are taken by companies outside the region.
Social Processes
One of the central tenets of GEM-CON-BIO is the social processes involved in the effective
implementation of management for biodiversity. Integrated management processes
emphasise the importance of social interactions and the use of knowledge. Therefore this
part of the project will assess the level of interaction among stakeholders within the
studied area and the level of trust both vertically (i.e. with institutions at different levels)
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and horizontally (between institutions at the same level). Often the success of activities at
the local level relies on the driving force of certain key individuals. These individuals offer
both advantages and disadvantages, primarily related to the consequences of them leaving
the system. The social processes issues related to the Research Questions were discussed
above in section 3.2.
5.2.6 Impacts
The theoretical construct of the analytical framework maintains that the three broad
groups of governance processes are used in varying degrees simultaneously to manage
natural systems. The outcomes of these processes have a series of impacts that can be
broadly clustered into ecological, economic & financial and societal categories. The
combination of processes used is assumed to affect each of these categories to differing
degrees. For example the implementation of market tools may have positive impacts on
societal and economic features in the study area, but they may equally have large
deleterious impacts on the ecological state of the area.
Therefore in this part of the analysis we ask whether people within the study area realise
both monetary and non-monetary values from the management of resources. Also we ask
whether the governance processes have led to the use and benefit from new ecosystem
services; an example of this could be the establishment of a wildlife viewing business or
sustainable harvest of a natural resource not previously exploited. We then ask whether
the result of these approaches increases or decreases the threats and pressures faced by
the study area.
5.2.7 Change in the State of Biodiversity

Based on the set of impacts observed above, we postulate that again these will aggregate
to have an overall impact on biodiversity. This measure of a change of state of biodiversity
is difficult for several reasons. Primarily it is extremely difficult to establish a causal link
between the drivers of change and the change itself, see Chapter 2. Often effects, both
positive and negative, are only visible many years after the initial impact, at which time it
can become difficult to tease apart the relative strength of the different drivers causing
the impact. In some cases it has been possible to show correlations between drivers and
impacts. For example there is a negative correlation between bird numbers (56 species)
and mean wheat yields in the EU-15 countries, indicating that populations decline as wheat
yields increase (Birdlife International 2004). In this section we recognise that establishing a
cause and effect relationship between the implementation of governance processes and
resulting changes in the state of biodiversity will be extremely difficult. Also establishing
correlations, given the short time span of the project, will also be very difficult. In some
situations where case studies have long time series data it may be possible, but in most
cases we will have to identify ‘proxy’ measures to represent the state of biodiversity.
These proxies are likely to change between case studies making quantitative comparison
difficult. They will most likely be the implementation of management measures that are
known to have positive effects on biodiversity elsewhere, for example the maintenance or
restoration of habitats of priority species.
5.2.8 Evaluation
The evaluation component of the framework allows us to compare the suite of

