The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy: A Blocked Governance ......The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy...

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Universität für Bodenkultur Wien Department für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften

The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy: A Blocked Governance Process

Ralf Nordbeck and Michael Pregernig

Forschungsbericht / Research Report 2-2008 October 2008

Diese Reihe ist ein Publikationsorgan von InFER, dem Institut für Wald-, Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik der Universität für Bodenkultur Wien. Der Inhalt der Forschungsberichte unterliegt keinem Begut-achtungsverfahren, allein die Autorinnen und Autoren zeichnen verantwortlich. Anregungen und Kritik seitens der Leserinnen und Leser sind ausdrücklich erwünscht. This series is edited by InFER, the Institute of Forest, Environmental, and Natural Resource Policy at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU). The research reports are not subject to review procedures. Therefore, responsibility for the content lies solely with the author(s). Comments and critiques by readers are highly appreciated. ISSN 2071-4068 Bestelladresse / orders to: Institut für Wald-, Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik Universität für Bodenkultur Wien Feistmantelstr. 4 A – 1180 Wien Tel: + 43 – 1 – 47 654 – 4410 Fax: + 43 – 1 – 47 654 – 4417 e-mail: [email protected] In dieser Reihe erschienene Forschungsberichte können von folgender Homepage als PDF-Files geladen werden: http://www.wiso.boku.ac.at/reports.html The papers published in this series can be downloaded in PDF-format from: http://www.wiso.boku.ac.at/reports.html Eigenverlag des Instituts für Wald-, Umwelt- und Ressourcenpolitik, Universität für Bodenkultur Wien Published by the Institute of Forest, Environmental, and Natural Resource Policy, University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU)

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Foreword The research that is reported in this Research Report was conducted in the context of the collaborative project ‘New Modes of Governance for Sustainable Forestry in Europe (GoFOR)’. GoFOR was funded by the European Commission under the Sixth EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development (Contract No. 6447GoFOR). The GoFOR team comprised more than 30 researchers from ten European countries: Austria: University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna – Karl Hogl and Michael

Pregernig (project co-ordinators), Ralf Nordbeck, Eva Kvarda, Eva Nußbaumer, and Johannes Voitleithner

Denmark: University of Copenhagen – Tove Enggrob Boon, Iben Nathan, and Dorthe Hedensted Lund

France: French Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (ENGREF), Laboratory of Forest Policy, Nancy – Gérard Buttoud, Irina Kouplevatskaya, and Jean Croisel

Germany: Georg-August-University Göttingen – Max Krott, Michael Böcher, and Lukas Giessen Greece: National Agricultural Research Foundation, Ioannina – Kostas Kassioumis, Kostas

Papageorgiou, and Michael Vakkas Hungary: University of West Hungary, Sopron – Károly Mészáros, Atilla Lengyel, Endre Schiberna,

Attila Hegedűs, and Gyöngyvér Boltos The Netherlands: Wageningen University – Mariëlle van der Zouwen, Esther Turnhout, and Rikke

Arnouts Norway: Møre Research, Volda – Johan Barstad, Paul Mitchell-Banks, Susanne Moen Ouff, Else

Ragni Yttredal, and Lars Julius Halvorsen Romania: University Stefan cel Mare, Suceava – Laura Bouriaud and Delia Bancu Spain: Forest Technology Centre of Catalonia, Solsona – Gloria Dominguez, Mireia Pecurul, Eduard

Plana, and Jordi Tena. Many people generously contributed their time and expertise to the successful implementation of this research project. The GoFOR team gratefully acknowledges the valuable support provided by the members of the Scientific Advisory Panel, Prof. Margaret Shannon (University of Buffalo, USA), Prof. Arthur Benz (FernUniversität Hagen, Germany), and Prof. Heiner Schanz (Freiburg University, Germany) who participated in the project workshops and provided exceptional external scientific monitoring and advice. In particular, we would like to thank the members of the National Advisory Panels, various external experts, and the many interviewees who shared their experiences with us and thereby provided us with extensive empirical data. Karl Hogl and Michael Pregernig Vienna, October 2008

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Executive summary1 The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy (ABS) is an example of a national strategic planning approach in the broader field of sustainability. The ABS process has a history of more than ten years now. Following a year-long dialogue and negotiation process, the first biodiversity strategy was adopted by the Austrian Council of Ministers in 1998. The strategy was evaluated in a two-step procedure in 2001 and 2003. Based on that evaluation, the strategy was revised and updated with the “Advanced Biodiversity Strategy”, which was adopted in 2005. In the context of the GoFOR project, the ABS process was mainly chosen in order to provide a contrasting governance case to the Austrian Forest Dialogue (Hogl & Kvarda, 2008). The set of two processes was thought to provide valuable insights into the conditions of success (or failure) of national strategies for sustainability in Austria and elsewhere.

Main characteristics of the governance case The main driving force for the initiation of the ABS process stemmed from the international level via the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in turn requiring each country to develop a national biodiversity strategy. Recognising the divided formal responsibilities for biodiversity, along with many key competencies such as nature conservation, which laid not with the federal state but rather with the provinces, a National Biodiversity Commission (NBC) was set up as a policy co-ordination mechanism in 1996. The NBC is a multi-stakeholder body, including the representatives of administrative departments (both federal ministries and provincial authorities), public and private interest groups, science, and NGOs. It is predominantly an informational body that has no authority to take politically binding decisions. The formulation process for the first biodiversity strategy proceeded in several steps with drafts being sent out for comments by the relevant stakeholders and new draft versions being prepared based on the comments received. The process provided rather limited opportunities for the participation of interest groups and NGOs. Inter-ministerial co-ordination was also limited because Ministries, other than those for the environment and agriculture, had little interest in being involved with the strategy. Furthermore, the process struggled with the complex allocation of competences within and across territorial levels. The first strategy sets out the general policy directions and guidance for conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity, combined with broad lines of action for specific problem areas. It is written mostly in a general, non-committal language including good, but rather unspecific intentions and objectives, with only a few details about what should be achieved at what respective time. The strategy also states no specific responsibilities and makes no resources available for its subsequent implementation. Soon after its adoption, the strategy was evaluated in a two-step procedure. The first evaluation study assessed to what degree the measures that were formulated in the strategy had already been implemented, and by whom. The second evaluation study assessed the strategy document itself. Based on the two evaluations, the ABS was revised and updated. In this revision phase, the process became more expert-driven. The updating of the strategy document as well as the formulation of an Action Plan on invasive alien species were commissioned to the experts at the Federal Environmental Agency. After nearly two years of discussions and negotiations, the “Advanced Biodiversity Strategy” was adopted by the NBC in July 2005.

1 The authors would like to thank Karl Hogl and Eva Kvarda who have contributed to data collection and discussions along

the research process.

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In the second strategy, some of the most severe flaws of the first strategy were able to be corrected. The revised strategy has a coherent structure, the individual chapters follow the same logic, and they do not substantially differ in style or length. Still, very few of the formulated goals and measures have been operationalised in measurable qualitative or quantitative terms. With that, it is still rather difficult to analyse the implementation of the strategy and to measure its effectiveness.

Major insights and conclusions Without a doubt, the ABS falls far behind an ideal-type strategic planning approach. Some of the problems that are being faced are directly linked to the strategy process and the work of the NBC in general, whereas the others are more structural problems where the solution to them is beyond the limited capacities of the NBC. As regards the process, the biodiversity strategy suffers from various problems, including limited public participation and outreach, the incapacity to integrate relevant economic sectors, as well as the barely effective procedures of co-ordination across multiple hierarchical levels. The positive aspects of the ABS can be found more on the informal side. The NBC fulfilled important networking functions for its members, e.g. by providing scientists and representatives of interest groups with direct and easy access to ministerial officials. Furthermore, the biodiversity strategy played an agenda setting role with regard to those topics that are related to the CBD and the biodiversity 2010 target. Last but not least, the biodiversity strategy and its targets have been used by environmental NGOs and by public authorities as an argument to legitimise their actions and demands. The underlying structural problems that the ABS process is struggling with are manifold. The loss of biodiversity has not been perceived as an urgent policy problem in Austria, and the strategy process did not manage to improve the visibility of the biodiversity concerns in any notable way. The NBC and the biodiversity strategy show rather low political weight. This situation is further aggravated by the complex allocation of competencies between the various federal ministries as well as between the federal state and the provinces in turn creating an ample network of actors when it comes to the implementation of biodiversity-related policies in Austria, including a high number of possible veto players. Altogether, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, up to now, can be viewed as not much more than a “work-to-rule exercise” that was mainly initiated and driven by international reporting obligations. The entire strategy process would have certainly benefited from greater transparency, more actor involvement, and the possibility for real dialogue.

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Table of contents

1 “GoFOR project”: the case study research context ............................................. 1 1.1 Objectives .................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Conceptual framework and methodology .................................................................. 1 1.3 The GoFOR case studies .......................................................................................... 3

2 Introduction to the case study ............................................................................... 6 2.1 Case selection ........................................................................................................... 6 2.2 Methods of data collection ......................................................................................... 6

3 Context factors ........................................................................................................ 9 3.1 Federal structure and distribution of competencies ................................................... 9 3.2 Overview of nature conservation policy ..................................................................... 9

4 The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as an international environmental regime ........................................................................................... 12

4.1 The Convention on Biological Diversity: a brief introduction .................................... 12 4.2 The 2010 Biodiversity Target ................................................................................... 13 4.3 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) .................................. 13

5 The National Biodiversity Commission (NBC) .................................................... 17 5.1 Actors’ expectations regarding the National Biodiversity Commission .................... 17 5.2 Strengths and weaknesses of the National Biodiversity Commission ...................... 18

6 The Biodiversity Strategy process ....................................................................... 20 6.1 The Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (1998) ..................................... 21 6.1.1 Aims and content of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy ........................................... 21 6.1.2 Institutional and procedural settings ........................................................................ 22 6.2 Evaluation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy ...................................................... 24 6.3 Advanced Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (2005) ............................ 26 6.3.1 Institutional and procedural settings ........................................................................ 27 6.3.2 Aims and content of the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy ........................................ 27 6.4 Thematic Action Plans ............................................................................................. 28

7 Aspects of governance in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process ............ 32 7.1 Participation ............................................................................................................. 32 7.1.1 Venues of participation ............................................................................................ 32 7.1.2 Avenues of participation .......................................................................................... 33 7.1.3 Participation in the process of the revision of the biodiversity strategy .................... 35 7.1.4 Structural problems and the decline of participation over time ................................ 42 7.2 Intersectoral co-ordination ....................................................................................... 42 7.2.1 Involvement of federal ministries and sectoral interest groups ................................ 43 7.2.2 Actor coalitions ........................................................................................................ 44 7.2.3 Topics for inter-sectoral co-ordination ..................................................................... 46

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7.2.4 Inter-sectoral co-ordination during the revision of the biodiversity strategy ............. 48 7.2.5 Cross-sectoral issues: veto players and low involvement ........................................ 49 7.3 Multi-level co-ordination ........................................................................................... 50 7.3.1 Levels involved and forms of co-ordination ............................................................. 50 7.3.2 Multi-level co-ordination in the revision process ...................................................... 52 7.3.3 Internationalisation and its effects in a federal system ............................................ 53 7.4 Accountable expertise ............................................................................................. 54 7.4.1 Institutionalisation of expert advice .......................................................................... 54 7.4.2 Experts involved in the strategy process ................................................................. 54 7.4.3 Selection of experts ................................................................................................. 56 7.4.4 Sources of expert input into the biodiversity strategy process ................................. 57 7.4.5 Accountability of expertise ....................................................................................... 59 7.5 The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy as an iterative and adaptive process ................ 61

8 Effects of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy: output and impact .................... 66 8.1 Biodiversity-related activities ................................................................................... 67 8.2 Direct outputs of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process ................................... 69 8.3 Outputs that are indirectly related to the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

process .................................................................................................................... 70 8.4 Impacts of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process ............................................. 71 8.5 Outcomes of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process ......................................... 73

9 Explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy .................................................................................................................. 74

List of references ................................................................................................... 79

List of figures Figure 1: General conceptual framework of GoFOR ...................................................... 2 Figure 2: GoFOR overall work plan and timeframe ........................................................ 3 Figure 3: Implementation of the CBD at the national level ........................................... 14 Figure 4: Organisational structure in the formulation phase of the Austrian

Biodiversity Strategy (1998) .......................................................................... 23 Figure 5: Sectoral distribution of measures in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

(1998) ............................................................................................................ 47 Figure 6: Reported biodiversity-related activities by thematic areas ............................. 68

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List of tables Table 1: Cases analysed in GoFOR (main assessment) .............................................. 4 Table 2: Main national protected areas ....................................................................... 10 Table 3: Timeframe for the formulation and review of the Austrian Biodiversity

Strategy ......................................................................................................... 20 Table 4: Members of the National Biodiversity Commission (March 1998) ................. 33 Table 5: Participants of the Workshop on the 2010 Biodiversity Target in Austria ...... 36 Table 6: Stakeholders engaged in drafting the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy ......... 38 Table 7: Thematic analysis of stakeholders’ position papers concerning the

Advanced Austrian Biodiversity Strategy ....................................................... 41 Table 8: Actor coalitions in the elaboration of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy ........ 45 Table 9: Qualitative assessment of the impact of an evaluation on the revised

strategy ......................................................................................................... 63 Table 10: Targets and timeframes in the first Austrian Biodiversity Strategy ................ 67

List of abbreviations ABS ....................... Austrian Biodiversity Strategy ADA ...................... Austrian Development Agency AGES .................... Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety BFW ...................... Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape BMBWK ................ Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Culture BMJUF .................. Federal Ministry of Environment, Youth and Family Affairs BMLFUW .............. Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management BMWA ................... Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs BOKU .................... University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna CBD ...................... Convention on Biological Diversity CHM ...................... Clearing-House Mechanism COP ...................... Conference of the Parties FoE ....................... Friends of the Earth FPÖ ...................... Austrian Freedom Party GEF ...................... Global Environment Facility GSPC .................... Global Strategy for Plant Conservation HVFL ..................... Austrian Association of Forest and Agricultural Enterprises IAEA ...................... International Atomic Energy Agency IIASA ..................... International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis NBC ...................... National Biodiversity Commission

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NBSAPs ................ National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans NGO ...................... non-governmental organization NUP ...................... National Environmental Plan OECD.................... Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ÖGNU ................... Federation of Environmental Organisations ÖKF ...................... Austrian Board of Fisheries and Water Protection ÖVP ...................... Austrian People’s Party POPs..................... persistent organic pollutants PRÄKO ................. Presidents’ Conference of the Chambers of Agriculture SBSTTA ................ Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice ToR ....................... Terms of Reference UBA ...................... Federal Environmental Agency UNCED ................. United Nations Conference on Environment and Development UNEP .................... United Nations Environment Programme WSSD ................... World Summit on Sustainable Development WWF ..................... World Wide Fund For Nature

“GoFOR project”: the case study research context Objectives

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1 “GoFOR project”: the case study research context The case study on the ‘Austrian Biodiversity Strategy’ that is presented in this report was conducted in the course of the project ‘New Modes of Governance for Sustainable Forestry in Europe (GoFOR)’, which was funded by the European Commission under the Sixth EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development. This chapter briefly outlines the overall approach of the GoFOR project in order to describe the context in which the research work for this report was conducted. It outlines the major project objectives and briefly describes the research approaches that were employed.

