Juliana Dänhardt
Research coordinator
Collaboration or fragmentation? Biodiversity management through the common agricultural policy
Author
Summary, in English
We argue that the current system of agri-environment management in the European Common Agricultural Policy is ineffective at conserving biodiversity in part because it promotes fragmentation instead of collaboration of actors, thus hindering coordinated biodiversity management. Actor fragmentation is reinforced by the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) in three ways: (1) through targeting individual farmers; (2) by creating confusion around coordination roles for increasing numbers of actors; and (3) by failing to engage with barriers to collaboration among farmers. Our findings draw on empirical evidence collected through multi-stakeholder workshops in Germany and Sweden. Our argument adds a different dimension to accepted explanations for the ineffectiveness of CAP for biodiversity management. Traditionally, explanations have focussed on low levels of farmer uptake of relevant measures, or the lack of ecological knowledge informing such measures. The level of actor fragmentation identified here suggests that a fundamental rethink of farmland biodiversity management is needed. We propose a new research agenda to identify more effective governance approaches.
Department/s
- Centre for Environmental and Climate Science (CEC)
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
Publishing year
2017-05-01
Language
English
Pages
1-12
Publication/Series
Land Use Policy
Volume
64
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Environmental Sciences related to Agriculture and Land-use
- Ecology
Keywords
- Agri-environment schemes
- Conservation
- Ecosystem services
- European Union
- Social network analysis
- Social-ecological systems
Status
Published
Project
- Rural development through governance of multifunctional agricultural land-use
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 0264-8377