management objectives identified earlier in the model with the outcomes. We are also
able to ask whether management plans or actions allow for adaptation and feedback to
change their objectives. Most importantly the evaluation component of the framework
provides the strongest link between the different levels of analysis. We try to identify at
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what organisational level are changes most necessary. The principles of both the
Ecosystem and Approach and Addis Ababa highlight the need to make decisions at the most
appropriate level. This is issue of subsidiarity in the management of natural resources is
very important, especially when associated with the effectiveness of governance
processes. This approach will allow the project to make recommendations concerning the
feedback that is required and also at what stage it is needed, whether modifications of the
Natural Resource Management Plans can be made at the site level or whether institutional
or policy changes are required at the national or regional level.
Conclusions
This report establishes the groundwork for the GEM-CON-BIO project. We have provided a
brief overview of the concepts and theoretical approaches used in the management of
biodiversity. We have shown the relationship between the different components of
ecological theory, management practice and biodiversity conservation. Although these
different fields have developed from very different origins, we can now see that both
globally and increasingly locally, they are forming into a single vision for the sustainable
use and management of ecosystems. Within the European Union this comes at a very
prescient time. We are witnessing a dramatic decline in European biodiversity that will be
exacerbated by increased habitat fragmentation and climate change. Two years ago, 10
countries joined the European Union with the result that most of continental Europe is a
party to the development and natural resource use policies of the European Community.
Within this complex body of legislation there are conflicting demands for increased
economic development (the so called Lisbon Agenda) and the commitments made globally
and in Europe to halt the loss of biodiversity by 2010. As scientists we know this target is
un-manageable, however it has provided a catalysis and spotlight for the state of Europe’s
nature. This is coupled with the broader financial perspective of the EU which is
integrating biodiversity considerations into other financial mechanisms such as rural
development and structural funds. Thus in Europe we are faced with a situation that
‘nature’ is competing with the economic and development interests of Member States. The
shift in thinking from separate perspectives on land use policies and nature conservation to
a more holistic ecosystem approach therefore provides a potent opportunity to ensure that
development can move towards being sustainable.
However this approach carries many challenges and one of the largest is associated with
governance. We postulate that European countries and the EU are, relative to most other
countries, tightly bound by legislative processes governing the use of natural resources
which have developed over centuries. The disparity between regions and countries in the
management and use of resources comes in part from the governance processes (i.e. the
interactions between political, social and economic affairs) that have evolved over time.
We identify a complex mix of economic, regulatory and financial tools that can support the
use and management of natural resources and the effectiveness of these approaches is in
part determined by the interactions between the different stakeholder groups and
institutions involved. This is the first time that there has been an integrated approach to
the study of what we define as biodiversity governance; the way society at all scales
manages its social, economic, and regulatory affairs with the aim to protect ecosystem
Using our review as a basis we have developed an analytical framework that allows us to
undertake an integrated study of the interaction between governance processes and the
management of natural resources for biodiversity conservation. Our model is built on an
existing background of analytical concepts including those employed by the EU and OECD
(the PSR and DPSIR approach), and also governance based models. The core content of this
- 64 -
framework (Figure 4.1) is contained within an extensive table of questions (Annex A.1) that
has been consulted with project members and will guide them collect relevant data in the
case studies of this project. We hope that this review, analytical model and set of research
questions can prepare the ground for a detailed review of governance processes currently
underway across the EU. Through this approach we will be able to draw conclusions on the
processes that best support biodiversity and answer the questions posed at the beginning
of our report.
- 65 -
Glossary
Term Definition
Adaptive management The structuring of policy or management actions as a set of
testable hypotheses to promote learning from policy
implementation, and to allow for greater adaptability when
change does inevitably occur within the system (Lamont
2006).
Addis Ababa Principles A set of 14 principles and guidelines that assist stakeholders
to ensure that their use of the components of biodiversity
will not lead to the long-term decline of biological diversity.
Afforestation Planting of new forests on lands that historically have not
contained forests
Alien Species A species (or lower taxon) occurring outside its historical
range and its potential dispersal range. It can be introduced
intentionally or unintentionally. Synonyms include: exotic,
non- native, non-indigenous, foreign species.
Biodiversity The variability among living organisms from all sources [...]
this includes diversity within species, between species and of
ecosystems" (Article 2, CBD).
Biodiversity governance The way society at all scales manages its social, economic,
and regulatory affairs with the aim to protect ecosystem
Climate change A statistically significant variation in either the mean state
of the climate or in its variability, persisting for an extended
period (typically decades or longer). The UNFCCC in its
Article 1 makes the distinction between climate change
which it identifies as anthropocentric in origin and climate
variability which is attributable to natural causes.
Collaborative governance The integration of values (economic and social as well as
environmental) through a collaborative, multi-partner
decision making process (Lamont 2006)
Ecosystem a “dynamic complex of plant, animal and micro-organism
communities and their non-living environment interacting as
a functional unit” (UN 1992)
Ecosystem Approach A strategy for the integrated management of land, water and
living resources that promotes conservation and sustainable
use in an equitable way (CBD Decision V/6). The CBD
developed a set of 12 principles for the Ecosystem approach.
Ecosystem processes The interactions between the components of an ecosystem
Ecosystem function The capacity of natural processes and components to provide
goods and services that satisfy human needs, directly or
indirectly (De Groot 1992)
Ecosystem goods and The set of ecosystem functions which have observable
services benefits to human society
Ecosystem management Analogous to the ecosystem approach.
Ecosystem structure the organisation and composition of an ecosystem’s
components
Habitat fragmentation The reduction and isolation of patches of natural
environment.
Governance The way society as a whole manages the full array of its
political, economic, and social affairs.
Good governance Good governance features of governance that promote,
among other things, participatory, transparent, equitable
- 66 -
and accountable methods. Good governance promotes the