1.1 Objectives

The main objective of the GoFOR project was to study and evaluate the evolving practices of new modes of governance in the field of forest policy as well as within adjacent policy domains (such as nature conservation policy, rural development policy, etc.). More concretely, GoFOR aimed to evaluate new practices of governance by: analysing programmatic policy statements in order to learn about the role that governance and its

elements play in the repertoire of different policy actors, investigating current and evolving practices of governance in order to find out whether they are

applied in a substantive way or whether they are merely symbolic rhetoric, exploring the broader political context in order to see how far effective governance is contingent on

environmental, social, political, and economic factors, and carrying out cross-sectoral comparisons of governance processes in ten countries in order to search

for common patterns in governance arrangements and to learn about the factors that either facilitate or hamper effective governance.

1.2 Conceptual framework and methodology

‘Governance’ is a multi-faceted concept. At times, governance has been used as a normatively-laden catchword in political language. In other cases, it is used as an analytical term in the fields of political science and economics where it particularly describes those types of political processes in which non-hierarchical modes of guidance, such as persuasion and negotiation, are employed, and where public as well as private actors are engaged in policy formulation and implementation. When setting up the general conceptual framework in the GoFOR project, the first and foremost challenge was to operationalise the concept of ‘governance’. Even though governance and new modes of governance have been in frequent use in both politics and science, a coherent governance theory along with clear definitions that are close to being empirically applicable, are still lacking. Since the prevailing concepts of governance are excessively vague to productively guide empirical analysis, GoFOR operationalised governance by five, more concretised procedural elements: Participation, inter-sectoral co-ordination, multi-level co-ordination, adaptive and iterative approaches, and the use of democratic and accountable expertise. These elements can be found in political documents, such as the White Paper on European Governance, and in theoretical-conceptual discussions on new forms of policy making.

“GoFOR project”: the case study research context Conceptual framework and methodology

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In focusing on these five elements, the conceptual framework of GoFOR followed three distinct but interrelated lines of inquiry: First, the analysis of programmatic policy statements sought to assess the salience of the new modes of governance and its constituting elements based on the strategic and programmatic role that they play in the repertoire of political institutions and policy actors. Empirically, those roles were determined by investigating programmatic policy statements such as White Papers and other strategy documents, position papers, and general procedural guidelines for governance processes, but also the more programmatic parts of legislative texts, subsidy schemes, and the like. Analysis of the ‘rhetoric’ of governance was expected to provide a straightforward image of the current political compromises on the meaning and materialisation of the new modes of governance in a given policy arena. Second, GoFOR also (and primarily) assessed the current and evolving practices of governance. The term ‘practice’ refers, on the one hand, to policy processes (e.g., the formulation and implementation of national forest programmes or biodiversity strategies, and the planning of a national park), but also refers to the outputs of those processes (such as new policy programmes or procedural and institutional reforms). Third, the operationalisation of the new modes of governance was not only based on empirical evidence, in which the potential of new governance was also assessed in the light of theoretical approaches and concepts. Figure 1 shows the overall conceptual framework of the GoFOR project, presenting the main analytical concepts that were addressed in the case studies and the three research steps that were described above (arrows).

Governancepublic participationinter-sectoral coordinationmulti-level coordinationadaptive & iterative policy makingdemocratic & accountable expertise

Governance (and its constituting elements)in the light of theoretical approaches

Programmatic policystatements as

regards governance(and its constituting

elements)

Practices of governance

(and its constituting elements)

Contextsocio-economic factorspolitical factorsecological factors

Empirical analysisEmpirical analysis

Theoreticalframing

Theoreticalframing

Main policy actorsassumptionspreferencespolicy positions

Figure 1: General conceptual framework of GoFOR

“GoFOR project”: the case study research context The GoFOR case studies

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In its empirical research work, GoFOR was structured into three distinct phases (Figure 2): (i) A pre-assessment phase

in which a set of criteria that operationalise the concept of governance was developed and translated into a common research protocol (ToR); this common research protocol was, then, tested with an enlarged set of pilot studies,

(ii) a main assessment phase in which a reduced set of governance case studies was analysed in detail, and finally

(iii) a synthesis phase of cross-case comparison, in turn searching for the general patterns of governance arrangements.

Figure 2: GoFOR overall work plan and timeframe

This research report is the result of phase II, which was the main assessment stage. Together with 18 other case studies, it was input to phase III, which was the comparative synthesis report for GoFOR (Hogl et al., 2008).

1.3 The GoFOR case studies

The GoFOR project applied a multiple case study research design. GoFOR case studies are not ‘country reports’ or ‘sector reports’, but rather analyses of concrete policy processes in which new modes of governance or certain elements thereof were applied. Hence, the GoFOR project can also be seen as an attempt to further clarify the manifestation of governance practices in forest policy and in adjacent policy domains. Cases were selected in a three-step approach: First, potential cases were classified along a list of criteria (such as the respective policy field, scope, and time span of the processes and their respective stage of implementation, along with the territorial levels involved, and the role of those governance elements that were central to the GoFOR project design). In an exploratory phase, this broader range of possible cases was empirically probed and a case selection was co-ordinated among the partner countries in order to obtain a well-balanced, analytically fruitful set of case studies. Second, and based on the exploratory phase, 24 cases were selected for pre-assessment. The pre-assessment was intended to provide deeper insights into the cases as a basis for the final selection. The Terms of Reference (ToR) were developed in order to provide a common list of research questions and guidance as regards the methods of data collection and documentation. Third and finally, based on the pre-assessments results, 19 governance processes (cases) were selected for the main assessment. Table 1 provides a brief characterisation of these cases.


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Country Case title Brief characterisation Austria Implementation Strategy for the Convention

on Biological Diversity national strategy process mainly driven by international obligations

Austrian Forest Dialogue participatory and sector-integrated national strategy process

Denmark Implementation of the Habitats Directive

national implementation of EU policy

National Park Pilot Projects participatory planning processes at the regional level as non-binding input to policy formulation at the national level

France Territorial Forest Charters participatory and sector-integrated strategic planning approach at the regional level

Relief Plan for Forests in France ad hoc governmental assistance programme in the aftermath of devastating storms

Germany Integrated Rural Development policies (with three embedded sub-cases):

integration of new policy approach (regional governance) in three programmes:

− LEADER+ − EU pilot programme for sustainable rural development

− REGIONEN AKTIV − national pilot programme for sustainable rural development

− Joint Task ‘Improvement of Agricultural Structures and Coastal Protection’

− mainstream funding instrument of agricultural policy

Greece Restructuring of management agencies for protected areas

reorganisation of the administration and management of protected areas mainly driven by EU policies

Hungary National Forest Programme Hungary

participatory and sector-integrated national strategy process

Norway Norwegian Living Forests Project participatory and sector-integrated strategy process initiated and promoted by private actors

The Netherlands ‘Nature for People, People for Nature’ programme (NL-NPPN)

formulation and implementation of a strategic policy document

Nature policy in the Groene Woud area

long-term policy development centred on nature conservation

Nature policy in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug area

same as above

Romania Anti-corruption policies policy formulation and implementation driven by international obligations and pressures

Implementation of Acquis Communautaire in Nature Protection Policies

national implementation of EU policy

Spain Forest Policy General Plan of Catalonia

participatory and sector-integrated regional strategy process

Table 1: Cases analysed in GoFOR (main assessment)


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Overall these case studies relate to three broad thematic fields: first, biodiversity and nature conservation, including those processes engaged in the implementation of the EU Habitat Directive (92/43/EEC); second, forest policy; and third, rural development policy processes. the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy.

Introduction to the case study Case selection

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2 Introduction to the case study

2.1 Case selection

This case study on the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy (ABS) is one of two cases that were investigated by the Austrian GoFOR team. The second case is the Austrian Forest Dialogue (Hogl & Kvarda, 2008). The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy was chosen as a case study for several reasons. First of all, we focussed on strategic planning approaches towards sustainability, i.e. both cases deal with national strategies for sustainable development in a wider sense. Second, the biodiversity strategy as a governance process has a history of nearly ten years now. The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy was adopted in 1998. Its results were evaluated in 2001 and 2003, and the strategy was updated in 2005. This means that the time period was long enough to provide some valuable insights on the progress and further developments of this type of national strategies. Third and maybe most importantly, the biodiversity strategy was chosen as a kind of “negative case”, i.e. there was a basic assumption that the biodiversity strategy is a failed governance process compared to other national strategy processes, such as the Austrian Forest Dialogue or the Austrian Strategy for Sustainable Development. In combination with the more successful cases, this case was thought to provide valuable insights into the conditions of the success of national strategies for sustainability.

2.2 Methods of data collection

In this case study we combined three methodological approaches, namely the content analysis of official documents, reports and previous evaluations of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, participatory observations in the form of attending several meetings of the National Biodiversity Committee, and qualitative expert interviews. The former served as an introduction to the field of biodiversity and nature protection policies in Austria in general and to the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy in particular, while the expert interviews were used to validate and further investigate the initial findings as well as to follow up on interesting patterns. We will provide hereunder a more detailed discussion of the methodological approach that was selected.

Document analysis Two kinds of documents were used for this case study: official and unofficial documents connected to the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy and reports from previous evaluations of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy.

Documents connected with the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy The formulation, implementation, and update of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy were documented from the outset in a rather limited way. Since the process started already more than a decade ago, it was difficult to obtain many important documents. Some documents were no longer available, e.g. all of the draft versions of the first biodiversity strategy. In sum, we used the following official and unofficial documents: the official biodiversity strategies: Austrian Implementation Strategy for the Convention on Biological

Diversity (1998) and its update entitled ”Revised Austrian Implementation for the CBD“, which dates from October 2005 as well as two draft versions of the revised strategy;

Introduction to the case study Methods of data collection

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the National Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species (as an instrument for implementation); the meeting protocols of the National Biodiversity Commission since 1996; documents of the working groups as established under the National Biodiversity Commission to

report on the implementation of the COP 6 resolutions in Austria; workshop documents (e.g. Workshop on the “2010 target”) and presentations on the Austrian

Biodiversity Strategy; position papers of various stakeholders regarding the revised biodiversity strategy (2005).

Analysing the most central documents of the process was an important part of the project. Documents in the form of the official strategy documents, minutes from meetings, and presentations that were held by key actors in the process, all provide valuable insights into the general course of the process as well as the actors’ views and preferences at different points of time.

Reports from previous evaluations of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy In addition to the above-mentioned documents, two evaluations on the status of the implementation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy were published in 2001 and 2003 (Götz, 2001, Röhrich, 2003b). Furthermore, a database that included the ongoing activities to implement the strategy was set up during this period. Most of the information collected in the first step of the strategy evaluation was of a technical nature. However, the second evaluation report in 2003 was more focussed on the strategy itself and also included a kind of process evaluation. Both evaluations provided valuable information for this study, in which the second evaluation especially provided useful insight and background information.

Qualitative interviews with key actors The documents that are referred to in the previous paragraphs provided a good introduction to the process of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy over the last decade, in which first working hypotheses were able to be derived based on these documents. Still, there was a need to validate and supplement these findings. For this purpose, we held qualitative interviews with key actors and stakeholders in the process of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. Between autumn 2006 and spring 2007 a total of 19 qualitative interviews with key persons and stakeholders, who were involved in the formulation and implementation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, were conducted.2 Some of the informants had been members of the National Biodiversity Commission since its beginning in 1996, while others started their involvement in the process more recently. Most of the interviewees were representatives of different organisations that are stakeholders in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. The group includes environmental organisations such as WWF Austria and Arche Noah (an interest group preserving and growing the diversity of cultural plants), forest owner organisations such as the Austrian Association of Forest and Agricultural Enterprises (Land- & Forstbetriebe Österreichs) as well as key representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW), the Ministry of Economics and Labour, and other public authorities such as the Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt). Nearly all of the respondents were connected to ministries, public authorities, NGOs or interest organisations working on the national level. It was only in two cases that the interviewees were representatives from the provincial level. This provided us with the opportunity to conduct an in-depth

2 One person was interviewed twice. For a list of the persons interviewed, see the Annex.

Introduction to the case study Methods of data collection

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analysis of the process at the national level, but it also limited our insight into the restrictions that the process was facing at the provincial level. Building upon the document analysis, we created an interview guideline in order to supplement the information that was already available from other sources. In creating the interview guide, the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the overall GoFOR project was used as a reference. The Terms of References were transformed into the interview guide, structured along the main elements of the analytic concept of the GoFOR project (see chapter 1). All of the interviews were tape-recorded and transcribed. For the transcription, we used a software programme called Express Scribe®, which is a professional audio player software programme that is designed to assist the transcription of audio recordings. For the analysis and interpretation of the interview data, we used a software programme called MAXqda®, which is a qualitative analysis software package that helps researchers to code text and pull together coded segments. In the following, the interview data is quoted and marked by the letter “I” along with a random number; e.g. the code “I12-14” stands for the 14th paraphrase from interview number 12. All the quotes were translated from German by the authors, and are not always to be seen as literal citations. In some cases, they are to be regarded as the general essence of the opinions expressed.

Context factors Federal structure and distribution of competencies

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3 Context factors

3.1 Federal structure and distribution of competencies

Austria is a Federal State, with nine self-governing provinces or Länder. The legislative powers are divided between the federal state and the Länder. The Länder are quite powerful in that most powers, unless otherwise decreed, are their responsibilities rather than that of the federal government. In the field of nature conservation, the Austrian Constitution delegates nearly exclusive authority to the nine Länder; hence no comprehensive federal legislation exists for nature, landscapes, or biodiversity. Other important issues that are under the responsibility of the Länder are regional and land-use planning, agriculture, and hunting. The federal government is, inter alia, in charge of forestry, air quality, permissions for industrial installations, and traffic. In addition to that, the federal government also plays an, increasing role in nature conservation as it is up to the national level to co-ordinate compliance with EU directives and international agreements and to draw up national strategies and plans (e.g. concerning sustainable development, biodiversity, and sustainable forest management) (Bromley, 1997, Pregernig, 1999, OECD, 2003). The coexistence of national law and provincial law and particularly their application to the same object – in this case the same piece of land – inevitably leads to problems of co-ordination and conflict.

3.2 Overview of nature conservation policy

As nature conservation is within the competence of the federal provinces, there are nine separate provincial nature conservation laws. The nature conservation laws, which are currently in force, stipulate a general obligation to protect and care for nature as the basis of life for humankind, fauna, and flora. In addition to these general provisions, the provincial laws contain special obligations to obtain permission for and/or to notify certain projects as well as provisions on the conservation of selected habitat types (such as wetlands, riparian areas, or glaciers). Apart from areas that are protected under the general nature conservation laws governing the conservation of selected habitat types, about one quarter of the total Austrian surface is protected according to the various categories of site protection, although the degree of this protection varies greatly (see Table 2) (Tiefenbach et al., 1998). Since Austria’s accession to the EU, the implementation of the two EU Directives dealing with nature conservation (Birds Directive, 79/409/EEC, and Habitats Directive, 92/43/EEC) has been a major concern of nature protection in Austria. For the Natura-2000 network, Austria proposed a total of 95 sites (14.7% of the national territory) according to the Birds Directive and 160 sites (10.6% of the national territory) according to the Habitats Directive. Austria is, therefore, in the lower range for the selection of sites according to the Habitats Directive, and in the top third for sites according to the Birds Directive (UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2004).

Context factors Overview of nature conservation policy

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Number km² % of land area

National parks 6 2.426 3 Natura 2000 sites 88 5.160 6

Protected areas 400 2.995 4 Protected landscapes 244 12.929 15

Nature parks 43 3.687 4 Nature monuments 334 90 0,1

Ramsar sites 19 1.380 1,6 Biosphere reserves 6 1.524 1,8

Other protected areas 51 2.370 2 Total *) 1.166 29.657 35

*) This list of protected areas is not additive since the various protection categories may overlap to some extent.

