The implementation of Natura 2000 in forests: A trans- and interdisciplinary assessment of challenges and choices

Natura 2000 is the core of the EU's biodiversity conservation policy. 50% of the overall protected area under Natura 2000 is forest. Yet, comparatively little is known about the implementation of the policy in forests. Building on a rich set of social and natural science data, and an inter- and transdisciplinary discussion process involving scientists from different disciplines as well as EU, national and local stakeholders, this paper identifies five important challenges related to the implementation of Natura 2000 in forests: (1) the balancing of biodiversity conservation and timber production, (2) the integration of conservation (science) and local stakeholders’ demands, (3) climate change, (4) lacking and less effective funding, and (5) conflicts related to other sectoral policies. Subsequently, five possible pathways to tackle these challenges are proposed: (1) a learning approach through better communication and transparency, (2) a pathway emphasizing the role of conservation science in developing management strategies and responding to climate change, (3) an approach of better integrating Europe's citizens in the design and implementation of the policy, (4) an approach highlighting the necessity of an effective funding strategy, and (5) the vision to work towards an integrated European land use and conservation policy. In conclusion, we emphasize, on one hand, the distinct character of the five pathways but, on the other hand, underline that probably all of them need to be followed in order to make the implementation of Natura 2000 in Europe's forests a success story.     

Is climate-smart conservation feasible in Europe? Spatial relations of protected areas,soil carbon,and land values

The expectations on protected areas to deliver not only biodiversity conservation but also to provide an array of different ecosystem services rise. Sequestration and storage of carbon are promising services that protected areas may provide. This study integrates spatially explicit data on terrestrial Natura 2000 sites, soil organic carbon, and agricultural land values to estimate the potential for climate-smart conservation planning in the European Union. The objectives of this study are to analyse spatial relations between protected areas soil carbon content, and land values on the European Union's land area as well as to locate and quantify the proportion of land with high carbon and low economic value within and outside protected areas. We apply a unique interdisciplinary framework with methods ranging from analyses based on geographical information systems, agricultural economics to statistics. Findings indicate that there is a significant overlap between Natura 2000 sites and regions with high carbon content across Europe. Statistical analyses show that carbon-rich regions have significantly lower land values than other areas. Our results suggest that biodiversity protection and mitigation of climate change through conservation of soil carbon could be simultaneously achieved in Europe's protected areas and beyond. We conclude that there is a notable potential for climate-smart conservation in Europe that needs further investigation.     

Uncertainties in the assessment of “significant effect” on the Dutch Natura 2000 Wadden Sea site – The mussel seed fishery and powerboat race controversies

Natura 2000, the nature network based on the European Bird and Habitat Directives, is explicitly grounded on ecological science. To acquire a permit under the Dutch Nature Conservation Act, an appropriate assessment of significant effects must be conducted based on the best available scientific knowledge. In this way the scientific and policy world are directly linked. This article focuses on ‘significant effect’ as a boundary object to analyse how science–policy interactions shape the meaning and assessment of significant effect and how these interpretations influence the decision-making process. To this end, two conflicts over significant effect are investigated: the conflict over the 2006-spring permit for the mussel seed fishery, and the 2011 permit for the planned World Championship powerboat races. In both cases nature organisations started a court process against the government-granted permits in protest to the “no significant effect” claim, stating that there was insufficient certainty for this conclusion. These conflicts are approached as controversies between discourse coalitions with different interpretations of the ecological knowledge. We show how significant effect became a focal point in the controversies, limiting the debate to ecological arguments and science-based expertise, but also creating options for parties to advance their protest by articulating uncertainties. Only uncertainty of incomplete knowledge was explicitly addressed, excluding ambiguity of values and unpredictability of the actual ecosystem. We suggest that acknowledging the value aspect in disputes on significant effect would leave more space for effective solutions of the problems under debate.     

The role of uncertainty in climate change adaptation strategies—A Danish water management example

We propose a generic framework to characterize climate change adaptation uncertainty according to three dimensions: level, source and nature. Our framework is different, and in this respect more comprehensive, than the present UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) approach and could be used to address concerns that the IPCC approach is oversimplified. We have studied the role of uncertainty in climate change adaptation planning using examples from four Danish water related sectors. The dominating sources of uncertainty differ greatly among issues; most uncertainties on impacts are epistemic (reducible) by nature but uncertainties on adaptation measures are complex, with ambiguity often being added to impact uncertainties. Strategies to deal with uncertainty in climate change adaptation should reflect the nature of the uncertainty sources and how they interact with risk level and decision making: (i) epistemic uncertainties can be reduced by gaining more knowledge; (ii) uncertainties related to ambiguity can be reduced by dialogue and knowledge sharing between the different stakeholders; and (iii) aleatory uncertainty is, by its nature, non-reducible. The uncertainty cascade includes many sources and their propagation through technical and socio-economic models may add substantially to prediction uncertainties, but they may also cancel each other. Thus, even large uncertainties may have small consequences for decision making, because multiple sources of information provide sufficient knowledge to justify action in climate change adaptation.     

