Abstract: If people say that we don't know much about biodiversity to be protected, we have to add that we don't know much about the societal structures meant to decide and implement these decisions. We don't have a systematic analysis of what is actually happening, and therefore we can't elaborate propositions for improving the practice. Interdisciplinary research (based in social sciences, integrating natural sciences) on multi-level biodiversity governance has to be done if one wants to make science-driven proposals (complementing best-practice proposals like the German Sachverständigenrat für Umweltfragen, mentioned by Frank Waetzold).

Dear Rainer, dear all,

I won't talk about National BioPlatforms, as we still don't have one running  in Germany (and I'd be keen on answers to your questions, Rainer), but I take up your last (but not least) point of the different levels of science-policy interaction.

First: we have (grossly speaking) three different actor groups: policy makers, scientists, and the public (including stakeholders, interest groups, ...). There are two-way interactions possible between all groups, but, in reality, the type and extent of interactions vary. This even more, when regarding Second: the different levels of policy-making. Here, the number of interfaces multiply, as all three groups make decisions on different levels: local, regional, state/national, European, world-wide.

Management of natural resources is characterised by the interdependence of locally restricted regulations of use with externalities of these uses on other spatial scales and on other policy fields. This multi-level and multi-field interplay is reality when implementing national frames and EU directives. E.g. biodiversity issues are characterised by the local specificity of the problem and the difficulty this specificity poses for an overall co-ordination of biodiversity conservation e.g. to reach the EU 2010 target of halting biodiversity loss via the Natura 2000 network. Difficulties encountered by multi-level governance of natural resources are:
- Complex natural and social processes with different kinds of generally uncertain information,
- The careful handling and use of social dynamics kicked off by this more open governance mode
- The difficult institutional legitimacy of these processes and of their results

Traditional mono-disciplinary approaches as well as regulatory decision-making only contribute partial solutions to this complex problem: Economic approaches treat the optimal size of the deciding, burden-sharing and utilising community (economic theory of federalism) or contribute to a better understanding of costs related to different processes and measures (institutional and welfare economics). They fail to take into account the conditions and factual as well as legal implications of nested decision procedures necessary for multi-level governance. The political sciences focussed for a long time on single-level theoretical concepts of intergovernmentalist or hierarchic supranationalist theories. More modern theories analyse processes of joint-decision making or mutual adjustment, but equally fail to propose holistic improvements considering the four points above.

Analysing and evaluating governance structures of complex environmental systems means integrating research questions from different disciplines, mainly institutional economics and political sciences, but also from law and philosophy, and has to be based on interactive exchange with the natural sciences dealing with the natural resources in question to improve the science/policy interface. With respect to this, different questions fuse: Public participation has been quite high in the CBD process on the global level, but rather low in most European, national and regional decisions on biodiversity protection - Why? What about the science/public and the science/policy interfaces? What do we know about the specificities on each level to be considered? How can we link the different levels, and the different interfaces respecting local and super-local interests and without losing information and legitimacy? Do decision support tools help? A concrete example: How will the natura 2000 network look like once the authorities will have asked for derogations because of overriding general interests? Would a proceeding with more participation have changed the results? In which way?...

Best wishes

Felix Rauschmayer, UFZ - Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig-Halle, Germany