Table 2: Main national protected areas Source: (UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2007)

Nevertheless, the state of biodiversity is still declining. The Red Lists of threatened animals and plants provide information on the likelihood of extinction: 33% of vertebrate species and 40% of ferns and flowering plants are threatened. Of the 61 grassland biotope types, 55 biotope types are threatened. Neobiota, i.e. nonnative plant, animal and fungus species, are also currently affecting biological diversity as they may displace native species (UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2007). According to the most recent National State of the Environment Report, biological diversity is at risk due to the abandonment of extensively used areas in agriculture, habitat fragmentation and losses, as well as climate change. The 2003 OECD Environmental Performance Review underlines that Austria’s mosaic of protected areas (national parks, nature reserves, the Natura 2000 network, biogenetic reserves) does not yet form a coherent network of protected areas with migration corridors. The alleviation of environmental pressures from agriculture and tourism is heavily dependent on the subsidies granted for participation in agri-environmental programmes. Currently, land conversion amounts to a loss of 25 hectares of natural habitat per day. Nature conservation objectives expressed in spatial plans are often not reflected in municipal land use zoning decisions. In short, efforts to protect nature, biodiversity and the landscape do not compensate for the pressures exerted by economic activities (OECD, 2003, UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2007). In recent years, a number of processes have been started that go beyond the traditional approaches of nature and biodiversity conservation, which are based on laws and financial incentives. Those processes have used more strategic approaches towards policy making. The strategy process that is most directly related to the topics of nature and biodiversity conservation is, of course, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, which is at the core of this report. Other strategy processes that have been dealing with nature conservation issues in a subordinate position are the National Environmental Plan, the Austrian Strategy for Sustainable Development, and the Austrian Forest Dialogue.

National Environmental Plan The National Environmental Plan (NUP), which was formulated under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of the Environment and approved by the Austrian Federal Government in 1995, strives to integrate environmental policy at all political levels. The NUP seeks to integrate the objective of environmental quality improvement into all policy sections, e.g. industry, energy, transport, forestry,

Context factors Overview of nature conservation policy

11

consumer affairs and agriculture. One of the key areas within the Plan is the protection of the “unique Austrian natural and cultural heritage”. This resulted in a new impetus on the process of land designations, particularly National Parks (Bromley, 1997). Moreover, the National Environmental Plan did not have much of an impact on environmental policy. A great number of organisations and institutions, including all the ministries, labour and industry associations, as well as environmental groups participated in its drafting. With that, the claim of inter-policy co-ordination was taken quite seriously. With regard to its contents, the NUP falls short of the expectations: The core elements of the Plan are mainly qualitative, long-term environmental goals. The NUP lacks quantitative targets, accurate timetables and a detailed description of the measures to be taken (Jänicke & Jörgens, 1997). Furthermore, its possible policy impacts are restricted by a lack of formal policy commitment because the Plan has no legal basis. The Austrian National Environmental Plan can be taken as an instructive example on how the interference of powerful social players has reduced an ambitious planning approach to a political symbol without any actual social impacts (Pregernig, 1999, Pleschberger, 1999).

Austrian Strategy for Sustainable Development In the immediate run-up to the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002, the Austrian Federal Government adopted another strategy document, the National Strategy for Sustainable Development (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND– UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2002). The Strategy puts into concrete terms the targets of sustainable development for four fields of action, one of which is entitled “Austria as a Living Space: Protection of Diversity and Quality“. Under this topic, the Strategy, inter alia, aims at the conservation of wildlife, living spaces and both natural and farmed landscapes. It strives to preserve the diversity of species and landscapes and demands the development of regionally differentiated biodiversity models all over Austria and the design of site management concepts (UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2004). The Strategy for Sustainable Development was developed in a very open and participatory way and with its implementation mechanisms it is far advanced compared to its international counterparts. Since its publication, two working programmes were elaborated and a comprehensive external evaluation was carried out (Carius et al., 2005). The Strategy itself is a nearly 200-page document. Like most documents of that kind in whatever country, large parts of the strategy are written in a general, non-committal language, providing many good intentions and wish-list-like objectives, but only rather few details about what is to be achieved and when (Martinuzzi & Steurer, 2003).

Austrian Forest Dialogue The Austrian Forest Dialogue is a participatory, multi-stakeholder process on the future perspectives of forest policies in Austria. The Forest Dialogue was launched in 2003 by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management. The final strategy document, the Austrian Forest Programme, was issued in December 2005 and is now in its early stages of implementation (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2006b). In the Forest Programme, one out of seven thematic areas deals with the biological diversity of Austria’s forests. Since the Austrian Forest Dialogue is the second GoFOR case study of the Austrian GoFOR team, the procedural setup of this process is not described in greater detail here (cf. Hogl & Kvarda, 2008).

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as an international environmental regime The Convention on Biological Diversity: a brief introduction

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4 The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as an international environmental regime

4.1 The Convention on Biological Diversity: a brief introduction

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is one of three Conventions under international law that were displayed for signing at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The Convention entered into force under international law in December 1993. Austria has been a Party thereto since 1994. The Convention has three main objectives: the conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use of its components, and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilisation of genetic resources.

The term “biological diversity” as defined in the Convention comprises three different levels: diversity of ecosystems, diversity between species, and genetic diversity within species.

The Convention on Biological Diversity is a framework convention. This means that the conditions laid down in its articles are relatively general and must be followed up on and specifically defined with the decisions taken by the Conference of the Parties. The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the political decision-making body of the Convention. It is supported by a number of working groups and committees, including the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA). SBSTTA makes recommendations that are then negotiated and adopted at the COP. Under the Convention, Parties are obligated to conserve all the components of biological diversity, both in their original habitat (in situ), and as supporting measures outside the habitat (ex situ). Existing uses (e.g. agriculture, forestry, and fishery) must comply with the principle of sustainable development. Research, education and public relations work are to be used as instruments to promote the Convention. Environmental impact assessments aim to ensure that the negative impacts of projects on biodiversity are kept to a minimum. In addition, incentives for the protection and sustainable use of biodiversity should be developed. These are just some example topics that are aimed at implementing the first two goals of the Convention: conservation of and the sustainable utilisation of biodiversity. To achieve the third goal – equitable benefit sharing – the countries of origin should be appropriately involved in the profits if they grant access to their genetic resources, e.g. for the development of agricultural or pharmaceutical products. A so-called Clearing House Mechanism (CHM) helps to spread information and know-how on the implementation of the Convention. It is an instrument for improving scientific and technical co-operation. The CHM is a virtual network of hubs at the national, regional, and international levels. There are also a number of thematic programmes of work in the framework of the CBD (forests, inland waters, marine and coastal, dry and sub-humid lands, mountains, agricultural biodiversity) and

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as an international environmental regime The 2010 Biodiversity Target

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programmes of work for cross-cutting issues (e.g. protected areas, sustainable use, incentive measures, and invasive alien species). A financing mechanism is utilised in order to assist countries that are financially particularly weak and that face additional costs due to the implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), which is located at the World Bank, was appointed as a preliminary financing mechanism. This multilateral fund was established in 1991 and provides developing countries and countries in transition with grants for investments and technical support in the fields of biological diversity, climate protection, combating desertification, persistent organic pollutants (POPs), the conservation of international water bodies and the protection of the ozone layer. Between 1991 and 2004, the GEF provided approximately 2.2 billion USD for 713 projects for the funding area of “biodiversity”.

4.2 The 2010 Biodiversity Target

The Strategic Plan of the Convention laid down the goal of achieving a significant reduction in the current rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. This goal was confirmed in the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in 2002 in Johannesburg. To address this problem, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity adopted a Strategic Plan (decision VI/26). In its mission statement, the Parties committed themselves to a more effective and coherent implementation of the three objectives of the Convention, to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national levels as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on earth. This target was subsequently endorsed by the World Summit on Sustainable Development. In 2004, the Conference of the Parties adopted a framework (decision VII/30): to facilitate the assessment of progress towards 2010 and communication of this assessment, to promote coherence among the programmes of work of the Convention, and to provide a flexible framework within which national and regional targets may be set, and indicators

thereby identified. The framework includes seven focal areas. The Conference of the Parties identified the indicators for assessing progress, and communicating the 2010 target at the global level, as well as the goals and sub-targets for each of the focal areas, including a general approach for the integration of the goals and sub-targets into the programmes of work of the Convention. The Parties to the Convention were invited to establish their own targets and identify the respective indicators within this flexible framework.

4.3 National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs)

Article 6 of the Convention on Biological Diversity requires each Party to develop or adapt national strategies, plans, or programmes for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity and to integrate, as far as possible and as appropriate, the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity into the relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes, and policies. The Article creates an obligation for national biodiversity planning, and in its Decisions VI/26 and VI/27 the Conference of the Parties of the Convention stressed that the development and adoption of a national biodiversity strategy constitute a cornerstone of the national implementation of the Convention.

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as an international environmental regime National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs)

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This is also reflected in goal 3 of the Strategic Plan for the CBD, which states that “national biodiversity strategies and action plans and the integration of biodiversity concerns into the relevant sectors serve as an effective framework for the implementation of the objectives of the Convention” (UNEP/CBD/COP/6/20, 2002). A national strategy will thus reflect how the country intends to fulfil the objectives of the Convention in light of specific national circumstances, and the related action plans will constitute the sequence of steps to be taken to meet these goals (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Implementation of the CBD at the national level Source: (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND

WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2005: 6)

The Conference of the Parties addressed the national biodiversity strategies and action plans most comprehensively at its sixth meeting in 2002, urging the Parties in decision VI/27 A, paragraph 2, to: (a) Develop and adopt national biodiversity strategies and action plans, where they have not yet done

so; (b) Give priority to the integration of the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, as

well as benefit-sharing, into relevant sectoral or cross-sectoral plans, programmes and policies, in accordance with Article 6 of the Convention;

(c) Identify priority actions in national biodiversity strategies and action plans and other relevant national strategies;


15

(d) Implement national biodiversity strategies and action plans; and to periodically revise them in the light of the experience of implementation;

(e) Establish national mechanisms or consultative processes for coordinating, implementing, monitoring, evaluating and periodically revising national biodiversity strategies and action plans;

(f) Identify constraints and impediments to implementation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and to reflect them in the national reports;

(g) Make their national biodiversity strategies and action plans, including periodic revisions, available through their national clearing-house mechanism and the Convention website.

In the same decision, the Conference of the Parties encouraged the Parties to develop regional, subregional, or bioregional mechanisms and networks; and to support the implementation of the Convention including, as appropriate, through the development of regional or subregional biodiversity strategies and action plans, the identification of common constraints and impediments to implementation; and promotion of joint measures for addressing these (decision VI/27, paragraph 3). In addition, earlier guidance provided to the Parties invited them to “set measurable targets to achieve biodiversity conservation and sustainable use objectives” (decision III/9, paragraph 5). At its seventh meeting, the Conference of the Parties reiterated this point, emphasising that the goals and targets of the framework that was adopted in decision VII/30 – established for the enhanced evaluation of the achievements and progress in the implementation of the Strategic Plan and, in particular, its mission, to achieve a significant reduction in the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional, and national levels – should be viewed as a flexible framework within which national and/or regional targets can be developed. The requirement to mainstream the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources across all sectors of the national economy and policy-making framework is the complex challenge at the heart of the Convention. As of May 2005, 108 Parties had completed their national biodiversity strategies and action plans and another 32 Parties had them in various stages of development (UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME, 2005). However, a review in 2005 of the implementation of national biodiversity strategies and the integration of biodiversity concerns concluded that their progress remains poor (UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME, 2005). The review further stated that while just over half of all the Parties to the Convention had national biodiversity strategies, satisfactory implementation was presumably limited to even fewer countries. However, the review and its results suffered from a paucity of available good information about the implementation of national biodiversity strategies. These results are not very surprising taking into account that there was actually very little guidance for the Parties on the development of national biodiversity strategies and action plans throughout the 1990s. Furthermore, the first guides that were published were predominantly technical in nature, focussing on data availability, indicators, and thematic areas in their proposed “Biodiversity Planning Matrix” (Prescott et al., 2000), but paying little attention to the planning process itself and its main elements (e.g. participation, intersectoral co-ordination, multi-level co-ordination). Accordingly, the development of national biodiversity strategies has been regarded in many countries mainly as the fulfilment of international obligations with little direct effect afterwards. As one of our interviewees stated:

“Mostly it is to demonstrate to the CBD secretariat that one took care of, one handed over a strategy – and that’s it.”3

3 I02-144


16

Adding to this problem is the lack of institutionalised policy learning on the international level. Neither the CBD secretariat nor any of the technical bodies carried out an in-depth evaluation of the national experiences with national biodiversity strategies in an attempt to analyse the lessons learned in these processes and to draw conclusions from the national experiences for the future.

”The national strategies themselves do not play a role in the international discussion, in which it is assumed as given that they exist and are implemented.“4

The situation has changed since 2002, at least more guidance on the preparation of national biodiversity strategies has been delivered at COP6. Keeping in mind the guidance and guidelines on national biodiversity strategies and the action plans provided by the CBD and its subsequent decisions, we will take a closer look at the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy in the following chapters.

4 I12-86

The National Biodiversity Commission (NBC) Actors’ expectations regarding the National Biodiversity Commission

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5 The National Biodiversity Commission (NBC) Austria ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1995 and has since then developed national measures and objectives for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity to ensure the implementation of the CBD. Recognising the diverse legislation and divided responsibilities for biodiversity in Austria a “National Commission on Biodiversity” was entrusted by the former Federal Ministry of Environment, Youth and Family Affairs soon after ratification in 1995. The Biodiversity Commission was set up as a policy co-ordination mechanism. It should fulfil three functions: (1) guide efforts on implementing the CBD; (2) facilitate co-ordination and co-operation between the different activities and programmes in the field

of biodiversity; and (3) provide an important platform for information exchange on the various issues that are related to

biodiversity. The Biodiversity Commission is composed of various actors, including the representatives of administrative departments (Federal Ministries and Provincial Authorities), public and private interest groups (landowner associations, Chamber of Commerce), science (universities, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Natural History Museum), and NGOs (WWF, Naturschutzbund, and Arche Noah). The Biodiversity Commission was established in June 1996 by the former Ministry of Environment, Youth and Family Affairs (BMJUF). All the relevant organisations were invited to attend the first meeting and were requested to nominate a member to the Biodiversity Commission. It was clear from the outset that the Commission’s main functions should be to advise and inform; thus, it does not act as a political body and it has no authority to take politically binding decisions. It has no rules of internal procedures and the Ministry has no intention to develop such internal procedures in future. There are no strict rules on membership, in which the interested organisations or individual persons can attend the meeting. Furthermore, the decision-making in the Biodiversity Commission is based on consensus and not on majority voting. Between its establishment and the year 2007, the National Biodiversity Commission has convened, in total, 42 times. The frequency of the Commission meetings were high in the early years with a bi-monthly meeting schedule and six or seven meetings per year and a total of 20 meetings until the end of 1999. Since 2000, the number of meetings has decreased, first to a quarterly meeting schedule, and nowadays to a half-yearly schedule with just two meetings per year. The meetings are normally scheduled for half a day (three to four hours) and the agenda is packed with several agenda items, the Biodiversity Strategy is only one among them all. Typically, there is not more than 30 to 45 minutes time left to speak about all the issues related to the Biodiversity Strategy, e.g. implementation activities or related issues.