The successful completion of scientific public policy: lessons learned while developing Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy

Canada’s Wild Salmon Policy gives Canadians the opportunity to make informed decisions about the amount of habitat, ecosystem, and salmon diversity to protect, in order to provide salmon with the potential to adapt and survive in a changing environment. Valuable lessons learned during the completion of this recent landmark conservation policy include: (1) there must be an express need for major new policies and decision makers should be receptive to proposed changes; (2) resource and expertise allocation should be realistic to ensure successful and timely policy completion; (3) science-based policies must be based on good science; (4) environmental policies require input from multiple disciplines—biological consequences are only one element that politicians and decision-makers need to consider; (5) since there will always be uncertainty, and different perspectives on the level of risk that various stakeholders are willing to accept, a precautionary approach is appropriate; (6) to be effective, communication should be open and transparent; and finally (7) it is important to think beyond policy completion—how will the policy be implemented? Documenting these lessons should assist others, thereby resulting in more efficient completion of science-based policies.     

Responding to scientific uncertainty in U.S. forest policy

Scientific uncertainty plays a significant role in forest policy and planning. Ecological complexity, the gap between science and policy, and public perceptions of science all contribute to the challenge of dealing with scientific uncertainty. This paper provides an overview of the role of scientific uncertainty in U.S. forest policy and an analysis of the requirements for responding to uncertainty under the National Forest Management Act, National Environmental Policy Act, and Endangered Species Act. The analysis includes a review of a broad range of literature and relevant statutory and regulatory language, along with several illustrative examples of case law. Findings include that all three laws allow for considerable agency discretion in cases of scientific uncertainty, and none prescribes a particular response to uncertainty. Approaches such as adaptive management may provide a way to proceed despite uncertainty, and while this approach represents something of a new paradigm in public land management, it is not incompatible with the current legal framework. The article concludes with recommendations, such as increased transparency and changes in the norms of judicial review, for increasing the accountability of decisions when uncertainty is involved. Also considered are other suggestions, such as peer-review, Daubert standards, and Bayesian inference techniques.     

A taxonomy for regulatory uncertainty—application to the European Emission Trading Scheme

Research on environmental uncertainty typically distinguishes between different sources of uncertainty according to the different environments that a company interacts with. The regulatory environment and associated uncertainties become especially important when investigating the subject of pollution reduction. Many researchers have started to investigate the effects of environmental regulation on innovation, however, only little is known about the role of regulatory uncertainty in this context. We provide a taxonomy of regulatory uncertainties by building on the Miles and Snow scale of environmental uncertainty. We apply this taxonomy to uncertainties in current climate policy and test it based on a survey among companies that are subject to the European Emission Trading Scheme (EU ETS), a flexible mechanism of the Kyoto-Protocol. Our results show that the EU ETS creates uncertainties in all categories of our taxonomy and suggest further research to better understand how different regulatory uncertainties affect companies’ business decisions.     

An analysis of the likely success of policy actions under uncertainty: Recovery from acidification across Great Britain

In the context of wider debates about the role of uncertainty in environmental science and the development of environmental policy, we use a Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Estimate (GLUE) approach to address the uncertainty in both acid deposition model predictions and in the sensitivity of the soils to assess the likely success of policy actions to reduce acid deposition damage across Great Britain. A subset of 11, 699 acid deposition model runs that adequately represented observed deposition data were used to provide acid deposition distributions for 2005 and 2020, following a substantial reduction in SO₂ and NO_x emissions. Uncertain critical loads data for soils were then combined with these deposition data to derive estimates of the accumulated exceedance (AE) of critical loads for 2005 and 2020. For the more sensitive soils, the differences in accumulated exceedance between 2005 and 2020 were such that we could be sure that they were significant and a meaningful environmental improvement would result. For the least sensitive soils, critical loads were largely met by 2020, hence uncertainties in the differences in accumulated exceedance were of little policy relevance. Our approach of combining estimates of uncertainty in both a pollution model and an effects model, shows that even taking these combined uncertainties into account, policy-makers can be sure that the substantial planned reduction in acidic emissions will reduce critical loads exceedances. The use of accumulated exceedance as a relative measure of environmental protection provides additional information to policy makers in tackling this ‘wicked problem’.     