rule of law and ensures that political, social and economic
priorities are based on broad consensus in society.
Governability The ability of social actors at various scales to steer the
development of social and ecological systems
Integrated Coastal Zone An ecosystem based approach to the integrative
Management (ICZM) management of coasts to ensure the sustainable
development of coastal communities and the preservation of
ecosystems.
Integrative planning The establishment of clearly stated long-term goals and
objectives, the implementation of a wide range of policy
tools to achieve these objectives, and the continuous
monitoring of the ecosystem (Lamont 2006).
Invasive alien species An alien species that becomes established in natural or semi-
natural ecosystems and acts as an agent of change,
threatening local biodiversity.
Natural resources A general term to cover the extractable biotic components
of an ecosystem. The European Commissions uses a very
broad definition that includes raw materials such as
minerals, biomass and biological resources; environmental
media such as air, water and soil; flow resources such as
wind, geothermal, tidal and solar energy; and space (land
area).
Resilience The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and
reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain
essentially the same function, structure, identity, and
feedbacks (Walker et al 2004).
- 67 -
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Annex 1: The Research Questions
KEY
Optional
C = Compulsory; O = Optional
Level
E = European, N = National, S = Sub-national; L = Local
Each level column has a number which identifies the relevance of the question at the
level of organisation. (3 = low, 2 = medium, 1 = high, NA = non applicable)
VC or Variable Code
N = Number (direct measurement, e.g. Number of stakeholders or area)
P = Parameter (a derived measure, either based on subjective assessment or calculation)
L = List (identify series of objects)
T = Text (refers to the need for more detailed explanation or justification for a parameter)
Values
This column indicates the type of data that should be collected and in specific cases
the variables used.
Notes
This column provides some more detailed information such as potential sources of data.
- 75 -
No. Optional Question Level VC Values
1 C O Initial Capacity E N S L
1.1 Ecological Capacity
1.1.1 C What is the size of the study area 1 1 1 1 N km sq
What are the most important habitat types in the area (How
1.1.2 C many, list, rank) 1 1 1 1 L, N No., List, % cover
What are the main ecosystem services of the area vital for
1.1.3 C human well-being 2 2 1 1 L, N rank MA list per habitat type
For each identified ecosystem service, identify any change in
1.1.4 O the delivery of that service over time 3 3 2 2 P % change Category system
1.1.5 C What are the major threats facing the area being studied 1 1 1 1 L rank MA List of threats
What proportion of the area is protected and managed either %, text entry for further
1.1.6 C publicly or privately for biodiversity 2 2 1 1 N, T information
What is the change in state of monitored species (e.g. Birds) in Use relevant and/or
1.1.7 O the area 1 1 1 1 Trend representative species data
Use relevant and/or
1.1.8 O What is the change in state of monitored habitats in the area 1 1 1 1 Trend representative habitat data
1.2 Socio-economic Capacity
%: NUTS1, NUTS2, NUTS3,
Private, Church, Common
1.2.1 C What is the current ownership structure in the study area 1 1 1 1 P Other
1.2.2 C What is the population size and density of the area 1 1 1 1 N population
What is the per capita income (additional information by sector
1.2.3 C if possible) 1 1 1 1 N
1.2.4 O What is the unemployment rate (again by sector if possible) 1 1 1 1 N
1.3 Governance Capacity
1.3.1 O What is the Voice and accountability of citizens in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
What is the Political stability and absence of violence of citizens
1.3.2 O in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
1.3.3 O What is the Voice and accountability of citizens in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
1.3.4 O What is the Government effectiveness in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
1.3.5 O What is the Regulatory quality for citizens in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
1.3.6 O What is the Rule of law in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
1.3.7 O What is the Control of corruption in the region 1 1 NA NA P National Indicators
1.4 Regulatory Capacity

