Eeva Primmer

Between Incentives and Action: A Pilot Study of Biodiversity Conservation Competencies for Multifunctional Forest Management in Finland

We investigate processes through which organizations engaged in natural resource management pursue conservation innovations—that is, create capabilities that allow them to produce new goods and services or produce goods and services in ways that reduce environmental degradation. Through an accounting of organizational competencies, we conduct an exploratory analysis of investments Finnish forest management service providers—public agencies, private firms, and civil society actors—have made to address demand for biodiversity conservation. From the perspective of theory and method, our pilot study points to opportunities to test, and perhaps advance, hypothesized tendencies toward environmental improvement through assessment of material practices and organizational strategies. This materialist approach is applicable to analysis at the level of organizations, sectors and territories. From an empirical perspective, the research highlights the contemporary coevolution of incentives and patterns of organizational behavior in Finnish forestry in response to social demand for biodiversity conservation and multifunctional landscapes.

Evolution in Finland's Forest Biodiversity Conservation Payments and the Institutional Constraints on Establishing New Policy

This article analyzes the influence of the preexisting institutional basis on designing and implementing new biodiversity and ecosystem services policies. The way that regulative, normative, and cultural-cognitive institutions condition the currently popular payments for ecosystem services (PES) is analyzed by exploring the evolution of a championed forest biodiversity PES scheme in Finland. Our analysis of the evolution of the PES demonstrates several constraints on new policies. Based on policy documents and secondary material, we show how the policies that seemingly take effect through regulative institutional changes are conditioned by normative and cultural-cognitive institutions. Administrative and professional rigidities can be broken with a light policy experiment but for longer term governance development, radical institutional changes are necessary. The applied institutional framework demonstrates the analytical opportunities that attention to institutions generates for deepening the generally outcome-oriented evaluations of payments for ecosystem services policies.

The Challenge of Governance in Regional Forest Planning: An Analysis of Participatory Forest Program Processes in Finland

The opening up of Finnish forest policymaking to new interest groups and a change to more flexible forms of partnerships at multiple levels signals a transition to new governance relations. Drawing on the concept of institutional capacity, we analyze the governance potential of stakeholder forums, called Regional Forest Councils, to balance economic considerations with ecological ones in preparing Regional Forest Programs. More specifically, we look into knowledge resources that are produced and shared in the Regional Forest Program process, relational resources such as trust and reciprocity created and sustained in the Regional Forest Councils, and the capacity to mobilize resources and take action to implement the program. The two processes we have analyzed demonstrate various elements of institutional capacity for collective action, and illustrate the challenges that a traditional hierarchically organized and expert-driven sector can face in developing more inclusive forms of governance.

Empirical Accounting of Adaptation to Environmental Change: Organizational Competencies and Biodiversity in Finnish Forest Management

Integration of biodiversity conservation into economic utilization of natural resources has become a central response to the challenges of sustainable development. However, the resources and competencies required to implement such an integrated strategy at the level of the individual, the organization, and the sector are not known. To address this knowledge gap, we have developed an approach to analyze responses of organizations to environmental change and evolving social demands for biodiversity conservation. We analyze the scale, scope, and distribution of the resources and competencies that support the delineation of ecologically significant habitats in intensively managed nonindustrial private forests in Finland, an important international actor in the sector. Based on a national survey of 311 foresters working in public agencies, private firms, and cooperative organizations, we investigate the division of labor in the sector and the patterns of investment in human capital, organizational resources, and information networks that support delineation. We find that communicating frequently with the actors who are directly engaged in field operations is consistently the most productive resource in conserving habitats. Our analysis identifies differences in competencies among different types of organizations, as well as distinct roles for public and private-sector organizations. Beyond identification of differences in conservation behavior and competencies among organizations, our analysis points to substantial uniformity in the sector. We attribute similarities in patterns of investment in conservation resources to historically structured central coordination mechanisms within the sector that include education, training, and broadly shared professional norms. These institutional structures and the resulting uniformity can be potential impediments to radical innovation. Our approach to analyzing adaptation to environmental change highlights the interplay between investments in competencies by actors within a particular technical domain and the evolving external institutional environment.