Are new industry policies precautionary? The case of salmon aquaculture siting policy in British Columbia

This paper argues that regulatory processes and outcomes in the context of a new industry could respond to mechanisms and factors that shape governmental agendas, illustrating how policy can behave reactively rather than in a precautionary manner. In the case of salmon aquaculture, an emerging industry characterized by risks, uncertainties, exponential growth, economic significance and environmental controversy, the outcomes of such reactive policies are generally reflected in siting criteria that yield implicit environmental and socio-economic disadvantages and trade-offs. This paper proposes a conceptual framework based on specific mechanisms and factors that attempt to explain how policy evolves in the context of a new industry. It then links regulatory events back to the concepts to discuss how siting policy has been shaped using the salmon aquaculture industry in British Columbia as an example. The paper finally argues that, although in practice, policy makers generally tend to make incremental choices that are reactive to diverse issues, new industries could adopt more precautionary policies based on processes of public negotiation, analytical decision making and regional planning based on a systems approach.     

Scientific evidence,expert entrepreneurship,and ecosystem narratives in the UK Natural Environment White Paper

The Natural Environment White Paper represents the most important conservation policy shift in the United Kingdom (UK) in twenty years. It formalises the ecosystem approach within national policy objectives and emphasises the economic value of ecosystem services. By analysing the use of various evidence sources, the involvement of science entrepreneurs, and the development of policy narratives, our goal was to understand factors that influenced adoption of an ecosystem service framework in the UK. We interviewed 48 policy actors and found that centrally-sponsored synthesis reports with entrepreneurial authors provided the most influential expert-based knowledge in the development of the White Paper. More recently published reports had greater influence, yet the window of opportunity for scientific evidence having policy impact was greater in the problem-setting stages of policy development. The interaction between teams preparing syntheses and expert entrepreneurs helped influence the construction of strategic policy narratives. Those narratives increased the impact of scientific evidence by communicating and framing key policy-salient messages, and brokering between broad ecosystem-based and environmental economics narratives. The combination of ecological and economics evidence was particularly salient in the UK case due to the context of continued biodiversity loss and the acceptability of valuation narratives within central government. Our findings suggest that evidence impact varies at different stages of the policy process, and that this is driven by the interplay of contextual factors like policy timing, personal influence, and the competition between different sets of actors and narratives.     

Towards better integration of environmental science in society: Lessons from BONUS,the joint Baltic Sea environmental research and development programme

Integration of environmental science in society is impeded by the large gap between science and policy that is characterised by weaknesses in societal relevance and dissemination of science and its practical implementation in policy. We analyse experiences from BONUS, the policy-driven joint Baltic Sea research and development programme (2007–2020), which is part of the European Research Area (ERA) and involves combined research funding by eight EU member states. The ERA process decreased fragmentation of Baltic Sea science and BONUS funding increased the scientific quality and societal relevance of Baltic Sea science and strengthened the science-policy interface. Acknowledging the different drivers for science producers (academic career, need for funding, peer review) and science users (fast results fitting policy windows), and realising that most scientists aim at building conceptual understanding rather than instrumental use, bridges can be built through strategic planning, coordination and integration. This requires strong programme governance stretching far beyond selecting projects for funding, such as coaching, facilitating the sharing of infrastructure and data and iterative networking within and between science producer and user groups in all programme phases. Instruments of critical importance for successful science-society integration were identified as: (1) coordinating a strategic research agenda with strong inputs from science, policy and management, (2) providing platforms where science and policy can meet, (3) requiring cooperation between scientists to decrease fragmentation, increase quality, clarify uncertainties and increase consensus about environmental problems, (4) encouraging and supporting scientists in disseminating their results through audience-tailored channels, and (5) funding not only primary research but also synthesis projects that evaluate the scientific findings and their practical use in society – in close cooperation with science users − to enhance relevance, credibility and legitimacy of environmental science and expand its practical implementation.     

Uncertainty communication in environmental assessments: views from the Dutch science-policy interface

Scientific assessments of environmental problems, and policy responses to those problems, involve uncertainties of many sorts. Meanwhile, potential impacts of wrong decisions can be far-reaching. This article explores views on uncertainty and uncertainty communication in the Dutch science-policy interface and studies several issues concerning presentation of uncertainty information. Respondents considered uncertainty communication to be important, but it should be concise and policy relevant. Several factors influence policy relevance, including the place of an issue in the policy cycle, and its novelty, topicality and controversiality. Respondents held particular interest in explicit communication on the implications of uncertainty. Related to this, they appreciated information on different sources and types of uncertainty and qualitative aspects of uncertainty (e.g. pedigree charts). The article also studies probability terms, particularly for IPCC's 33–66% probability interval (‘about as likely as not’). Several terms worked reasonably well, with a median interpretation of 40–60%. Finally, as various target groups have different information needs and different amounts of attention for various parts of a report or communication process, it is important to progressively disclose uncertainty information throughout the communication. Improved communication of uncertainty information leads to a deeper understanding and increased awareness of the phenomenon of uncertainty and its policy implications.     

