The participation of experts and knowledges in the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

This paper examines the participation opportunities and role of nominated experts from the Eastern European region in the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The governance of international knowledge-making spaces and events occurs through standardised institutional rules and expectations that affect experts as well as define accepted forms of knowledge. Within IPBES, experts may participate through United Nations Regional Groupings, which are regions that have complex geopolitical legacies and features. Between regions, experts have variable financial, networking and institutional capacities that in turn affect the operations and outputs of their contributions to science-policy interfaces. For IPBES, regional and localised environmental assessments and ecosystem services valuations require existing place-specific knowledge that may not be ‘available’, as well as understandings that are frequently in conflict with the standardised, homogenising practices of international environmental knowledge-making.