List the binding and non
binding agreements and use
Which binding and non-binding multilateral agreements categories for strength of
1.4.1 C influence nature policy either positively or negatively 1 1 NA NA L, P impact
What is the key legislation used to manage biodiveristy at the List the main legislation with
1.4.2 C national level 1 1 NA NA L text justification for its role
Identify the most important non-environmental legislation that List the main legislation with
1.4.3 C impacts biodiversity 1 1 NA NA L text justification for its role
What is the level of conformity and correspondence within Categories for level of
1.4.4 O environmental legislation 1 1 NA NA P, T congruence, Text detail
What is the level of conformity and correspondence between Categories for level of
1.4.5 O environmental legislation and other relavent legistation 1 1 NA NA P, T congruence, Text detail
What financial mechanisms exist at the international or national
1.4.6 C level for the conservation of biodiversity 1 1 1 1 L, N List mechanisms and budgets
List and prioritise services,
identify strong points and
1.4.8 C What extension services are available to advise on funds 2 2 1 1 L, T failings
List targets and monitoring
results, identify lack of targets
1.4.9 C Do national funds achieve their targets 1 1 2 2 L, T or data
List mechanisms, classify
What mechanisms exist within national legislation or action effectiveness using 5 category
plans to support collaborative management, and how well are system, provide text
1.4.10 C they implemented 1 1 1 1 L, P, T justification
1.5 General Social Capacity
What is the general level of trust in the region between Category value and Text
1.5.1 O stakeholders and institutions (vertical) 1 1 NA NA P, T description
What is the level of trust between stakeholders within social Category value and Text
1.5.2 O networks in the region (horizontal) 1 1 NA NA P, T description
National statistics or local

1.5.3 C What is the public awareness of the services from biodiveristy 1 1 1 1 P survey
What is the public perception of dis-services or costs from National statistics or local
1.5.4 C biodiversity 1 1 1 1 P survey
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Natural Resource Management Objectives and Decision-
2 C O making E N S L
Is there a management plan or plans (MP) for the area or parts
2.1.1 C of the area under study 2 2 1 1 N
2.1.2 C What is the time frame of management 1 1 1 1 N
To what extent are ecosystems managed with a ecosystem % management and text
2.1.3 C approach or as separate natural resources? 1 1 1 1 P, T justification
2.1.4
What are main scientific, social, economic and conservation Use a provided check List and text
2.1.5 O objectives of the MP 2 2 1 1 L, T justification
Of the ecosystem services used in the area, which are
2.1.6 C prioritised by the Management Plan 2 2 1 1 P Rank MA list (based on 1.1.3)
Yes/No and number of licence
2.1.7 O Is licencing for use allowed 1 1 1 1 T mechanisms
How and Who: Identify methods
2.1.8 C How is the use of the natural resources monitored over time 1 1 1 1 T and who carries them out
2.1.9 C Is monitoring used to change the management plan 3 3 1 1 T Yes/No and text justification
2.1.1 List mechanisms and Value in
0 C What are the financial support sources for the MP? 2 2 1 1 L, P Euros/Ha
- 78 -