Uncertainties in greenhouse gas emission inventories — evaluation,comparability and implications

This paper reviews quantitative assessments of uncertainty in level and trend in national greenhouse gas inventories. The reported uncertainty in the total emissions of high-quality greenhouse gas inventories ranges from ±5–20% in studies of five industrialised countries. The differences in uncertainty are, in particular, due to different subjective assessment of the uncertainty in emissions of nitrous oxide from agricultural soils. The fraction of CO₂ in the inventory has little effect on the uncertainty. The uncertainties in trends are about ±4–5 percentage points for those countries that have made estimates. High uncertainties of emission levels indicate potential for improvements and, consequently, recalculations. Recalculations will reduce uncertainty, but might also cause practical problems. A high uncertainty in the emission level for large emission sources may be an obstacle for assessing cost-effective reduction strategies as well as for designing effective systems of emission trading. This could imply that the more uncertain emission sources should be excluded from emission trading. Alternatively, subjective uncertainty estimates may be expressed in terms of an economic risk of recalculation. The latter system may allow a market-based encouragement to reduce emission uncertainty. Reductions in uncertainties are anticipated in the future. However, it will be extremely difficult to reduce the trend uncertainty. Trend uncertainties may consequently remain high compared with the emission reduction targets in the Kyoto protocol.     

The role of environmental statisticians in environmental policy: the case of performance measurement

Environmental statisticians often experience the difficult task to provide clear results for environmental policy objectives on the basis of complex science, limited data, and many sources of uncertainty. This paper highlights the particularly challenging situation of environmental statistics in developing countries before focusing on the role of statisticians working at the nexus of environmental statistics and policy within the context of measuring environmental performance. Three issues create particular tension at the environmental science-policy junction: (1) the general complexity of environmental problems (including scientific uncertainty and insufficient data) and the often negative perceptions associated with their solution, (2) the comparatively recent introduction of quantitative methods and information to the environmental policy process and continued skepticism and ideologically motivated resistance to their routine integration, and (3) the language barriers between policymakers and statisticians as well as between statisticians and other scientists engaged in environmental research. Based on the case study of the 2006 Pilot Environmental Performance Index (EPI) developed by an interdisciplinary team at the universities Yale and Columbia the paper examines how the EPI tackles these tensions while aiming to be a fact-based, statistically sound policy tool that helps countries achieve environmental objectives by tracking progress, identifying environmental “best practices”, and providing strategic peer-group analyses. In conclusion, the paper suggests some remedies for the deficiencies in the co-operation between policymakers and environmental statisticians.     

Coastal climate hazards and urban planning: how planning responses can lead to maladaptation

Urban planning has the potential to be a powerful tool for facilitating efficient and equitable adaptation to climate change-related coastal hazards (‘coastal climate hazards’). However, if urban planning measures are poorly designed or implemented, it can increase costs and vulnerability, and unfairly affect the interests of particular groups. Through a case study on the coastal climate hazard planning framework in Victoria, Australia, this paper aims to illustrate how urban planning measures can lead to maladaptation and draw lessons for the future design and implementation of planning responses. Five main policy lessons are drawn from the case study. First, planning frameworks should encourage the adoption of robust approaches that are as insensitive to the uncertainties associated with coastal climate hazards as possible. Secondly, policy makers need to be mindful of the opportunity costs and equity implications of planning responses. Thirdly, to be sustainable, planning responses must be robust to social and political factors, something that can be achieved through the use of flexible approaches that allow continued use and development of land but on conditions that protect the interests of governments and communities. Fourthly, policy makers need to be mindful of transaction costs. Finally, when devolving planning responsibilities to lower levels of government, policy makers need to ensure that the objectives of planning frameworks are clear, there is minimal ambiguity in decision guidelines, and that the resourcing and capacity constraints of planning bodies are appropriately considered.     

Integrating water management and principles of policy: towards an EU framework?

