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

Riikka Paloniemi , Evangelia Apostolopoulou , Eeva Primmer , Małgorzata Grodzinska-Jurczak , Klaus Henle (1) , Irene Ring , Marianne Kettunen , Joseph Tzanopoulos , Simon G. Potts , Sybille van den Hove , Pascal Marty (2)

1 Department of Conservation Biology
2 LIENSs - LIttoral ENvironnement et Sociétés

One of the core challenges of biodiversity conservation is to better understand the interconnectedness and interactions of scales in ecological and governance processes. hese 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. he 23 participants represented various governmental agencies and NGOs from the European, national, and sub-national levels. he data from the focus group discussions of the workshop were analysed using qualitative content analysis. he core scale-related challenges of biodiversity policy identiied 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.

Mots clés: Biodiversity conservation; environmental policy; governance; scale sensitivity; scale challenge; stakeholders; academia; EU

Domaines: Géographie; Etudes de l'environnement

Riikka Paloniemi, Evangelia Apostolopoulou, Eeva Primmer, Małgorzata Grodzinska-Jurczak, Klaus Henle, et al.. Biodiversity conservation across scales: lessons from a science–policy dialogue. Nature Conservation, 2012, 2, pp. 7-19. ⟨10.3897/natureconservation.2.3144⟩. ⟨halshs-01225980⟩