A Case Study of Ecosystem Services in Urban Planning in Finland: Benefits, Rights and Responsibilities

Abstract The concept of ecosystem services is entering the agenda of land-use planning and scientists optimistically expect it to inform planners and decision-makers about the benefits that ecosystems provide. While tools and methods have been developed for mapping and valuing ecosystem services, only little attention has been paid to the practical application of the approach or its institutional preconditions and implications. We empirically analysed two urban planning processes for building residential areas in the outskirts of growing population centres in Finland. Our analysis of documents and interviews with planners focused on the benefits provided by ecosystems as well as the associated rights and responsibilities. We found that the concept ‘ecosystem service’ was not used, yet various benefits were identified. The rights of different stakeholders to ecosystem services were not explicitly identified, but many ecosystem services were perceived as public goods and particularly access to recreation was highlighted as an important justification for green areas. The results show that while the ecosystem services approach introduces new insights to land-use planning, it is still not embedded in the current practices or institutions. Operationalizing ecosystem services requires institutional adaptation, case-specific tailoring of methods, and deliberation among practitioners and stakeholders.

Have Ecosystem Services Been Oversold? A Response to Silvertown

Silvertown [1] has addressed an important topic and expresses many concerns, some of which are warranted. The paradigm of ecosystem services (ES) divides researchers and therefore debate is welcome. Since paradigms, by their very nature, constrain the way we view things, critiques of what is gained and lost in taking a particular world view is always valuable. The ‘ES paradigm’ is no exception. The problem with Silvertowns contribution to this necessary debate is that it is based on a caricature of what the field actually entails and of the literature that underpins it.

How does biodiversity conservation argumentation generate effects in policy cycles

Arguments in the formulation, implementation and evaluation of biodiversity policy frame conservation in a range of ways and express interests that can be conflicting. Policy processes are cyclic and iterative by nature and as policies are constantly reformulated, argumentation has an important role at each policy stage. In this paper, we utilise the policy cycle model to shed light on biodiversity-related policy processes and the ways in which argumentation generates effects at different stages of these processes. The paper first draws on literature and the theory-driven assumptions are then illustrated with insights from four European case studies on different policy processes in which biodiversity conservation plays a role. The analysis shows that argumentation tends to evolve over the course of the policy cycle, and framing has a key role across the different policy stages. It is concluded that the ways in which arguments persist, accumulate, diffuse, and replace old arguments, should be the target of increased attention in policy analysis.

Economic Instruments for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Conservation & the EU State Aid Regulation †

Many environmental services are not traded in markets but are rather public goods and their supply cannot easily be motivated by the market forces. This leads to underinvestment in the public goods relative to what would be socially desirable. Financial instruments are designed to modify behaviour by encouraging private individuals, organisations and businesses to participate actively in conservation. Nation states are ultimately responsible for providing public goods but the competition rules of the European Union restrict the use of economic instruments that constitute ‘state aid’ as defined in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). This article will analyse the regulatory frames under which economic incentives may constitute state aid in the meaning of 107 TFEU and the terms and conditions on which these aids may still be granted for land-owners.

Arguments for biodiversity conservation: factors influencing their observed effectiveness in European case studies

Making a strong case for biodiversity protection is central to meeting the biodiversity targets in international agreements such as the CBD and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Effective arguments are needed to convince diverse actors that protection is worthwhile, and can play a crucial role in closing the implementation gap between biodiversity policy targets and outcomes. Drawing on a database of arguments from 11 European case studies, along with additional interview and case study material from all 13 case studies of the BESAFE project, we analysed relationships between potential and observed effectiveness of arguments. Our results show that strong logic, robustness, and timing of arguments are necessary but not sufficient conditions for arguments to be effective. We find that use of multiple and diverse arguments can enhance effectiveness by broadening the appeal to wider audiences, especially when arguments are repeated and refined through constructive dialogue. We discuss the role of framing, bundling and tailoring arguments to audiences in increasing effectiveness. Our results provide further support for the current shift towards recognition of value pluralism in biodiversity science and decision-making. We hope our results will help to demonstrate more convincingly the value of biodiversity to stakeholders in decision processes and thus build better cases for its conservation.