5.1 Actors’ expectations regarding the National Biodiversity Commission

The actors’ view on the role of the National Biodiversity Commission somewhat differs from the three official functions as outlined above. The interviewees mentioned four roles of the NBC: (1) guiding the domestic implementation of CBD, (2) creating a network of stakeholders,

The National Biodiversity Commission (NBC) Strengths and weaknesses of the National Biodiversity Commission

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(3) exchange of information, and (4) providing a platform for presenting one’s own activities. Two of these roles are identical with the NBC’s official functions, namely the first and third roles. Nearly all of the interviewed members primarily see the Commission as an information body5, in which its work is strongly perceived to be connected to the implementation of the CBD6.

“The role the Commission is, at the moment, or actually has been since its establishment, according to my opinion, primarily an informative one.”7

However, two additional roles were also mentioned by our interviewees, namely networking and the presentation of one’s own activities. The aspect of networking was the second most common role attributed to the NBC; it was mentioned by one-third of our interviewees. This role seems to be of particular importance for NGO representatives and scientists. The interviewees stated that they appreciated NBC membership in order to get together with other actors, to listen to other opinions and, therewith, to better understand the arguments of the other actors. For the NGO representatives and scientists, the NBC also provided a welcomed way to gain access to ministerial officials8. A last role of the NBC as mentioned in our interviews was its role as a platform to present one’s own activities to other stakeholders9. While “co-ordination” is supposed to be an official function of the Commission, this role was not mentioned by a single interviewee.

5.2 Strengths and weaknesses of the National Biodiversity Commission

In our interviews, several advantages of the National Biodiversity Commission were highlighted, but also some disadvantages were mentioned. The largest advantage to most of the participating actors is the access to information that otherwise would probably be not that easy to obtain. The establishment of a network of stakeholders for spurring discussions has also been regarded as an advantage of the Biodiversity Commission, or as an interviewee put it:

“The simple fact that something like a National Biodiversity Commission exists is a great benefit for us.”10

Besides for these advantages and benefits, several critical points were also mentioned by the Commission’s members. First of all, the largest advantage of the Commission, namely information-sharing, was also regarded as the most significant problem. Several interviewees complained that the NBC is nearly exclusively restricted to this role, and that it is rather difficult to go beyond it:

“Therefore it is, I can say it quite openly, a nonsensical-committee where only information is exchanged”11

“The NBC is a pure information-committee [...] it’s just mutual reporting [...] no decisions are made [...] it only serves for the exchange of information."12

5 I09-51, I13-33, I01-23, I02-184, I16i-17, I19-46, I04-21, I12-24 6 I05-14, I15-14 7 I04-21 8 I09-51, I05-14, I15-14, I01-27-29, I04-21 9 I01-23, I161-19, I19 10 I15-14 11 I19-46

The National Biodiversity Commission (NBC) Strengths and weaknesses of the National Biodiversity Commission

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The NBC in its current form, without any legal basis or decision-making power, has little direct impact. Basically, this is the reason why some actors argued that the meetings of the NBC are a waste of time for them, in particular the representatives of interest groups and NGOs. Furthermore, this also explains why the number of participating actors from the private and societal sphere has declined over the years. To solve this issue, the members follow different strategies. A few members have somewhat arranged themselves with the current situation and are not looking for much change. Some members would like to strengthen the NBC and pay more attention to the co-ordination role that it was intended to play at the beginning. Other members see this claim as either unnecessary or, at minimum, unrealistic:

“It is probably not feasible because the legal competences are so scattered. […] And that is the reason why the commission won't get such a co-ordination role in the future ... to be realistic”.13

Based on the interviews, it has not become fully clear to us whether the members themselves support a stronger NBC. However, a majority of members would like to see a greater part of the Commission’s work spent on concrete activities, e.g. measures directly contributing to the implementation of the biodiversity strategy.

12 I13-33 13 I04-57

The Biodiversity Strategy process Strengths and weaknesses of the National Biodiversity Commission

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6 The Biodiversity Strategy process Soon after the Austrian Government ratified the Convention on Biological Diversity, work began to determine the measures required to meet the international obligations. As planned in terms of the implementation of the CBD and co-ordinated by the national Commission, Austria produced three national reports (in 1997, 2001, and 2005) and six thematic reports14. Furthermore, in accordance with Article 6, the first Austrian Strategy for the Implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity was drawn up by the Biodiversity Commission in 1997 (see Table 3).

August 1994 - March 1995 Ratification of the CBD in Austria, entered into force in March 1995 March - May 1996 Four workshops on the Implementation of the CBD in Austria

June 1996 Set up of the National Commission on Biodiversity June 1997 Formulation process of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy started

December 1997 First Draft of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy April 1998 Final Draft of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

August 1998 Austrian Biodiversity Strategy adopted by the Council of Ministers February 2001 First report on the evaluation of the Biodiversity Strategy

September 2003 Second report on the evaluation of the Biodiversity Strategy October 2003 Presentation of a concept for further development of the national biodiversity strategy

November 2003 Workshop on the “Biodiversity 2010” target June 2004 First Draft of the Revised Biodiversity Strategy

November 2004 Second Draft July 2005 Adoption of the Revised Biodiversity Strategy by the National Biodiversity Commission

February 2007 Summary of the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy has been officially published

Table 3: Timeframe for the formulation and review of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy is the final output of a dialogue process involving various stakeholders that lasted for nearly a year from June 1997 to April 1998. During this period, four different drafts of the strategy document were elaborated. The final draft in April 1998 was then adopted by the Council of Ministers in August 1998. This national biodiversity strategy served as the basis for the co-ordination and implementation of measures for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity in Austria. The first strategy was evaluated in a two-step approach in 2001 and 2003 (Götz, 2001, Röhrich, 2003a). Based on this evaluation the national biodiversity strategy was revised and updated after 2003. The second “Advanced Austrian Implementation Strategy for the Convention of Biological Diversity” is supposed to form a long-term framework for conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity in Austria; it seeks a compromise between the necessary long-term goals and the financial and political opportunities.

14 Thematic Report on Access and Benefit Sharing; Thematic Report on Alien and Invasive Species; Thematic Report on

Forest Ecosystems; Thematic Report on Mountain Ecosystems; Thematic Report on Protected Areas; Thematic Report on Transfer of Technology and Technology Co-operation.

The Biodiversity Strategy process The Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (1998)

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It is here that attaining the so-called “2010 target“, which aims at a considerable reduction of the current loss of biodiversity, is seen as a special challenge. As a new instrument for its implementation, the strategy will make use of Action Plans for specific themes, of which the first on invasive alien species (neobiota) was already published in 2004. The new strategy was adopted by the Biodiversity Commission in 2005. In February 2007, a summary of objectives and measures of the revised biodiversity strategy was officially published by the BMLFUW. In contrast to the first biodiversity strategy there is no intention of having the second strategy approved by the Council of Ministers as it is officially regarded as a “revision” of the first biodiversity strategy only, and not as a new biodiversity strategy.

6.1 The Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (1998)

The discussion about a national biodiversity strategy commenced in January 1997 based on a study report prepared for the Ministry of Environment, which analysed the implementation of the CBD in Austria. The prevailing opinion in the government until then was that Article 6 does not create any need for action because the obligations under Article 6 are already fulfilled through nature conservations laws and nature conservation strategies at the provincial level and, moreover, by the National Environmental Plan at the national level. In sum, the government failed to see any necessity to develop a national biodiversity strategy (BMUJF 1994: 2). In contrast, the study concluded that Article 6 obliges the Parties to develop a national biodiversity strategy for the implementation of the CBD (SYNERGY, 1996). The final results of the study were presented to the Biodiversity Commission in February 1997 (NBC 1997a: 2). The study recommended the development of a national biodiversity strategy as the best available means to improve the efficiency of the implementation of the CBD. Furthermore, the first recommendations for thematic issues and the formulation process of the strategy were provided. Following these recommendations, the Biodiversity Commission started the drafting process for the national biodiversity strategy in June 1997 (NBC 1997b: 1). The strategy formulation lasted until August 1998 when the biodiversity strategy entitled “Austrian Implementation Strategy for the Convention on Biological Diversity” was finally adopted by the Council of Ministers.

6.1.1 Aims and content of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy was developed in line with the content of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The strategy sets out the general policy directions and provides guidance for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, combined with broad lines of action for specific problem areas. It consists of ten chapters, in which its structure generally follows the articles of the CBD: in-situ conservation (Art. 8), ex-situ conservation (Art. 9), sustainable Use (Art. 10), and research and monitoring (Art. 7). Furthermore, the strategy includes additional chapters on species conservation and landscape protection; tourism and recreation; mining, industry, transportation, and development co-operation, indigenous people; and an ecological approach. However, the structure of the strategy possesses several flaws and the individual chapters do not follow the same internal structure, wherein the distribution of the topics over the individual chapters is inaccurate, and the coverage of the topics sometimes overlaps (Röhrich, 2003b). The ABS is mostly written in a general, non-committal language including good, but rather un-specific, intentions and objectives, with only a few details about what should be achieved at what time. The main foci of the strategy lie in the fields of conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity as well as in research and monitoring. The suggested measures that are designed to stop the loss of biological diversity include:

The Biodiversity Strategy process The Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (1998)

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the setting up of buffer zones and protected areas, improvements in the financial and staffing resources available to nature conservation, the reduction of the permanently sealed land by controlling land use, and the restoration of linear streams and rivers and the restoration of damaged wetlands.

A key measure to protect biodiversity is the setting up of nature reserves. Approximately 25% of Austria’s surface area currently enjoys some form of protection, with wide-ranging protection measures in force for nature reserves and the core areas of national parks. Of equal importance to these conservation measures is the sustainable use of biodiversity. This aspect constitutes the second main focus of the biodiversity strategy and concerns the sectors of agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishing, tourism, mining, industry, and transport. The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy aims at three objectives: information, inventory, and integration (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR UMWELT‚ JUGEND UND FAMILIE, 1998: 5). The first objective of the strategy is to strengthen awareness and to provide information on the necessity, advantages and benefits of biodiversity. The vehicle to achieve this goal is education and training in all the relevant sectors. A second primary goal is an interdisciplinary attempt to take stock of Austria’s biodiversity at all levels, i.e. genetic diversity (especially in agriculture and forestry), species diversity, and ecosystem diversity. Setting co-ordinated, cost-effective measures based on objective priorities requires appropriate information. The third aim of the strategy is to better co-ordinate measures to improve nature conservation and species protection. This encompasses transnational co-ordination with neighbouring countries as well as better co-ordination with other sectoral plans, programmes, and policies in the realm of nature conservation, agricultural and forestry policies, tourism, transport and so on. A co-ordinated and intelligent regional planning along with scientific and technological innovation are cornerstones of this process.

6.1.2 Institutional and procedural settings

Figure 4 shows the organisational structure of the National Biodiversity Commission. Two main bodies were important for the initial step of strategy formulation: the Commission itself and a temporary editorial group. While the Biodiversity Commission had been established already when the formulation process started, the editorial group needed to be set up in the course of the elaboration phase.

The Biodiversity Strategy process Evaluation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

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ScientistsFederalProvinces

(temporary)Editorial Group

(temporary)Thematic

Working GroupsNational Biodiversity

Commission

Federal Government

Chair

Ministry ofEnviron-

ment

Other Federal

Ministries

Other Federal

Ministries

NGOs

Social PartnerOrgani-sations

Figure 4: Organisational structure in the formulation phase of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy (1998)

Between mid-1997 and mid-1998, when the first strategy was formulated, the Biodiversity Commission had approximately 50 members. At that time, the Commission could be deemed as a rather open and representative body. Its membership was composed of various actors, including the representatives of administrative departments (Federal Ministries and Provincial Authorities), public and private interest groups (landowner associations, Chamber of Commerce, trade unions), science (universities, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Natural History Museum), and NGOs (Bird Life, Greenpeace, WWF, and Arche Noah). The Commission met frequently during that period with a total of seven meetings. The editorial group was established in December 1997. It consisted of seven members representing different ministries (Agriculture and Forestry, Economics and Labour, Environment, Science and Transport), federal provinces, the Presidents’ Conference of the Chambers of Agriculture, and the Federation of Environmental Organisations (ÖGNU) (NBC 1997e: 1). The editorial group was responsible for the collection of input and the wording of the draft strategy. The editorial group was supported by working groups and sometimes single persons who were responsible for drafting the chapters on a chosen topic (e.g. agriculture, forestry, or transport). In most cases these working groups were led by public officials within the respective competent ministry. The editorial group reported, at the following meeting of the National Biodiversity Commission, the latest progress. Until April 1998, the editorial group met three times to discuss the strategy drafts and to solve any remaining problems.


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6.2 Evaluation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

The first biodiversity strategy was subject to evaluation at a rather early stage. The main reason for this early evaluation was that the Ministry of Environment was interested keeping the topic of biological diversity on the political agenda.15 The biodiversity strategy itself had foreseen such an evaluation as stated in the introduction:

“An important future task of the National Biodiversity Commission will be to evaluate, improve and update the strategy based on the dynamic, evolutionary progress in this field.” (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR UMWELT‚ JUGEND UND FAMILIE, 1998: 5)

Shortly after the biodiversity strategy was adopted by the government, the National Biodiversity Commission set itself the goal to examine which measures of the strategy were already implemented and where there was still a need for action:

“It is proposed that those members, who contribute something to the realisation of the strategy, report this in the respective sessions of the National Biodiversity Commission. After approximately one year, a revision of this process should take place.” (NBC 1998c: 2)

The goal was to present an evaluation report to the next Conference of Parties (COP5) in May 2000. The majority of members supported the idea to establish an internal working group of the Biodiversity Commission for the evaluation of the biodiversity strategy. The main goals of the evaluation were to analyse the deficits and successes in the implementation of the biodiversity strategy, and to identify the problems of, and barriers to, effective implementation. Moreover, the financial means available to organisations for the implementation of measures should be represented (NBC 1999a: 4). In autumn 1999, all the members of the National Biodiversity Commission were requested by the Federal Ministry of Environment to report about the implementation activities of their organisation in a short form (Götz, 2001: 9). At its next meeting in December 1999, the members of the Biodiversity Commission took the decision to set up a working group for the evaluation (NBC 1999b: 4). The working group was planned to be made up of the following members: representatives from the provinces, three federal ministries, one federal agency, two interest groups, two NGOs and two scientific organisations. The working group was finally established in January 2000 and the Federal Environmental Agency was entrusted with the co-ordination of the evaluation. In the absence of a standard method for evaluating the national implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, a genuine concept had to be developed for Austria. For that, a step-by-step review process was set up. The concept for the evaluation based on the recommendations of the working group had foreseen the following steps (Götz, 2001: 8): I Evaluation of the measures and goals that are formulated in the strategy:

a. Evaluation of the long-term objectives (vision statements, guiding principles) that are contained in the strategy.

b. Survey on the implementation measures; structuring and assignment of the reported measures to the goals of the strategy.

c. Assessment of the reported measures on basis of the works in I.b. to identify deficits and future demands.

15 I06-39


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II. Evaluation of the strategy itself: a. Analysis and assessment of the structure: formal points, e.g. lacking consistency, tables,

sequence of the chapters, and so on. b. Analysis and assessment of the content: textual points, e.g. lacking statements about the time-

horizons, lacking of quantitative goals, lacking responsibilities (approached target groups), and lacking definitions of concepts.