3 C O Governance Processes E N S L
3.1 Regulatory
List and rank each of the
institutional levels in terms of
How many institutional levels are involved in the regulation of importance for regulation. Use
3.1.1 C biodiversity conservation in the studied area? 2 2 1 1 L, T text justification.
Of the regulatory tools identified earlier (1.4.2), identify the level Use previous list, rank, Use
of implementation and the importance of each tool within the categories for importance, text
3.1.2 C area 2 2 1 1 L, P, T justification for each
Use previous list, rank, Use
categories for stength of
What is the level of enforcement and compliance with each of compliance and enforcement,
3.1.3 C the identified legislative tools. 2 2 1 1 L, P, T text justification for each
What is the level of institutional interaction during the Identify institutional stakeholders,
implementation of regulations within the area - is it positive or categorise their interaction, use
3.1.4 O negative NA NA 2 1 P, L, T text support
What is the awareness of regulations among stakeholders Categories for level of
3.1.5 O within the area NA NA 1 1 P, T awareness, text support
3.2 Economic and Financial
What market tools and incentives are in place to support the List and rank using Ecologic
3.2.1 C management of ecosystems 1 1 1 1 L report categories
What proportion of market tools and incentives are used for
3.2.2 C biodiversity conservation 1 1 1 1 P Proportion of above
What is the awareness of current mechanisms among No. of applications made per
3.2.3 C stakeholders 2 2 1 1 P area
Who bears the cost of the management of natural resources for List using institutional actors (list
3.2.4 C biodiversity 1 1 1 1 L, T provided)
Who benefits from the management of natural resources for List using institutional actors (list
3.2.5 C biodiversity 1 1 1 1 L, T provided)
3.3 Social
How many different stakeholder groups (e.g. Organisations)
are involved in the management of ecosystems and
3.3.1 C biodiversity? 3 3 2 1 N, L Number of groups and list
Is local knowledge and experience incorporated into
3.3.2 C management planning? 3 3 2 1 T Yes/No and How
- 79 -
Does the level of vertical trust identified in Seciont 1.5 positively

or negatively impact the implementation of management Categories for strength of impact
3.3.3 C activities? 3 3 2 1 P, T and text to support classification
Categories for strength of
collaboration and text to support
3.3.4 C Is there significant collaboration among local stakeholders? 3 3 2 1 P, T classification
Do informal policy networks exist of key persons representing
3.3.5 C organisations and agencies across organisational levels? 3 3 2 1 T Yes/No and How
Is there a clear leadership role of certain stakeholders or
3.3.6 C agencies in the management process? 3 3 2 1 T Yes/No and How

4 C O Impacts E N S L
4.1 Economic and Financial
Do Stakeholders realise a new value from the ecosystem
goods and services as a result of new biodiversity
4.1.1 C governance? 2 2 1 1 L, T Yes/No and How
Are new market opportunities exploited as a result of the
4.1.2 C governance processes? 2 2 1 1 L, T Yes/No and How
Are market opportunities missed as a result of governance
4.1.3 C processes? 2 2 1 1 L, T Yes/No and How
4.2 Social
Do Stakeholders realise a non-monetary new value from the Yes/No, Ranked sub-section of
ecosystem goods and services as a result of new biodiversity the MA Ecosystem services list.
4.2.1 C governance? 3 3 2 1 L, P, T Provide text support
Has the collaboration for biodiversity governance resulted in
increased or decreased levels of vertical or horizontal trust in Category value and Text
4.2.2 C the managed area? 3 3 2 1 P, T description
4.3 Ecological
Ranked MA list and category
Has the delivery of ecosystem services indentified in Section 1 classification for each with text
4.3.1 C changed as a result of the management actions 1 1 1 1 P, T justification
Ranked MA list and category
Have the threats identified in Section 1.1 increased or classification for each with text
4.3.2 C decreased as a result of the management actions 1 1 1 1 P, T justification
- 80 -