The EU Water Framework Directive requires Member States to organise the management of their water systems in an integrated manner, based on the natural boundaries of the water systems; the river basins. A river basin approach implies the integration of policymaking and management throughout a set of different functional uses and spatial scales. Another innovation of the Directive is the introduction of recovery of costs for water services, taking account of the polluter-pays principle. By 2010, water-pricing polices will have to provide adequate incentives for users to use water resources efficiently, and thereby contribute to the environmental objectives of the Directive. Other principles, such as the precautionary principle, are becoming increasingly important in the management of water resources as well. The translation of those principles into policy in the several Member States may however diverge. We present an overview of policy principles that play a role as basic assumptions in water management. Environmental policy principles have gradually been introduced in European legislation. From being part of a declaration of the Council, they have evolved to a basis for action in the environmental field and currently they also find wide application in the context of water management. While focusing on the EU Water Framework Directive, we investigate whether and how these principles can be reconciled with a framework for integrated water management.     

Voluntary approaches in protection of forests in Austria

Voluntary contributions to biodiversity conservation efforts in private forests of Austria have a long tradition which dates back to the 19th century. The most important remnants of undisturbed forests of the Alps today owe their existence to these voluntary initiatives by forest owners. In this earlier period the protection of forest areas by decree or biodiversity conservation initiatives on public owned forests, did not play such a prominent role. But as well as national parks, Natura 2000 areas and other programmes based on protection by decree, significant new voluntary approaches have emerged recently. The Austrian Forest Reserves Programme started in 1995, as a specific approach to voluntary participation in biodiversity conservation by private landowners is discussed in detail. This programme is based on the concept of nature conservation by contracts under private law, agreed between the forest owners and the Republic of Austria. The main characteristics of the programme are presented and experiences gained during the establishment and the maintenance of the network are discussed. Other voluntary initiatives, such as an Austrian network of gene conservation forests, as well as an initiative of a forest owner’s association, are also presented and discussed.     

Threatened species listing as a trigger for conservation action

Legislative listing schemes, under which the listing of a species as threatened automatically triggers command regulation and/or recovery planning, raise significant issues for policy makers. In this paper, we explore strategies for factoring considerations beyond the empirical assessment of a species’ conservation status into the resource allocation decisions that flow from listing. Even in threatened species legislation that appears to prioritise species conservation over socio-economic considerations by creating an automatic nexus between listing and conservation response, there are significant pressure valves that allow the latter to exercise a significant influence on decisions in practice. We critically examine two other techniques currently used in legislation that allow a broader range of considerations to be factored into resource allocation decisions: abandoning the automatic triggering of resource allocation by listing; and taking into account a broader range of considerations in the listing decision itself. We conclude by outlining the framework for a strategic approach to the allocation of conservation resources. This has three limbs to it: recovery plans that identify what needs to be done to bring about recovery, in addition to what available resources will allow us to do; a system for prioritising between the implementation of recovery plans; and the integration of threatened species conservation into strategic land use planning processes.     

Concept of technical support to science–policy interfacing with respect to the implementation of the European water framework directive

In the implementation of water policies, such as the European water framework directive (WFD), good interaction between policy development and implementation, and the science is of crucial importance. This requires new knowledge and insights to be taken into account in the policy design and development. It also requires the results of Research and Technology Development (RTD) projects, including ICT decision supporting instruments such as tools and models, to be transferred towards policy implementation. These science–policy interrelationships are, however, at this moment not as efficient as it should/could be. This is due to limited operational links with water managers in many water-related RTD projects, such that the needs of policy makers are not taken into account at a sufficient level. Due to this and other reasons, newly developed tools from the research community most often insufficiently transfer to operational use by water managers. Better research integration consequently is required at the various stages of policy developments (identification, design, implementation and review).Within the framework of the Harmoni-CA project for the European Commission, the development of a science–policy interfacing instrument is initiated in order to meet the above-mentioned science–policy gap problems [Quevauviller, Ph., Balabanis, P., Fragakis, C., Weydert, M., Oliver, M., Kaschl, A., Arnold, G., Kroll, A., Galbiati, L., Zaldivar, J.M., Bidoglio, G., 2005. Science–policy integration needs in support of the implementation of the EU water framework directive. Env. Sci. Policy 8 (3), 203–211; Arnold G.E., de Lange, W.J., Blind, M.W., 2005. The Conserted Action Harmoni-CA facilitating the dialogue and bridging the gap between research and WFD implementation. Env. Sci. Policy 8 (3), 213–218]. This paper describes a concept developed by the authors, on how the science–policy interfacing technically can be supported through the bi-directional linking of various types of information sources identified as potential means for enhancing the interfacing mechanism. The information sources identified are policy implementation tasks (at the policy side), and ICT tools, methodologies and guidances (as results of RTD projects). Experiences on the application of RTD results in policy implementation tasks are one of the glue elements between these information sources in combination with activity-related and contextual keywords.