As a first step, the evaluation team recommended the structuring and assignment of the reported activities with reference to the goals outlined in the biodiversity strategy. The aim of phase 1 of the evaluation was to determine if and how many of the reported activities contributed to the goals of the strategy and were a part of its implementation. The main focus was on the quantitative analysis of the activities carried out (Götz, 2001: 9). For the collection of these activities, the members of the Biodiversity Commission were requested to report about the topics falling into their purviews. Altogether, 27 reports were submitted to the evaluation team. The submitted reports were then structured in accordance with the chapters of the biodiversity strategy and the reported implementation measures were grouped into four categories (Programmes, strategies, financial and legal measures; Research and Monitoring; In-situ measures; Ex-situ measures), and were finally the subject of a qualitative analysis (Röhrich, 2003b: 18). The results of the first step were reported and discussed in the Biodiversity Commission in March 2000 (NBC 2000: 3). The main problem at this phase was that the reports that were submitted were of highly varying quality, which made it rather difficult to assign the reported measures to the goals of the biodiversity strategy and to recognise their relevance for the conservation of biological diversity (Götz, 2001: 10). In a second step, reporting on the implementation was extended beyond the membership of the Biodiversity Commission, and the implementation measures were specifically targeted through a standardised questionnaire. Moreover, the questionnaire was intended to avoid the former problems and to guarantee a better categorisation of the reported measures (Götz, 2001: 10). The survey was carried out between August and December 2000. In order to better involve the numerous activities taking place in the federal provinces, the questionnaire was sent to all the competent authorities for agriculture, forestry, and nature protection in the nine federal provinces. Furthermore, it was sent out to the administrations of national parks, zoos and regional museums in Austria. Altogether, 181 completed questionnaires were sent back. The number of reported activities, after the overlaps and activities that could not be assigned to the strategy were adjusted, amounted to a total of 166 measures. The final results of the working group upon evaluation were presented and discussed by the Biodiversity Commission in February 2001 (NBC 2001: 2). The working group concluded that during this first stage of the evaluation of the biodiversity strategy, essential hints were acquired over the activities, which can be assessed as important for the implementation of the strategy or as concrete measures in the sense of the strategy. Based on the submitted reports it was possible to draw first conclusions in which areas the strategy showed effects and which fields posed further challenges for the future. The evaluation also provided hints about the weaknesses of the strategy as well as about the requirements on the further steps in the evaluation. The results of phase 1 of the evaluation of the biodiversity strategy were officially published in February 2001 (Götz, 2001). All the reported activities collected during the first stage of the evaluation were entered into a database, the so-called “Living Document”, and were published on the national Clearing-House-Mechanism website. From that time onward, it was possible to enter new activities into the

The Biodiversity Strategy process Advanced Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (2005)

26

“Living Document” as well as to run specific queries. As of February 2003, the “Living Document” contained a total of 501 activities (Röhrich, 2003a: 19). The second phase of the evaluation began in mid-2001. The aim of this second evaluation was to analyse whether the strategy covered all the obligations under the Convention on Biological Diversity, if it included all the relevant topics for Austria, if the structure and content of the strategy made sense, and if the necessary prerequisites for the implementation and evaluation of the biodiversity strategy were fully met. Additionally, the recommendations for a review of the biodiversity strategy were to be formulated based on the results of the evaluation. At the beginning, a catalogue of questions was drawn up. The strategy should be reviewed along the following six criteria: completeness, balance, structure, layout, ease of operational implementation and monitoring. To determine the biodiversity strategy’s completeness from a professional point of view and to establish a few other aspects, members of the biodiversity commission were interviewed over the telephone (Röhrich, 2003a: 6). The Federal Environmental Agency reported regularly on the work progress at the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission. The final results of phase II of the evaluation were presented in mid-2003 and officially published in September 2003. In the course of the evaluation, many flaws of the biodiversity strategy were discovered (see chapter 7). The results of the evaluation showed that regular reviews and updates of the Biodiversity Strategy are absolutely necessary because of the rapidly changing overall conditions. The criteria for the future evaluations of the implementation (e.g. timeframes, quantifiable targets and indicators) could only be included in several revision stages (Röhrich, 2003a: 8).

6.3 Advanced Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (2005)

Based on the results of the evaluation, three alternatives were considered in order to improve the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy and to achieve the targets of the Convention on Biological Diversity (Röhrich, 2003b: 80): 1. elaboration of a new strategy; 2. adaptation of the existing strategy plus additional time-bound or thematic action plans; or 3. only additional action plans. The evaluation report suggested the second option and argued that this alternative seems adequate for meeting the requirements of the CBD concerning the definition of priorities in national biodiversity strategies. An update of the Biodiversity Strategy should especially include the relevant thematic areas hitherto missing, a list of problems, and cross-references. The inclusion of excessively detailed numerical data or the description of specific projects, however, should be avoided. If these aspects were considered, the strategy would be more able to meet the requirements regarding long-term orientation, the extensive discussion of all relevant thematic areas and the general character of a basic strategy. The evaluation report also recommended the introduction of a new instrument, i.e. action plans. Action plans should define the priority topics that can be covered within certain realistic periods. Furthermore, to describe the measures as precisely and accurately as possible in order to define the competencies and address the acting parties and stakeholders as directly as possible was sought. The report also recommended that the action plans should be bound to procedures of evaluation. It would, therefore, be necessary to consider evaluation criteria such as timeframes or indicators when preparing these action programmes.

The Biodiversity Strategy process Advanced Austrian Implementation Strategy for the CBD (2005)

27

The decision between the three suggested alternatives in favour of the second option was taken by the chair of the Biodiversity Commission, apparently without any discussion in the Commission.16 The more rational decision to opt for the elaboration of a new strategy because of the identified flaws in the first strategy and to make use of altered framework conditions was rejected because the chair of the Commission and the Federal Environmental Agency feared the biodiversity strategy would probably worsen in the intra- and inter-ministerial wrangles that are involved in such an elaboration process.17

6.3.1 Institutional and procedural settings

The elaboration of the advanced Austrian biodiversity strategy lasted nearly two years from October 2003 to July 2005. The organisational settings were changed compared to the elaboration of the first biodiversity strategy. Since the task was to further develop the biodiversity strategy and not to write a new strategy, no editorial group was established this time. Instead, the Federal Environmental Agency was contracted to rewrite and update the biodiversity strategy. The Agency started off with the text of the first biodiversity strategy, included new objectives stemming from international and European obligations, integrated some new topics, and basically performed some rearrangement of the existing text to develop a better and more coherent structure. In this approach thematic working groups to draft chapters were also not needed. However, the Biodiversity Commission still was the main body for discussion and its members were able to comment on the strategy drafts. At the start of the process, in October 2003, the members of the Biodiversity Commission were informed that the Federal Environmental Agency was assigned to further develop the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. The reworking should be based on the results of the evaluations and it should include the current developments in the framework of the CBD. In addition, a new structuring should be performed that should make for a goal-oriented implementation as well as make the handling more flexible. The new structure would provide for a general part, which establishes the fundamental objectives of the biodiversity strategy (2010 biodiversity target, ecosystem approach, awareness raising, linkage with relevant other national strategies, international co-operation), defines the prerequisites for the monitoring and evaluation of implementation and establishes the main fields of action. The information, goals, and measures contained in the first biodiversity strategy from 1998 would serve as a background. Concrete steps for implementation should be established in the form of thematic action plans. Compared to the elaboration process of the first biodiversity strategy, we can detect some major changes: (1) the task was restricted to the redrafting and updating of the strategy, (2) the organisational setting was much more centralised, with the Federal Environmental Agency playing a major role, and (3) great importance was assigned to the implementation issues.

6.3.2 Aims and content of the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy

The review and update of the Austrian biodiversity strategy had been undertaken in line with the latest developments of the CBD, in which the 2010 biodiversity target was especially adopted at the COP6 meeting in 2002. The advanced biodiversity strategy still set out general policy directions and guidance for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, combined with broad lines of action for specific problem areas. It comprises three main parts, plus an annex. The first part contains the general introduction to the biodiversity strategy, describing the underlying problems of biodiversity loss, the objectives of the CBD, guiding principles, and the legal and political

16 I06-104 17 I06-135

The Biodiversity Strategy process Thematic Action Plans

28

framework in Austria, including information on the development and implementation of the Austrian NBSAP. The second part introduces the 2010 biodiversity target and outlines four thematic areas for action: 1. Conservation of biological diversity, 2. Sustainable use of biological diversity, 3. Research and Monitoring, 4. International co-operation. Under the first thematic area on conservation, the strategy includes sub-chapters on in-situ conservation, ex-situ conservation, species conservation, landscape protection and land use, and neobiota. The second thematic area contains goals and measures for different forms of land use and economic sectors: agriculture, forestry, hunting, fishery, tourism and recreation, mining, industry, energy, and transportation. The third thematic area focuses on the issues related to monitoring and indicators in order to measure change in biological diversity, and the establishment of the ecosystem approach as a guiding principle in Austria. The last thematic area for action includes measures in the field of international co-operation, in particular the goals and measures on access and benefit-sharing, traditional knowledge, and development co-operation. The annex contains detailed information on the conservation of biological diversity in culturally derived species and breeds in agriculture. It outlines the various measures for the in-situ and ex-situ conservation of agricultural crops and animals. The last part outlines the standards for the development of action plans to support the implementation of the updated biodiversity strategy. According to this, all the action plans should follow similar structural and textual standards, including a general introduction and separate chapters on thematic areas. For each thematic area goals, measures, time horizons, priorities, in which the responsibilities for the respective implementation should be formulated. The Advanced Biodiversity Strategy is intended to provide the long-term political framework for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity in Austria. The overarching goal of the strategy is to stop the loss of biological diversity in Austria until 2010. The strategy is supposed to further contribute to the implementation of the Pan-European Strategy for Biological and Landscape Diversity (PEBLDS). The long-term goal of the strategy is to provide for a balance between nature conservation, the sustainable use of natural resources, and meeting the needs of human well-being without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

6.4 Thematic Action Plans

A new instrument that was introduced by the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy are thematic action plans, which should serve as complementary instrument to implement the biodiversity strategy in especially relevant thematic areas. The first action plan on invasive alien species was published in 2004. The Austrian Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species (“Aktionsplan Neobiota”) is to serve as a tool to further develop, and put into more concrete terms, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. This Action Plan is to be supplemented by the detailed measures for selected species (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004: 6). As of mid-2007, no additional action plans exist. The proposal to develop an action plan based on the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was rejected by the Federal Ministry in favour of integrating the objectives and goals of the GSPC directly into the assigned chapters of the revised


29

biodiversity strategy (NBC 2004: 4). An action plan dealing with biological diversity in the agriculture sector was planned, but did not come into existence until now (see more below).

Austrian Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species Invasive alien species, i.e. plant, fungi and animal species that have been transferred from one part of the world to another, are now considered to be one of the most significant threats to the conservation of biological diversity. Some of these “new species” (neobiota) may displace native species, cause long-lasting changes in ecosystem structure and function, and lead to substantial economic and health problems (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004). At the international level, efforts have been taken to further a uniform practice and legal basis for addressing the issue of alien species. Of particular importance are the “Guidelines for the Prevention, Introduction and Mitigation of the Impacts of Alien Species that Threaten Ecosystems, Habitats or Species”, which was adopted at the 6th Conference of the Parties to the CBD (CBD/COP6/VI/23), along with the relevant EU provisions. The Austrian Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species is based on the respective international requirements (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004: 10). In Austria, the issue of alien species is addressed in several substantive laws. Many of the relevant legal matters are within the competence of the Federal Provinces (e.g. laws pertaining to the conservation of nature, hunting and fishery), which means that nine provincial laws are always concerned. Other relevant subjects of law fall under the competence of the Republic of Austria (e.g. Forest Act, Environmental Control Act). The Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species strives for the examination and harmonisation of existing subjects of the law with respect to gaps, obstacles or counterproductive provisions. In 2002, a study was completed that provides a comprehensive survey of the plant, fungal and animal species that have entered or have been introduced into Austria through humans (Essl & Rabitsch, 2002). The outcomes of this study provide the technical basis to develop measures, objectives and time-periods, priorities concerning prevention, as well as mitigation activities. To provide information to a broader public, the BMLFUW also published a booklet, entitled “Die ‘Aliens’ kommen!” (The ‘aliens’ are coming!) (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2002). In October 2002, the BMLFUW organised an expert meeting on neobiota. A draft of the Action Plan was prepared by two experts from the Federal Environment Agency, the same experts that had authored the neobiota study. In February 2003, a working group for the implementation of the CBD/COP6 resolutions of the Austrian National Biodiversity Commission discussed an outline of the content of the action plan. The first drafts of the action plan were presented and discussed at the subsequent meetings of this working group in June and October 200318. Members of the working group, but also other members of the National Biodiversity Commission, were invited to provide further input in written form (NBC 2003: 1). In January 2004, the Action Plan was approved by the National Biodiversity Commission. The Action Plan is structured according to the following four topical issues: education and awareness-raising; capacity building; research and monitoring; and legal and organisational implementation.

18 I10-43


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The Action Plan is addressed to all the institutions and organisations concerned. They are urged to pay attention to and address the objectives and measures as set out in the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species within the framework of their activities and responsibilities (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004). In the topical fields, the assigned objectives are numbered and summarised by superordinate goals, and presented in uniformly structured tables (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004: 13): Objectives: Indication of the sub-goals to be reached within the framework of the Action Plan on

Invasive Alien Species. Measures: Indication of the measures that are required to reach the defined objectives. In some

cases, more than one measure has been assigned to one objective. Time-periods: Indication of the period within which the proposed measures are to be launched:

Short-term: < 3 years Medium-term: 3-5 years Long-term: > 5 years

Priority: Indication of the degree of priority with which the proposed measures are to be implemented: Low: Implementation of the proposed measures is moderately urgent to reach the objective. Medium: Implementation of the proposed measures is highly urgent to reach the objective. High: Implementation of the proposed measures is of paramount importance to reach the

objective. Actors: Indication of the institutions, vocational groups, and organisations concerned by the

implementation of the proposed measures. Indicated are all the actors that may be of importance for the implementation of the measures. This concerns the fields of funding and implementation (e.g. project management, integration of existing data, information and preparatory work).

Compared to the Biodiversity Strategy itself, the Action Plan on invasive alien species excels by a number of features. It has a consistent outline and structure. The Action Plan attaches particular importance to information and awareness-raising and with its attractive form of presentation seems apt to address a broader audience. Compared to the rather vague formulation of goals and measures in the Strategy, the Action Plan formulates rather specific and stringently operationalised goals and measures. As one means of capacity building, a National Focal Point for alien species, which is to serve as an information pool and a contact point both on the national and international levels, was established at the Federal Environment Agency. However, one major drawback still remains. Although the funding needs are addressed in some of the measures, no formal political commitments for funding can be found in the action plan.

