Mainstreaming biodiversity and nature’s contributions to people in Europe and Central Asia: insights from IPBES to inform the CBD post-2020 agenda

Figures & data

Figure 1. Flowchart of the six phases used to develop the methodological approach for assessing mainstreaming in sectors and designing policies.

Table 1. Policy options and opportunities for mainstreaming biodiversity and Nature's Contributions to People (NCP) in Europe and Central Asia. Building on three key steps to assess the current status of mainstreaming, options and opportunities for mainstreaming are provided for seven policy and economic sectors in Central Asia and Europe’s three subregions. The table synthesizes those policy options and opportunities from the sector analyses of the IPBES regional assessment report that are relevant to all sectors. The evidence shows (i) that biodiversity and nature conservation will benefit from being mainstreamed in environmental policies as well as all economic sectors and their respective policies and (ii) that NCP will benefit from being mainstreamed in all economic sectors, as well as the conservation sector. Source: Ring et al. 2018; IPBES 2018a; 2018b, p. 38-39.

Box 1. Awareness raising, monitoring and participation in the forestry sector.

Forests have contributed to human welfare throughout history. For centuries, the focus has been on extracting wood, which has often led to overexploitation and forest loss. Consequently, the question of how to sustainably manage forest resources gained importance, and monitoring systems were developed in many countries to provide the necessary information base (Gschwantner et al. 2022). While at the beginning, the volume of growing stock was the most important attribute to be measured, today other variables, related to wood supply, carbon storage and biological diversity, are often included in the monitoring activities (Vidal et al. 2016). However, first attempts to include social indicators, such as people’s preferences or recreational behavior, have been made only recently (Hegetschweiler et al. 2022). A further endeavor is to harmonize and standardize monitoring approaches at the international level (Atkinson et al. 2020). These approaches can contribute, together with other options, to raising awareness and fostering participation, to informing better decision making, and to supporting the sustainable use of forest resources and their contributions to people. Table 1 (Step 1) shows that in Western and Central Europe several measures have already been implemented. However, measures are mainly only under development or have just recently started in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Box 2. Integration through spatial planning.

Spatial planning can influence the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and NCP in diverse ways (Albert et al. 2020). When spatial planning disregards nature considerations, for example, by suggesting new road infrastructure in valuable habitat, it may impair biodiversity and ecosystem services through effects such as soil sealing and fragmentation. In contrast, planning has positive impacts when its plans and strategies carefully synthesize and consider best available knowledge on spatial dimensions of biodiversity and ecosystem services (Opdam et al. 2013; Longato et al. 2021). Spatial planning can be reactive, forming a keystone instrument to assess the spatial implications of combined policies on nature (Rozas-Vásquez et al. 2018). A pro-active, targeted approach to planning (Bateman et al. 2013) that is integrated across disciplines, sectors and scales can propose solution strategies that exploit synergies for people and nature (Albert et al. 2016). In concert with other legal and regulatory instruments, integrated spatial planning can form the backbone of policy mixes facilitating effective actions for safeguarding, enhancing or restoring biodiversity and NCP (see Table 1, Step 2). Planning in consideration of nature can also facilitate participation, foster stewardship, and provide the basis for targeted investments, for instance, to identify opportunities for nature-based solutions (Schmidt et al. 2022; Hynes et al. 2022) or areas for results-oriented agri-environmental payments (Galler et al. 2015). In sum, integrated spatial planning is being implemented although there remains scope for improvement (Table 1, Step 2) in Western and, partly, Central Europe, while there is still a long way to go in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Table 2. Policy instruments in pasture management in Kyrgyzstan.

Legal and regulatory instruments	Economic and financial instruments	Social and information-based instruments	Rights-based instruments and customary norms
Pasture Law (2009) Pasture use and management planning Pasture use monitoring	Pasture fee and land tax Grants to pasture committees and pasture unions	Information regarding pastures (e.g. distribution, state) Awareness building and trainings organized by NGOs and extension services	Pasture collective rights Customary norms and institutions

Source: Ring et al. (2018).

Box 3. Policy mix for pasture management in Kyrgyzstan.

In Central Asia, decentralization policies have been introduced with the objective of promoting the sustainable use of natural resources. For instance, Kyrgyzstan has decentralized the authority for pasture management to the newly created ‘political local level’, thereby strengthening self-governance through pasture user unions and pasture committees (Kasymov et al. 2016). An important feature of the latest pasture reform is that a mix of policy instruments was developed after the Pasture Law was approved by the Kyrgyzstan parliament in 2009 and tested while the reform was implemented (Table 2). One of the first tasks for each newly established pasture committee was the collection of pasture fees and the allocation of pasture tickets to pasture users (the financial policy instrument). The collected pasture fees finance the pasture committee’s overhead costs and are invested in pasture infrastructures and improvement. The pasture fee is defined annually by the pasture committee for each type of livestock and pasture. It needs to be approved by the respective municipality. A pasture ticket is allocated according to annual pasture use and a management plan (the regulatory policy instrument), which is developed and implemented under the coordination of the responsible pasture committee. The capacity and condition of pastures, their productivity, level of land degradation, and the size of livestock populations need to be monitored and assessed annually (regulatory and information-based policy instruments) by pasture committees as a basis for negotiations concerning the allocation of pastures for the following year’s pasture use plan.

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