Policy Mixes: Aligning instruments for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision

Abstract

“To explain the world of interactions and outcomes occurring at multiple levels, we also have to be willing to deal with complexity instead of rejecting it.” (E. Ostrom 2009 Nobel Prize Lecture)

This special issue was inspired by the research project POLICYMIX – Assessing the role of economic instruments in policy mixes for biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services provision, funded by the EU’s 7th Framework Program for Research and Technological Development. POLICYMIX set up a framework for policy mix analysis and evaluated the implementation processes and outcomes for a selection of economic instruments in seven case studies in Europe and Latin America. In particular, the project evaluated payments for ecosystem services (PES) , agro-environment measures (AEM), tradable development rights (TDR) and ecological fiscal transfers (EFT). The Brazilian, Costa Rican and German case studies in this issue provide important insights into enabling conditions of PES, TDR and EFT. The POLICYMIX project aimed to shift policy assessment away from a focus on ‘the cost-effectiveness of individual instruments for conservation’, towards understanding of how instruments interact with one another. Following the project’s “International Conference on Policy Mixes in Environmental and Conservation Policies”, held in February 2014 in Leipzig, Germany (Barton et al., 2014b), an open call for papers among all conference participants from 26 countries globally led to the inclusion of further three articles on policy mixes that complement the results of the POLICYMIX project.