Biodiversity Action Plan on Agriculture At the end of 2004, during the discussions about the update and review of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, the Chair informed the members of the NBC that the Federal Ministry (BMLFUW) planned to elaborate an action plan dealing with the biological diversity in the agricultural sector. The related work should be carried out by AGES, the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, in co-operation with the departmental working group of genetic resources in the Ministry (NBC 2004: 4). According to our interviews, little progress has been made since then:


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“We talked about it once and asked: in which form do we want to do this? We tried to find out once as to which information was available, how the state of biological diversity in the agrarian sector has developed, and if the financial instruments and resources were sufficient. These data are available. What makes it a little more difficult now is the relation with Natura 2000 activities. At the moment, it really is not so tangible, in which I would say that we can already discuss a first draft.”19

Many members of the NBC (including otherwise well-informed actors) did not know at all that an action plan on agriculture had been proposed20. Few members had recognised that this was planned, but were unsure about the actual state:

”Simply nothing happens, or at least nothing that I would know of. […] It sounds to me like a purposeful delay, but this is a situation that doesn't surprise me completely either.“21

“The action plan on agriculture, at least this is my impression, has fizzled out.”22

In total, it seems that the subordinated agency has not followed yet the request by the Federal Ministry to draft an action plan or a first outline. Furthermore, it is at least questionable according to some interviews if such an action plan will ever obtain the necessary support from the responsible section and departments within the Ministry.23 By way of a conclusion, one can state that the thematic action plans, as complementary instruments for the implementation of the biodiversity strategy, have not gained full momentum (yet). In this context, it might be instructive to reflect on the reasons as to why it was relatively easy to elaborate an action plan on invasive alien species while, concurrently, the idea of formulating an action plan on agriculture has more or less been stranded. In recent years, “alien species” has been a hot topic in international policy processes, in which it even gained some attention in the mass media. The subject is also politically somewhat unproblematic: who can be against the “aliens”? There are only a few contested issues, such as new species that are economically important in agriculture, forestry or fishery. However, since those economic sectors are simultaneously heavily affected by alien species (esp. weeds and predators), they supported the idea of the action plan in principle. All of that also made “alien species” an attractive topic for policy makers who willingly “jumped on that train” when the issue was brought onto the agenda by the Federal Environmental Agency. In contrast to that, the planned thematic action plan on agriculture would definitely touch some hot political issues and cause conflicts about political turf. Economic stakes are high and the topic has been “occupied” by old-established actor coalitions. That probably made the NBC shy away from following up on the idea of elaborating an action plan on agriculture. Whether this means that the new instrument of action plans will only be used in uncontested, “consensual” fields remains to be seen.

19 I05-115 20 E.g. I09-97-99, I04-58, I03 21 I01-44 22 I06-245 23 I01-38, 44; I16b

Aspects of governance in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process Participation

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7 Aspects of governance in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process

As the term “governance” was regarded as excessively vague in order to productively guide empirical analysis, it was operationalised in the GoFOR project by means of five procedural elements: participation, inter-sectoral co-ordination, multi-level co-ordination, the use of democratic and accountable expertise, and principles of adaptive and iterative planning (see chapter 1). In the following sub-chapters, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process will be analysed along those five procedural elements.

7.1 Participation

The Austrian biodiversity strategy itself makes no explicit reference to the importance of the participation of various stakeholders in developing the strategy. However, the aspect of the participation of stakeholders is brought forward in other formal documents that are closely related to the national biodiversity strategy. The Convention on Biological Diversity encourages co-operation between governmental authorities and private actors in developing methods for the sustainable use of biological resources (Art. 10), and the Pan-European Strategy on Biological and Landscape Diversity (PEBLDS), as adopted in 1995, which seeks to ensure that “full public involvement in the conservation of biological and landscape diversity is assured”. And, of course, the establishment of the National Biodiversity Commission with its broad range of non-state members can be seen as a clear commitment from the Austrian government in favour of public participation.

7.1.1 Venues of participation

A range of stakeholders participated in the formulation process of the first biodiversity strategy between June 1997 and April 1998, including public authorities from the federal and provincial levels, business associations, NGOs, and scientists. Two main bodies were important for this initial step of strategy formulation: the National Biodiversity Commission and the editorial group. The Biodiversity Commission received much interest when it was established. It had around 50 members and was composed of various actors, including the representatives of administrative departments (Federal Ministries and Provincial Authorities), public and private interest groups (landowner associations, Chamber of Commerce, trade unions), science (universities, Austrian Academy of Sciences, and the Natural History Museum), and NGOs (BirdLife, Greenpeace, WWF, and Arche Noah). Chaired by the Ministry of Environment the Biodiversity Commission formally had members from nine different ministries, including the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry, Economic Affairs, Finance, Science and Transport, Foreign Affairs, Labour and Health as well as the Federal Chancellery. Table 4 shows an overview of the interest groups, NGOs and scientific organisations that were official members in the National Biodiversity Commission in early 1998.


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Business associations and labour unions

NGOs

Scientific organisations

Presidents’ Conference of the Chambers of Agriculture

National Federation of Agricultural and Forest Enterprises

Federal Economic Chamber of Austria

Association of Austrian Engineers Austrian Federation of

Trade Unions (ÖGB) Austrian Federal Chamber

of Labour

WWF Austria Greenpeace Austria ÖGNU (Environmental

Umbrella Organisation) BirdLife Austria Arche Noah RespekTiere (Animal

organisation) Vienna Institute for

Development Co-operation

University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences (BOKU), Institute of Forest Entomology

University of Vienna, Institute for Botany and Botanical Garden Vienna

University of Vienna, Bio-centre University of Vienna, Institute of Zoology ARGE – Nature protection research and

applied vegetation ecology Botanical Garden Linz IIASA

Table 4: Members of the National Biodiversity Commission (March 1998) The membership of the Biodiversity Commission mirrors the diverse landscape of stakeholders in the field of biodiversity and nature conservation policy. The policy network can be described as pluralist. This is caused by two main reasons: First, a wide range of policy issues relate to the issue of conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources, and second, all the legal competences for nature conservation are held by the provincial level in Austria. However, not all the organisations that are mentioned above attended the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission, and even less of them actively participated in the elaboration of the national biodiversity strategy. The second main body during the formulation process, the editorial group, was established in December 1997. It consisted of seven members representing several federal ministries (Agriculture and Forestry, Economic Affairs, Environment, Science and Transport), the federal provinces, the Presidents’ Conference of Chambers of Agriculture, and the Federation of Environmental Organisations (ÖGNU). The editorial group was responsible for the collection of input and the wording of the draft strategy. It was supported by working groups, sometimes single persons, which were responsible for drafting the chapters for a chosen topic (e.g. agriculture, forestry, or transport). In most cases these working groups were led by public officials from the respective competent federal ministries. Moreover, an Internet website has been established as a national Clearing-House-Mechanism (www.biodiv.at), which mainly provides information to the public. This instrument was not actively used during the elaboration of the biodiversity strategy.

7.1.2 Avenues of participation

Stakeholder participation in the elaboration of the Austrian biodiversity strategy took place in three different forms: (1) attending the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission, (2) participating in the editorial group, and (3) writing comments on the four drafts of the biodiversity strategy. Between June 1997 and April 1998 the Biodiversity Commission met seven times in order to elaborate the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. The NBC meetings were organised as half-day meetings. The Biodiversity Commission started its work with a discussion on the possible structure of the biodiversity strategy, based on a first outline by the Federal Environmental Agency tabled in July 1997 (NBC 1997c: 1). The members of the Biodiversity Commission mandated the Federal Environmental Agency to write


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a first draft of the biodiversity strategy. The Chair of the NBC invited all the members to provide input. At the next meeting in October 1997, additional material was presented by the Federal Environmental Agency and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, which they regarded as relevant enough to be incorporated into the biodiversity strategy (NBC 1997d: 1). Some members of the Biodiversity Commission requested more participation from social partners, i.e. more input from business associations and labour unions. The representatives of the provinces also claimed a better integration and co-ordination (NBC 1997b: 1, 1997d: 1). Responding to the request of the NBC, the Federal Environmental Agency tabled the first draft of the biodiversity strategy in December 1997 (NBC 1997e: 1). Content-wise this proposal followed an ecosystem-approach with chapters on Alpine regions, forests, cultivated landscapes, and wetlands and combined it with chapters on cross-sectoral issues such as the conservation of biological diversity, sustainable use, research and monitoring, and education. The draft was intensively discussed at the meeting. During its presentation, the Environmental Agency complained about considerable difficulties in the preparation process (NBC 1997e: 1). On the contrary, the Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry reported about problems concerning the inclusion of textual changes and the remaining errors in the drafted chapters. Moreover, the representatives of the Ministry criticised the accompanying commentaries from the Environmental Agency in the text. Other participants criticised the absence of fundamental strategic objectives in the draft design, which also was assessed as unbalanced with further negotiations deemed necessary for many of the details. It was further criticised that some text passages were written too negatively in the draft text and were inappropriate for an international presentation. Altogether, it came down to the questions of how to reach compromises in cases of dissent and who was to be in charge of all this. The majority of the members saw this as the basic task of the Biodiversity Commission itself, the task of the Federal Environmental Agency was only to compile the textual drafts. Out of this arose a general discussion about the mandate, constitution and tasks of the Biodiversity Commission and its decision-making procedures. Especially the forest owner associations were keen to clarify these issues and asked if this was an inter-ministerial commission in accordance with Article 8 of the Federal Ministries Act. This Article regulates the set up of inter-ministerial commissions, e.g. the endorsement of the commission by other ministers and specific rules on handling minority views. Furthermore, they requested the development of internal procedures to establish clear rules for decision-making. The Ministry of Environment insisted that this does not apply to the Biodiversity Commission as it is based on consensus among its members. After intense discussions the members of the Biodiversity Commission finally took the decision to radically change course in the strategy formulation. First of all, an editorial group comprising representatives from several ministries, the federal provinces, the Presidents Conference of the Chambers of Agriculture, and an environmental NGO was set up. This editorial group took over the Federal Environmental Agency’s task to compile the draft chapters. The editorial group met three times up until April 1998 to work on the general document, the first time in January 1998. The editorial group changed the structure of the biodiversity strategy significantly and basically focussed on those chapters describing the sustainable use of biological diversity with regard to different sectors (agriculture, forestry, hunting, industry, mining, tourism, transport, and so on). Since it was still intended to present the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy to the fourth Conference of the Parties meeting in May 1998, the time pressure felt was now very high taking into account these structural rearrangements in the strategy draft. As of February 1998, with only two months left, eight chapters were not even drafted, including the chapters on fishery, energy, transport, and research and monitoring. At the next meeting of the Biodiversity Commission volunteers were sought from its members to draft these chapters, and volunteers were mainly found in terms of public officials. The draft chapters were written by informal thematic working groups or sub-groups that were headed in most


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cases by public officials from the competent federal ministries or provincial authorities, and in some cases by representatives of business associations or scientists. The compiled draft of the biodiversity strategy was sent via e-mail to the members of the Biodiversity Commission shortly before its next meeting, where the work progress was presented and discussed. Other interest groups, NGOs, and the provinces could then send written comments to the editorial group. The decision, however, if proposed changes were incorporated into the draft rested within the small editorial group. The results of this internal decision-making process were again sent as new draft version via e-mail to the stakeholders. The organisational changes described above had severe impacts on the decision-making process. The decision process in the editorial group was not based on specific rules, and the editorial group seldom had to defend their decisions directly in the Biodiversity Commission. As a consequence, the elaboration of the strategy became less transparent, in particular with regard to the political reconciliation of positions, e.g. the formulation and reformulation of the strategy documents. The channels of communication were more selective and behind closed doors. Communication actually happened in a bilateral way between the editorial group that was chaired by the Ministry of Environment and the informal thematic working groups, i.e. especially other federal ministries and business associations. An open discussion and exchange of ideas among all the stakeholders did not happen. The work flow was presented in the NBC meetings, but there was little time for detailed discussion about common positions or dissent.

7.1.3 Participation in the process of the revision of the biodiversity strategy

Stakeholder participation in the process of updating and redrafting the biodiversity strategy was possible in different ways: workshop attendance, participation in working group sessions on specific thematic issues, discussions at the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission, and written comments on two strategy drafts.

Workshop on the 2010 biodiversity target and its implementation in Austria After the official announcement in October 2003 stating in turn that the biodiversity strategy will be redrafted, the process started expeditiously with a workshop on the 2010 biodiversity target and its implementation in Austria, which was organised by the Federal Environmental Agency in November 2003. Since the inclusion of the 2010 biodiversity target was a major issue in the redrafting process of the biodiversity strategy, a one-day workshop was organised and the representatives of public administration, interest groups, NGOs, and academic organisations were all invited to discuss different aspects of this international target and its implementation in Austria. A total of 27 people attended the workshop. Table 5 shows an overview of their origin.


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Origin Number Who

Ministries 6 BMLFUW, BMBWK Subordinated agencies 7 BFW, UBA, and AGES Provinces 2 NÖ, STMK Interest groups 1 HVFL NGOs 3 Arche Noah, Umweltdachverband, and WWF Science 5 University of Vienna, BOKU Consultants 4 Freelancer International organisations 1 IAEA

Table 5: Participants of the Workshop on the 2010 Biodiversity Target in Austria The Workshop served several purposes: awareness-raising among the relevant actors and target groups; collection of suggestions of which activities would be deemed necessary to implement the 2010-

target in Austria; development of the possible objectives and measures that can be included in the revised Austrian

Biodiversity Strategy. In order to reach the aforementioned goals of the workshop, the attendants were already requested in the invitation letter to answer the following two questions: 1. Do you see deficits in the available knowledge about the loss of biological diversity in Austria? If

yes, which? 2. Are additional activities necessary according to your opinion in order to attain the 2010-goal in

Austria? If yes, which? Altogether, the Federal Environmental Agency received 16 feedback comments before the workshop. The information was grouped content-wise and summaries were presented during the workshop. Based on the summaries, discussions were continued at the workshop in three working groups. The results of these working groups were presented and discussed again in a concluding plenary-round. All of the feedback received, regarding question number one, identified the deficits in the available knowledge on biological diversity. A large number of the described knowledge deficits referred to one of the levels of biological diversity. Most deficits were mentioned with regard to the diversity of species. Furthermore, the level of genetic diversity was mentioned several times. Knowledge deficits with regard to landscape diversity were mentioned only two times. Areas also named several times as being insufficiently developed were indicators for biological diversity as well as the establishment of biodiversity monitoring. A large majority of those providing feedback also regarded further activities necessary in Austria. Only one respondent disagreed in their statement on that matter, in turn arguing that no further activities were necessary in agriculture and forestry. On the other side, lacking activities concerning different forms of land use were rather frequently mentioned. Supporting and research activities were demanded in the field of small-scale agriculture and forestry. Further activities were regarded as necessary in the field of land use planning and soil sealing. Another group of feedback called for activities to improve the implementation of the biodiversity strategy, strengthened public relations and measures for awareness raising. Furthermore, the better integration of


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biodiversity issues into other sectors’ policies was mentioned. Frequently mentioned was the funding of research projects and support programmes. The workshop and its results were received in myriad different ways by the actors interviewed. The intention of the responsible department in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW) in co-operation with the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA) was to provide a structure for the workshop to get the best possible results, based on their experience with evaluating the first biodiversity strategy where submitted reports often were unstructured and not assigned to the content and measures of the strategy. Because of this structured approach, some actors had the feeling that the workshop was not open for discussion, that the questions posed were biased, that the attendance of the workshop was not balanced, and that too much focus was put on scientific experts.24 Some participants critically mentioned that it would be especially important to establish an effective process to attain the 2010-target and not to produce more and more paper. The results of the workshop were presented at the next meeting of the Biodiversity Commission.

Working group sessions After the sixth Conference of the Parties of the CBD in 2002 had adopted the 2010 biodiversity target, the National Biodiversity Commission decided to establish a working group to discuss the implementation of the COP decisions in Austria. A working group was set up in June 2002 and met five times before it dissolved in January 2004. The working group held discussions on four major topics during this period: the CBD-Working Programme on biological diversity in forests, neobiota, access and benefit-sharing, and the Global Strategy on Plant Conservation.

