Biodiversity conservation across scales: lessons from a science–policy dialogue

By

Paloniemi, Riikka
Apostolopoulou, Evangelia
Primmer, Eeva
Grodzinska-Jurcak, Malgorzata
Henle, Klaus
Ring, Irene
Kettunen, Marianne
Tzanopoulos, Joseph
Potts, Simon
Hove, c
Marty, Pascal
McConville, Andrew
Simila, Jukka

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2012

Original Publication

Nature conservation

Volume

2

Pages

7-19

Subjects

academia , Biodiversity conservation , Environmental policy , EU , governance , scale challenge , scale sensitivity , stakeholders

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

Sofia, Bulgaria Pensoft Publishers 2012-

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.2.3144

 

Abstract

One of the core challenges of biodiversity conservation is to better understand the interconnectedness and interactions of scales in ecological and governance processes. These interrelationships constitute not only a complex analytical challenge but they also open up a channel for deliberative discussions and knowledge exchange between and among various societal actors which may themselves be operating at various scales, such as policy makers, land use planners, members of NGOs, and researchers. In this paper, we discuss and integrate the perspectives of various disciplines academics and stakeholders who participated in a workshop on scales of European biodiversity governance organised in Brussels in the autumn of 2010. The 23 participants represented various governmental agencies and NGOs from the European, national, and sub-national levels. The data from the focus group discussions of the workshop were analysed using qualitative content analysis. The core scale-related challenges of biodiversity policy identified by the participants were cross-level and cross-sector limitations as well as ecological, social and social-ecological complexities that potentially lead to a variety of scale-related mismatches. As ways to address these cha­llenges the participants highlighted innovations, and an aim to develop new interdisciplinary approaches to support the processes aiming to solve current scale challenges.