5 C O Change in the State of Biodiversity
Based on the suite of impacts, what is the expect net impact on Category value and Text
5.1.1 C biodiversity of the management actions? 1 1 1 1 P, T description
6 C O Evalutation
Do the results of the different governance processes meet the
6.1.1 C requirements of the resource management objectives? 2 2 1 1 P, T Yes/ No, text justification
Do the results meet the requirements of broader commitments
6.1.2 C made at the international level (e.g. CBD) 1 1 2 2 P, T Yes/ No, text justification
Identify the necessary level at which changes must be made Rank each level and use
to meet current objectives or set future objectives - category to classify need for
6.1.3 O governance process, Management Plan or National Policy. 3 3 2 1 P, T change. Text justification.
- 81 -

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Project no: 028827

Project acronym: GEM-CON-BIO

Project title: Governance and Ecosystems Management for the CONservation of

Thematic Priority: 7 – Citizens and Governance in a knowledge-based society

Due date of deliverables: 31/6/2006

Start date of project: 1/2/2006 Duration: 24 months

Deliverables numbers D 2.2 and D 3.2

GEM-CON-BIO Technical Report

Ecosystem Governance in Europe

Part A: Ecosystem Management in Europe

Part B: The Governance of Natural Resources

Part C: An Integrated Approach

PART A: Ecosystem Management in Europe ...................................................... 7

PART B: The Governance of Natural Resources................................................. 25

3. The Management and Governance of Natural Resources.................................. 26

PART C: An Integrated Approach .................................................................. 43

4. The GEM-CON-BIO Analysis Framework ....................................................... 44

4.2.4 The PSR / DPSIR approach ............................................................... 46

PART A: Ecosystem Management in Europe

1.1 Aims and Objectives of GEM-CON-BIO

GEM-CON-BIO aims to improve the scientific and conceptual understanding of governance

• Examining the ownership structure of particular areas with importance in the

1. Identify existing governance types in relation to conservation of biodiversity; discuss

1.2 Outline of the Report

2. Biodiversity and Ecosystems in Europe

Not all Natural Resources are

Biodiversity is seen as providing a For GEM-CON-BIO most interest

2.1 Considering ecosystems and their goods and services

2.2 The role of biodiversity within ecosystems

Figure 2.2: The role of biodiversity within an ecosystem (MA 2005)

An important area of study of ecosystem management is functional redundancy. Within an

Space Physical space is required to produce or sustain all the

2.3 Natural Resources

2.4 Measuring Biodiversity

2.5 Biodiversity in Europe

2.6 Major ecosystems in Europe

2.6.1 Europe’s landscapes

The landscape perspective offers an important concept for GEM-CON-BIO. It is broader

management, conservation and utilisation of forests. Instead Europe’s forests are

2.6.4 Coastal and Marine Ecosystems

2.6.5 Freshwater Ecosystems

2.7 Drivers of Ecosystem change

Furthermore as life expectancy increases in Europe so does the relative demand on

2.7.1 Main Direct Pressures on ecosystems

PART B: The Governance of Natural Resources

3. The Management and Governance of Natural Resources

3.1. The Use and Management of Natural Resources

3.1.1 The ecosystem approach and sustainable use

The ecosystem approach to management brought many important advantages including a

Table 3.1: Principles of the Ecosystem Approach

The Ecosystem Approach offers a number of advantages when compared to traditional

network of national and sub-national boundaries this poses a significant issue.

Characteristic Traditional approach Ecosystem approach Benefits of EA

3.1.2 Efforts at the global level

International concern about environmental degradation and the future of development

3.1.3 The Addis Ababa Principles

3.1.4 Efforts at the European Level

Community Law and Regulations

The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)

3.1.5 Efforts at the local level

Centrally directed agri-environment schemes, based on recent changes in Common

3.2 Ecosystem management regimes

A. Government management: Authority and accountability for management is with a