Stakeholder participation in the Biodiversity Commission The Biodiversity Commission itself met five times during the updating process of the biodiversity strategy, i.e. between October 2003 and July 2005. At the first meeting in October 2003 it was officially announced that a redrafting and updating of the biodiversity strategy would take place and that the Federal Environmental Agency was contracted for this task. At the second meeting in January 2004 the results of the workshop on the 2010 biodiversity target from November 2003 were presented. At the third meeting in June 2004, the first draft of the reviewed and updated biodiversity strategy was tabled. This first draft was content-wise still very close to the original biodiversity strategy. Some chapters were restructured to provide a more coherent overall picture. The individual chapters now followed the same logic. The results of the workshop and the overarching 2010 biodiversity target were integrated into the objectives, goals, and measures outlined in the draft text. In answering questions about the binding character of this new strategy, the chair of the Biodiversity Commission pointed out that it was not intended to seek adoption by the Council of Ministers because the original strategy was acknowledged by the government, and a political obligation is, therefore, already given. Furthermore, by introducing thematic action plans with clear targets and measures, the responsibilities of actors would become more transparent. The discussion at this point in time was rather limited and only a few questions emerged with regard to the first draft at this meeting. Additionally, the members of the Biodiversity Commission had four weeks to comment in written form on this first draft. The second draft of the advanced biodiversity strategy was again sent out per e-mail and was presented at the next meeting of the Biodiversity Commission in November 2004. This time the discussion was much livelier and many comments and suggestions were provided. The members of the Biodiversity Commission had again four weeks to respond to the second draft with comments in written form.

24 I14-15 &. 66, I19-27


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At the fifth and last meeting of the Biodiversity Commission in July 2005 the advanced biodiversity strategy was adopted without much discussion. The half-yearly Commission meetings during the updating of the biodiversity strategy were attended on average by 20 people, most of whom were public officials from ministries, provincial administrations or other public authorities. This level of attendance is around half of the formal membership numbers of the Biodiversity Commission in the first round. The representation of science and research organisations is in principle good, but with a few exceptions these representatives seldom attended the meetings in reality. The participation of interest groups and NGOs in the Commission declined over the last decade. Important interest groups are missing and only a few attend the meetings regularly, e.g. the Austrian Federation of Agricultural and Forest Enterprises (Land&Forstbetriebe Österreich). Additionally, major NGOs such as Greenpeace or Global 2000 (FoE) do not participate in the Commission. Some other NGOs, especially Naturschutzbund and the Umweltdachverband (Federation of Environmental Organisations) participate only on an irregular basis. The exceptions are the WWF and certain smaller NGOs (e.g. Arche Noah) who are actively involved in the work of the Commission. In addition, the labour unions never participated in the work of the Commission. As a negative consequence of this limited participation of business associations and civil society actors, the potential for participation in the drafting process of the biodiversity strategy was also limited from the outset. The number of comments in written form that were received during the drafting process was reasonably high. The total number of written comments received on the first and second draft of the updated biodiversity strategy was 29 (see Table 6).

First Draft Second Draft Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment

and Water Management, Div. II/3 Sustainable Development

Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management Div. II/8 Organic Farming

Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Div. IV/4 Forest Land-use planning

Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Legal Division

Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, Div. C2/12 (Int. Environmental Policy) and IV/5 (Energy)

Austrian Development Agency AGES Province of Salzburg, Nature Protection Department Presidents’ Conference of Chambers of Agriculture Austrian Federation of Agriculture and Forest

Enterprises (LFBÖ) Austrian Curatorship for Fishery and Water

Management Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna BOKU- University of Natural Resources and Applied

Life Science, Dep. of Economics and Social Sciences

Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Div. V/9 Int. Environmental Policy

Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Div. III/9 Crop Farming

Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, Section Forestry

Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, Division IV/2 * Energy

Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, Division IV/7 * Mining

Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour, Section V – Tourism

Federal Environment Agency, Div. on Climate Change Austrian Development Agency Province of Salzburg, Nature Protection Department Province of Styria, Nature Protection Department Presidents’ Conference of Chambers of Agriculture Austrian Federation of Agriculture and Forest

Enterprises Austrian Curatorship for Fishery and Water Management WWF Botanical Garden of the University of Vienna Natural History Museum

Table 6: Stakeholders engaged in drafting the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy


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As can be seen in the above table, written comments on the draft versions were predominantly received from public administrations, both from the federal and provincial levels. This includes statements from six divisions within the Ministry of Agriculture, Forests, Environment and Water Management as well as from five different divisions of the Ministry of Economics and Labour, and two statements from provincial nature protection authorities. The number of comments received from interest groups and NGOs was moderate. The Presidents’ Conference of Chambers of Agriculture, the Federation of Agriculture and Forest Enterprises, and the Austrian Curatorship for Fishery and Water Management were the only interest groups commenting on both draft versions. The WWF only issued comments on the second draft version. The bilateral way of communication was used again in the process of updating the biodiversity strategy. As a result of this model of communication, actors do not know what remarks other interest groups have made in their position papers. The Chair of the Biodiversity Commission, i.e. the responsible unit of the BMLFUW, and the person in charge of the updating process at the Federal Environmental Agency were the only persons who knew all of the arguments and interests. The exchange of positions between the stakeholders was limited to the public discussions that took place during the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission. These half-day meetings, however, were far too short to allow for any real dialogue on conflicting issues and their agendas were filled with other topics, not just the progress made in updating the biodiversity strategy.

Issues at stake The analysis of the stakeholders’ position papers on the two draft versions of the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy clearly shows that the main lines of discussion and potential conflict basically remained the same since the first biodiversity strategy. A comparison between the topics mentioned in the position papers and the main building blocks of the updated strategy shows that the comments were predominantly made on three thematic blocks: the overarching goals and principles of the strategy, topics related with the conservation of biological diversity, and topics related to sustainable use (see Table 8). These three thematic blocks account for 45 out of 53 of the comments that were made in the position papers. This pattern is closely related to the different stakeholder interests in these fields, resulting in potential lines of conflict and the need for discussions. The remaining two thematic blocks, namely research and monitoring and international co-operation, only received eight comments in total. The block on the conservation of biological diversity and the block on sustainable use both received 16 comments. However, while the comments concerning the conservation of biological diversity are more or less evenly spread over the individual chapters, this is not the case for the comments made on sustainable use. Here, the two chapters on agriculture and forestry alone account for half of all the comments. In third place with 13 comments follows the block on the overarching goals and principles (including the introduction). The block on research on monitoring and research received only six comments, and three of them were rather general comments. The issue of international co-operation received the least attention with two comments. Some chapters received three or more comments: the introduction and the chapter on the 2010-target, the ecosystem approach, in-situ preservation, species conservation, landscape protection, agriculture, forestry, and research and monitoring in general. In contrast, some chapters received only one comment or no comment at all: ex-situ preservation, hunting, mining, energy, transportation, recording biological diversity, and all three chapters dealing with development co-operation. The distribution of comments mirrors the composition of stakeholders participating in the review process of the biodiversity strategy and their preferences. Active participants have a disproportionately high share of all the comments. The representatives of the provinces contributed nearly one-third of all the comments (32%), and the two interest groups representing the agriculture and forestry sector account for another 28%. These two stakeholder groups alone account for 60% of all the comments. The


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Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management account for another 15%, with half of the comments provided by the agricultural department. The Ministry of Economics and Labour only accounts for 5% of all the comments. Environmental NGOs only accounted for a single comment (2%). Moreover, many stakeholders restricted themselves and made only comments concerning their specific field of interest. That is particularly striking for the Ministry of Economics and Labour and its comments on economic sectors such as energy, mining, and tourism. In contrast, a few stakeholders made comments on many chapters spanning several thematic blocks: the University of Vienna (Botanical Garden), the Chamber of Agriculture, the Federation of Agricultural and Forest Enterprises, the agricultural department of the BMLFUW, and the provinces. In conclusion, the analysis of the stakeholders’ position papers in Table 7 provides a very good overview on the extent of participation by various stakeholder groups. It shows that the stakeholders of the economic coalition were much more actively involved in the updating and review process of the biodiversity strategy than the stakeholders of the environmental coalition. The distribution of the comments along the main building blocks of the strategy delivers, furthermore, a good impression about the main lines of conflict among the members of the NBC.

Univ. of Vienna

BOKU IWURP PRÄKO HVFL ÖKF WWF ADA

BMLF-UW II/3

Dep.. II/8

Dep. IV/4

Legal Service

BMWA C2/12

Dep. IV/5

Dep. IV/7

Prov. Salz-burg

Prov. Styria

Introduction X X X X Overarching Goals/Principles 2010-Target X X X X X Ecosystem Approach X X X Principles X Conservation of Biological Div. X X In-situ preservation X X X X Ex-situ preservation X Species conservation X X X Landscape protection X X X X Neobiota X X Sustainable Use X Agriculture X X X Forestry X X X X X Hunting Fishery X X Tourism X X Mining X Industry Energy X X Transportation Research and Monitoring X X X Recording biological diversity X Monitoring changes in biodiversity X X Int. Cooperation Access and Benefit-sharing X Traditional Knowledge Development Co-operation X Miscellaneous General

structure Process

description Financing

WTO Climate Change

Literature

Table 7: Thematic analysis of stakeholders’ position papers concerning the Advanced Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

Aspects of governance in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process Intersectoral co-ordination

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7.1.4 Structural problems and the decline of participation over time

The elaboration of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy provided stakeholders with different venues and avenues for participation. However, participation more or less remained limited to the members of the National Biodiversity Commission. The instruments that were to involve the broader public, e.g. the Internet website or press articles, were not used effectively. The form of participation can be best described as consultation. Stakeholders were invited to comment on draft versions of the biodiversity strategy. The public authorities in charge of drafting the individual chapters had a much stronger influence on the contents of the biodiversity strategy than the NGOs, which only provided comments. Even though there were opportunities for interest groups and NGOs to participate, the process was predominantly state-driven. Nothing shows this in greater clarity than the bilateral communication model that was used. This model of communication centralises all the information and leaves little space for real dialogue between the stakeholders. It favours interest groups with many resources and good relations to the ministry departments in charge and discriminates against stakeholders with smaller resources and fewer relations. As a result environmental NGOs and academic organisations had much less influence on the formulation of the biodiversity strategy than public authorities and interest groups representing the agriculture and forestry sectors. Discussions between all the stakeholders on divergent opinions were limited to the half-day meetings of the Biodiversity Commission. Without exception, all the important issues and conflicts that came up during these meetings were solved in favour of the resource users. This was especially important with regard to the decision that had significant negative impacts on the quality of the biodiversity strategy in terms of structure, overarching goals and principles as well as concrete measures. While the number and range of participating stakeholders was satisfying in the early years of the NBC, the Commission suffers from a declining participation in recent years. Overall, the level of participation of business associations, labour unions, other interest groups, and NGOs in the review process of the biodiversity strategy has been mediocre at best. In particular the involvement of NGOs was very low. The most active participants were interest groups who are opposed to the idea of a national biodiversity strategy. It is difficult to accurately state what reasons finally led to the decline of participation, first in the meetings of the NBC, and in consequence also in the elaboration process of the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy. Arguably it was a combination of disinterest in the current form of NBC meetings and a realistic calculation by many stakeholders that the biodiversity strategy is not worth spending scarce resources on it. Altogether, the entire strategy process, since its inception, would have benefited from greater transparency, more actor involvement, and the possibility for real dialogue.

7.2 Intersectoral co-ordination

The integration of conservation and the sustainable use of biological diversity into other sectoral policies is one of the main objectives of the CBD and accordingly the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. The main organisational body for inter-ministerial co-ordination were and are the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission. Additionally, inter-ministerial co-ordination was temporarily provided for by the editorial group during the formulation of the Austrian biodiversity strategy. Interministerial and interpolicy co-ordination proved to be the largest challenges for the strategy process since its outset.


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7.2.1 Involvement of federal ministries and sectoral interest groups

Chaired by the Ministry of Environment, the Biodiversity Commission formally had members from nine different ministries, including the Ministries of Agriculture and Forestry, Economic Affairs, Finance, Science and Transport, Foreign Affairs, Labour and Health as well as the Federal Chancellery. The federal ministries were involved in the strategy formulation by attending the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission and contributing to the discussions, by drafting individual chapters, and by writing comments on the strategy drafts. At least four ministries were actively involved in the strategy formulation: the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the Ministry of Science and Transport. Each of them drafted at least one chapter of the biodiversity strategy, with the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry being the two most active contributors. In contrast, the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Science and Transport had to be convinced before they drafted additional chapters on topics such as “industry”, “energy” and “research and monitoring”. The chapter on transport was actually delivered by the Ministry of Environment. Other ministries such as the Ministry of Finance contributed written comments. The major concern of the Ministry of Finance was to make sure that the goals and measures that were outlined in the strategy, on no account, represent a prejudication for the allocation of additional funds. The biodiversity strategy itself mentions twelve different policy fields; nine of them are in fact economic sectors. The other fields are nature conservation, science, and international co-operation. The twelve policy fields including the economic sectors have been, ever since, unequally represented in the Biodiversity Commission and also in the elaboration of the biodiversity strategy. Some sectors were represented by ministerial officials and interest groups or NGOs, whereas others were only represented either by ministerial officials or interest groups and NGOs. The length of the sectoral chapters in the biodiversity strategy and their degree of details vary enormously, thereby mirroring the level of participation from various sectors. In fact, the chapter on agriculture is rather extensive and detailed, whereas other sectoral chapters, e.g. energy, mining, transport or tourism, are strongly underrepresented. The two sectors that in our interviews were mentioned repeatedly as the most active are agriculture and forestry.25 Other sectors were mentioned as partly active such as fishery and hunting.26 Moreover, tourism was mentioned by some interviewees27 while others criticised, in particular, this sector for its lack of co-ordination.28 Several important economic sectors such as energy, mining, and tourism were solely represented by the Ministry of Economics and Labour. This Ministry participated on a regular basis but it did not do so in an active manner. Furthermore, the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber does not participate in the Biodiversity Commission, which thereby further aggravates this problem. Because of this, some stakeholders complained about the weak inter-sectoral co-ordination with relevant economic sectors.29 Likewise interesting are those sectors and actors that were not regarded as active by our interviewees. For instance, scientific actors were described only once as being active, despite the fact that several researchers are members of the Biodiversity Commission and have also contributed to the elaboration 25 I12-108, I09-74, I06 73-77, I07-31, I08-21, I15-18, I161-37, I04-39, I14-56 26 I09-74, I07-31, I11-48, I06-161, I15-18 27 I13- 23, I16a-35, I12-108, 28 I19-105 29 I02-84, I16a-35-36


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of the biodiversity strategy. Another group of actors whose input was disappointing to several interviewees were the environmental NGOs. From the viewpoint of several actors, the environmental NGOs did not contribute enough to the work of the Biodiversity Commission and the biodiversity strategy.30 And finally, the field of international co-operation was not mentioned at all. In conclusion, some sectors were strongly represented in the Biodiversity Commission and regularly contributed written comments to the draft versions of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. This is in particular true for those sectors whose member interests are potentially affected directly by targets set in the biodiversity strategy such as agriculture, forestry, and hunting. Some interviewees also argued that the assigned sectoral interest groups such as PRÄKO or Hauptverband have enough resources at their command to be involved in such a way, in contrast to many non-governmental organisations.31 The lobbying strategy of these sectors during the elaboration of the biodiversity strategy was described as “progressively active for conservative suggestions”.32 Interestingly, the interest groups representing agriculture, forestry and hunting do not regard themselves as being very active in the Biodiversity Commission. Their understanding of the role that they played and the position they had in this process does not match the above description. They see their role more as defending their interests, but not as active engagement. From their viewpoint, the environmental actors are the dominant force in this process. Other economic sectors took a rather passive role, basically observing the developments and making interventions only for their pre-defined field of interest. This is true for almost all the sectors represented by the Ministry of Economics and Labour, i.e. energy, mining, and tourism.33 The same can be said for the scientific sector comprised of universities and research institutions. Finally, some sectors were totally absent, in particular industry and transport.

