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Unraveling Stakeholders' Discourses Regarding Sustainable Development and Biodiversity Conservation in Greece

The growing establishment of protected areas incorporating profitable economic activity and conservation initiatives has been characterized by the exacerbation of existent conflicts and the emergence of new ones around them. Over the last two decades the participation of 'civil society' in protected areas governance under the mutual goal of sustainable development has become increasingly key to resolving natural resource conflicts. Schinias Greek Natura site, simultaneously national park and Olympic canoeing centre, provides a case study to investigate the roots and outcomes of natural resource conflicts within the context of the coexistence of development and conservation agendas and collaborative governance. Following a grounded-theory approach and drawing on insights from political ecology and environmental governance literature we have been able to reveal the political, socioeconomic, and conservation conflicts arising during implementation of state development and conservation policies. It appears that governmental political handling exacerbated these conflicts, leading to political manipulation to justify policy failure and promote nature privatization. We conclude that conflict resolution compatible with nature protection and social justice cannot occur in isolation from resolving crucial socioeconomic problems, strengthening transparency, and an accurate scientific analysis of the particularities of local communities to guide the formation and implementation of state policies.

The restructuring of biodiversity governance in Europe during the last two decades has been, inter alia, based on the argument that effective conservation hinges on consensual decision-making involving all relevant stakeholders. This has given rise to various network-based forms of governance and participatory arrangements in protected areas reinforcing the involvement of business and non-state actors, particularly through the creation of profitable public–private partnerships. Even though this shift has been framed as promoting stakeholder and public participation, in practice it has often hampered democratic decision-making and community empowerment. In this paper, we investigate the restructuring of biodiversity governance through the establishment of participatory arrangements in the governance of the natural park of Sant Llorenç del Munt i l'Obac, a place whose history has been linked with the emergence of one of the first environmental movements in Catalonia (Spain). We pay particular attention to the role of participatory arrangements in transforming power relationships and in promoting a neoliberal mode of biodiversity governance. We find that governance restructuring under the rhetoric of promoting stakeholder participation has in practice led to the exclusion of key social actors from the management of the natural park and favoured the inclusion of actors with mainly economic motivations further embedding a neoliberal agenda in the governance of the park and ultimately disempowering local community.

The gradually decreasing connectivity of habitats threatens biodiversity and ecological processes valuable to humans. Green infrastructure is promoted by the European Commission as a key instrument for the conservation of ecosystems in the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. Green infrastructure has been defined as a network of natural and semi-natural areas, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. We surveyed Finnish experts' perceptions on the development of green infrastructure within the existing policy framework. Our results show that improving the implementation of existing conservation policy instruments needs to be an integral part of developing green infrastructure. Despite the potential of green infrastructure to benefit biodiversity, existing conceptual ambiguity of green infrastructure with rather complex role of ecosystem services - and the possible interpretation of this in practice - raises concerns regarding its ability to contribute to biodiversity conservation. ; Peer reviewed

The gradually decreasing connectivity of habitats threatens biodiversity and ecological processes valuable to humans. Green infrastructure is promoted by the European Commission as a key instrument for the conservation of ecosystems in the EU biodiversity strategy to 2020. Green infrastructure has been defined as a network of natural and semi-natural areas, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. We surveyed Finnish experts' perceptions on the development of green infrastructure within the existing policy framework. Our results show that improving the implementation of existing conservation policy instruments needs to be an integral part of developing green infrastructure. Despite the potential of green infrastructure to benefit biodiversity, existing conceptual ambiguity of green infrastructure with rather complex role of ecosystem services – and the possible interpretation of this in practice – raises concerns regarding its ability to contribute to biodiversity conservation.

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.

This paper summarises discussions in a workshop entitled "exploring uncertainties in biodiversity science, policy and management". It draws together experiences gained by scientists and scholars when encountering and coping with different types of uncertainty in their work in the field of biodiversity protection. The discussion covers all main phases of scientific work: field work and data analysis; methodologies; setting goals for research projects, taking simultaneously into account the agency of scientists conducting the work; developing communication with policy-makers and society at large; and giving arguments for the societal relevance of the issues. The paper concludes with a plea for collaborative learning that would build upon close cooperation among specialists who have developed expertise in different fields in research, management and politics.

This paper summarises discussions in a workshop entitled "exploring uncertainties in biodiversity science, policy and management". It draws together experiences gained by scientists and scholars when encountering and coping with different types of uncertainty in their work in the field of biodiversity protection. The discussion covers all main phases of scientific work: field work and data analysis; methodologies; setting goals for research projects, taking simultaneously into account the agency of scientists conducting the work; developing communication with policy-makers and society at large; and giving arguments for the societal relevance of the issues. The paper concludes with a plea for collaborative learning that would build upon close cooperation among specialists who have developed expertise in different fields in research, management and politics.

This paper summarises discussions in a workshop entitled "exploring uncertainties in biodiversity science, policy and management". It draws together experiences gained by scientists and scholars when encountering and coping with different types of uncertainty in their work in the field of biodiversity protection. The discussion covers all main phases of scientific work: field work and data analysis; methodologies; setting goals for research projects, taking simultaneously into account the agency of scientists conducting the work; developing communication with policy-makers and society at large; and giving arguments for the societal relevance of the issues. The paper concludes with a plea for collaborative learning that would build upon close cooperation among specialists who have developed expertise in different fields in research, management and politics. Copyright Yrjö Haila et al.