TY - JOUR

T1 - Landscape-scale biodiversity governance

T2 - Scenarios for reshaping spaces of governance

AU - Leventon, Julia

AU - Schaal, Tamara

AU - Velten, Sarah

AU - Loos, Jacqueline

AU - Fischer, Joern

AU - Newig, Jens

PY - 2019/5/1

Y1 - 2019/5/1

N2 - In this paper, we present an alternative governance system for managing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Focusing primarily on the European Union (EU), we start with the premise that there is a need to rethink biodiversity governance to bring together land managers for collaboration and to close mismatches between levels of governance and ecological scales. We therefore create four archetypal governance scenarios that represent hypothetical extremes in two variables. The first variable is the scale of governance and differentiates between a primary focus on administrative units (e.g., country, state, and county) versus ecological scales (bioregion and landscape). The second variable is the degree of decentralization and devolution and differentiates between a top-down, central-state system, versus a bottom-up, broad actor-network system. On the basis of their considered strengths and weaknesses, we present a hybrid scenario as our proposed alternative governance system. This system brings together decision makers, land managers, and a broader range of stakeholders at a landscape scale to plan biodiversity goals and actions. This, in turn, will more closely match the biophysical conditions for effective biodiversity conservation than existing EU approaches, without overly increasing the administrative burden.

AB - In this paper, we present an alternative governance system for managing biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. Focusing primarily on the European Union (EU), we start with the premise that there is a need to rethink biodiversity governance to bring together land managers for collaboration and to close mismatches between levels of governance and ecological scales. We therefore create four archetypal governance scenarios that represent hypothetical extremes in two variables. The first variable is the scale of governance and differentiates between a primary focus on administrative units (e.g., country, state, and county) versus ecological scales (bioregion and landscape). The second variable is the degree of decentralization and devolution and differentiates between a top-down, central-state system, versus a bottom-up, broad actor-network system. On the basis of their considered strengths and weaknesses, we present a hybrid scenario as our proposed alternative governance system. This system brings together decision makers, land managers, and a broader range of stakeholders at a landscape scale to plan biodiversity goals and actions. This, in turn, will more closely match the biophysical conditions for effective biodiversity conservation than existing EU approaches, without overly increasing the administrative burden.

KW - Sustainability Science

KW - agriculture

KW - ecology

KW - environmental policy

KW - EU

KW - interplay

KW - multilevel governance

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85060344289&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1002/eet.1845

DO - 10.1002/eet.1845

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85060344289

VL - 29

SP - 170

EP - 184

JO - Environmental Policy and Governance

JF - Environmental Policy and Governance

SN - 1756-932X

IS - 3

ER -