7.2.2 Actor coalitions

The actors network surrounding the biodiversity strategy was split right from the outset into two major opposing coalitions (see Table 8). The first coalition group was mainly motivated by their strong economic interests in using natural resources. This group was led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in co-operation with the Presidents’ Conference of Chambers of Agriculture, and the Chamber of Commerce. The opposing coalition group was led by the Ministry of Environment in co-operation with some environmental NGOs (ÖGNU, WWF). This group was mainly motivated by their interest in nature conservation.

30 I16a-40, I01-56, I06 31 I12-24, I06-73 32 I06-75 33 I13-29


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Economic interests “Using Natural Resources”

Environmental interests “Nature Conservation”

Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry Ministry of Economic Affairs Presidents’ Conference of the Chambers of Agriculture National Federation of Agricultural and Forest Enterprises Federal Economic Chamber of Austria AGES – Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety

Ministry of Environment WWF Austria Greenpeace Austria ÖGNU (Environmental Umbrella Organisation) BirdLife Austria Arche Noah

Table 8: Actor coalitions in the elaboration of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy The lobbying strategy of the first coalition group during the strategy formulation aimed at restricting the scope and coherence of the strategy as well as avoiding concrete measures. For instance, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry used the biodiversity strategy basically as an opportunity to report on the measures already taken in the sectors of agriculture and forestry, but was strictly opposed to new measures and further co-ordination. In contrast, the second coalition group that was led by the Ministry of Environment promoted a strategy with new measures, concrete targets, specified timelines, and clearly defined responsibilities for implementation. However, this coalition was not strong enough to dominate the agenda in the formulation process of the biodiversity strategy and was several times forced by the coalition of land and forest owners to give up its position. The nature coalition was not able to use its resources to the full extent because the environmental NGOs were somewhat reluctant to spend much time and energy in the field of “biodiversity”, which is too complex an issue in their view. NGOs rather prefer concrete activities on single species or nature conservation projects in a narrower sense. When the Federal Environmental Agency tabled its first draft in December 1997, two major issues of dissent emerged. First, the representatives from the agricultural and forestry sectors opposed the overall strategy concept and criticised the ecosystem approach as such. The Environmental Agency defended the overall strategy concept of its first draft, but the coalition of resource users that was led by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry was strong enough to dominate the discussion and push through its viewpoint and interests. The content structure of the biodiversity strategy was significantly changed towards a sectoral approach and a rather centralised organisational structure. The Federal Environmental Agency, which was at one time in charge of drafting the strategy, was replaced by a decentralised structure where the main responsibilities were transferred to the authors of the individual chapters, i.e. federal ministries and public authorities. Another major dispute emerged centred on the question of whether the strategy should outline concrete measures for its implementation. The members of the Biodiversity Commission voiced different opinions on that issue. On the one hand, the strategy should not be “watered down” by vague measures, and on the other hand, it should also not be overloaded with technical details on the implementation. The Chamber of Commerce and the Presidents’ Conference of the Chambers of Agriculture were opposed to any new measures to be included in the biodiversity strategy. They were supported by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in this position. Furthermore, it was remarked by several participants, especially by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, that no repetition should take place of facts and data on the current state of biological diversity presented already in the first national report to the CBD. After intense discussions, the NBC members came up with a final solution to split the biodiversity strategy into two parts: a short strategic document (so-called “short version”) and an action programme including concrete measures, timetables and so on (so-called “long version”) (NBC 1997e: 1). The short


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version is actually is with the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy that officially has been adopted in August 1998. However, the planned long version, i.e. an action programme with concrete measures, never came into existence. Within a few months the idea to elaborate an action programme was completely abandoned. Shortly after the biodiversity strategy was finished, the protocol of the NBC meeting stated:

”A longer discussion about the further process took place, where the dominant opinion was that an overhaul of the present ‘abridgment version’ was not the best alternative. Instead, an action programme outlining the concrete measures, responsibilities, timetables and costs should make the biodiversity strategy more concrete. The Federal Ministry of Environment will propose a corresponding draft.“ (NBC 1998a: 2)

In the following month, the Ministry of Environment still wondered as to how much sense such an action programme would make (NBC 1998b: 1), and finally concluded four months later that an action programme would make no sense at all from the perspective of the Ministry because:

“[...] those actors who want to implement measures can do that on the basis of the Strategy itself; those actors who don’t want to implement measures, however, won’t even be convinced by a detailed action plan.” (NBC, 1998c: 1)

In the end, the Austrian biodiversity strategy exactly ended up where the economic coalition and the Ministry of Finance wanted it to be: a vague document with no concrete measures, no timetables set, no responsibilities clarified, and no real implementation plan.

7.2.3 Topics for inter-sectoral co-ordination

Concerning the coherence of sectoral policies, plans, and policy instruments (“inter-sectoral policy”) is the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy still in its early stages. The original idea, sketched in the first proposal for the biodiversity strategy, to structure the strategy along ecosystems and outline the impacts of different sectors thereon would have provided a much better inter-sectoral approach than the final strategy with its sector-based structure. Figure 5 shows the distribution of the total of 217 measures along the individual chapters of the biodiversity strategy. A vast majority of the 137 measures are specifically related to one economic sector. The remaining 80 measures are related to the attaining of goals in the fields of preservation, species and landscape conservation, and research and monitoring. The agricultural sector alone accounts for nearly one-third of all the measures (67 measures), followed by fishery as the second largest sector (20 measures).


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Figure 5: Sectoral distribution of measures in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy (1998) The individual chapters of the strategy were mostly drafted by public officials from the ministries, i.e. the chapter on agriculture was written by the responsible division within the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and so on. As a result of this influence, the competent ministries had in “their” chapters, the first biodiversity strategy has no common framework and inherent logic. It lacks a clear definition of biodiversity, it has no overall objective for the strategy, and the individual chapters differ substantially in style, length, and concreteness. Since the intention was to develop an additional working programme (“long version”) outlining the implementation details, the biodiversity strategy as a strategic document does not include any references towards timelines or responsibilities for the implementation of its measures. Therefore, it is nearly impossible to draw convincing conclusions about the degree of interpolicy co-ordination on this basis. The number of potential cross-sectoral measures in the biodiversity strategy amounts to 37% (80 measures, including development co-operation). However, many of these cross-sectoral chapters were written either by experts from the Ministry of Environment or from the provincial authorities for nature protection. Many of the foreseen measures that are included in these chapters are progressive, but because of the decentralised approach towards strategy formulation, much of this went through the Biodiversity Commission unnoticed and unchallenged by the target groups. Thus, there is no real inter-sectoral co-ordination and firm standing behind these more progressive measures.


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7.2.4 Inter-sectoral co-ordination during the revision of the biodiversity strategy

A major change that occurred between the adoption of the first biodiversity strategy in 1998 and the beginning of its redrafting in October 2003 was the integration of the former Ministry for Agriculture and Forestry and the former Ministry of Environment, Youth and Family Affairs when the new centre-right ÖVP/FPÖ-coalition came into power in 2000. At least for the inter-ministerial co-ordination this organisational change and the new Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW) offered a great opportunity to overcome the well-known antagonistic structure between the two major opposing coalition forces in the frame of the biodiversity strategy. Furthermore, the responsibility for the Biodiversity Commission and with it the biodiversity strategy was transferred within the ministry from the Division of International Environmental Policy located in the Section of Environmental Policy to the Division of Nature and Species Protection located in the Section of Sustainability and Rural Areas in March 2002.

Involvement of sectors In terms of inter-ministerial co-ordination the biodiversity strategy seems to have lost some of its attractiveness over the years. Due to the organisational changes, it has mainly become a question of intra-ministerial wrangles in the BMLFUW between various departments related to three sections within the ministry: environment, forestry, and sustainability and rural areas. The only external ministry that has actively participated through oral and written comments on the draft versions of the updated biodiversity strategy was the Federal Ministry of Economics and Labour (BMWA). The comments of the BMWA covered various issues and sub-chapters of the strategy, including energy, mining, and tourism. Some ministries such as the Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture and the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs attended the meetings of the Biodiversity Commission, but did not contribute significantly to the redrafting of the biodiversity strategy. Other ministries with competencies for important policy fields related to the biodiversity strategy, such as the Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology, were not involved in the process. The participating interest groups and NGOs closely resembled this inter-ministerial pattern, while some sectors like fishery and hunting were stronger represented by interest associations. From an actor-oriented point of view the most active sectors were in particular: agriculture, environment and nature protection, and forestry.

Some sectors such as fishery and hunting were more passive observers; they attended the meetings and issued oral statements. Other sectors were only represented by the competent ministry, especially energy, mining and tourism, where the responsible divisions in the Ministry of Economics and Labour sent comments in written form on the subsequent sub-chapters of the biodiversity strategy. However, these sectors are much less involved and are more at the periphery of the process. At least two relevant sectors, namely transport and land use planning, were not involved, via any representative, in the process. Still the intra- and interministerial co-ordination in the Commission is rather limited. Whereas the representatives from various sections of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water do participate in the Commission meetings on a regular basis, especially from the forestry section and


49

other environmental divisions (climate change, water management), the overall involvement of other ministries is not satisfying. Important ministries are neither actively engaged in the Commission meetings nor in the elaboration of the biodiversity strategy and its implementation. And other ministries such as the Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology do not participate at all. The strategic behaviour of most of the sections within the BMLFUW and the other ministries regarding the Biodiversity Commission and also the biodiversity strategies is passive observation and avoidance of any uncomfortable developments.

7.2.5 Cross-sectoral issues: veto players and low involvement

The conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity needs a cross-sectoral approach to be effective. To set goals for species and landscape conservation means to address the traditional forms of land-use (agriculture, forestry, and hunting) and impacts from other sectors (e.g. industry, tourism, and transport). However, the inter-sectoral co-ordination in the elaboration phase of the biodiversity strategy has been rather limited. The inter-ministerial co-ordination and the inclusion of other sectors were not satisfying. Despite the fact that representatives from various federal ministries were involved in the process, a high degree of inter-sectoral co-ordination was not reached. The activities of some ministries during the strategy formulation were not constructive, but were rather aimed at restricting the scope and coherence of the strategy as well as avoiding concrete measures. For instance, the former Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry used the biodiversity strategy basically as an opportunity to report on measures already taken in the sectors of agriculture and forestry, but was strictly opposed to new measures and further co-ordination. Additionally, other important federal ministries such as the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Ministry of Science and Transport attended the meetings, but in general they followed a strategy of passive observation and blocking as a reaction towards unwanted outcomes of the discussion (negative co-ordination). The Biodiversity Commission has no possibility to impose any form of sanctions on other sectors, and the fulfilment of the objectives of the biodiversity strategy is not tied to financial incentives. That makes the entire process of little relevance for many sectors, in particular for actors from the economic sectors. The discussions in the Biodiversity Commission and the drafting process for the biodiversity strategy suffered from the inability to build a common ground for the opposing two advocacy coalitions in the process: nature conservationists and business interests (agriculture, forestry, fishery, and hunting). As a consequence, each ministry basically framed its own field without excessive interference from other sectors. The updated biodiversity strategy still suffers from the same basic problems. It includes many goals and measures that are related to cross-sectoral issues, but it does not address the responsibilities and target groups in a proper way. For instance, the biodiversity strategy sets various goals to reduce landscape fragmentation as a result of infrastructure development, transport routes and urban sprawl. This was seen in all the cases, without addressing competencies and target groups, and very often without having the relevant actors included neither in the Biodiversity Commission nor in the process of drafting the biodiversity strategy. Thus, it is difficult to draw conclusions on the level of inter-sectoral co-ordination that arises in reality from the advanced biodiversity strategy, but expectations should be kept moderate referring to previous experiences.

Aspects of governance in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process Multi-level co-ordination

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7.3 Multi-level co-ordination

The Austrian biodiversity strategy is embedded in a multi-level system of co-ordination, and not just because its development is an obligation under the Convention on Biological Diversity. This sub-chapter outlines which territorial levels were involved in the development of the Austrian biodiversity strategy, how these levels are interlinked, and how they interact.

7.3.1 Levels involved and forms of co-ordination

Territorial levels involved and their interdependencies The international level is rather important for the Austrian biodiversity strategy because the general obligation to develop such a national strategy including content-wise, shows that many of its themes and topics as well as procedural and instrumental recommendations stem from the international level (see chapter 3). The influence of the international level on the elaboration of the Austrian biodiversity strategy was high. The biodiversity strategy itself is regarded as a part of the implementation of the CBD as indicated by the full title of the strategy, in which its content closely mirrors the relevant articles of the CBD in the main chapters. Another important influence was, moreover, the EU level, with its upcoming EU Biodiversity Strategy. The Biodiversity Commission used the draft of the EU biodiversity strategy in its work, in which it is easy to recognise that the idea for the sectoral chapters in the Austrian biodiversity strategy was borrowed from that source. Additionally, the involvement of sub-national actors is also very important for the biodiversity strategy in Austria. In accordance with Article 15 of the Constitutional Law, all competences for nature conservation are held by the provincial level and Austria has no federal framework law on nature protection. To co-ordinate with the sub-national actors is, therefore, a precondition for the successful implementation of the Austrian biodiversity strategy. In conclusion, three territorial levels are of relevance in the process of the Austrian biodiversity strategy: the international level (incl. the EU), central government, and federal provinces.

Interdependencies The interdependencies between the three territorial levels are primarily based on legal compliance and are characterised by the distribution of legal competencies in the federal system of Austria: the international level as the source of the obligation to elaborate a biodiversity strategy; the central government, which is responsible for the implementation of the CBD and accordingly set

up the NBC and chairs the Commission, and furthermore has the responsibility in relevant policy fields such as forestry and water management; and

the federal provinces, which are responsible for fishery, hunting, nature conservation, and spatial planning.

The exclusive right of the federal provinces regarding legislation and enforcement in the field of nature protection creates a need for co-ordination among the central government and the federal states, but also among the nine provinces. Obviously, the higher demand for co-ordination among the federal and the sub-national levels has put some restraints on the work of the Biodiversity Commission and the elaboration of the biodiversity strategy:


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”Because many issues immediately touch upon the competencies of the federal provinces it becomes more difficult.“34

“What is difficult is that the formal responsibilities of the federal provinces really don't facilitate co-operation.”35

Not surprisingly, it was very important for both levels, the central government and federal provinces, to have a clear statement on the distribution of competencies immediately in the introduction of the biodiversity strategy.36

Interaction patterns between the national and sub-national levels The federal provinces used two different mechanisms for co-ordination: a common representative and a liaison body. The common representative speaks for all nine provinces in the Biodiversity Commission and thus represents the agreed upon position of the federal provinces regarding the issues at hand. Additionally, the co-ordination between the nine provinces and between the federal and provincial levels has been secured by an institutionalised liaison body (Verbindungsstelle der Länder). The liaison body only acts as an information-turntable (“mailbox”) between the federal provinces. Its main functions are to deliver information and make appointments. The liaison body conveys information between the provinces and if necessary between the federal government and provinces, but does not co-ordinate different opinions and positions. Thus, it did not carry out any text-wise changes with regard to the biodiversity strategy. The involvement of the representatives from provincial administrations was regarded as active, sometimes even very active by the other members of the NBC. Representatives from two provinces (Salzburg, Upper Austria) attended the meetings regularly, in which the provinces were also involved in the editorial group that drafted the biodiversity strategy. The chapters on species and landscape protection were mainly drafted by the representative of the province of Salzburg. However, leaving aside the “active and personal engagement”37 of the official representatives, it must be concluded that the co-ordination between the federal level and the provinces during the elaboration of the biodiversity strategy remained insufficient, and the connection between the nature conservation policies at the provincial level and the federal biodiversity strategy could have been strengthened much more. Accordingly, the role of the federal provinces received much criticism from several interviewees, e.g.:

“The provinces, of course, joined in and wrote the chapter on nature conservation in the biodiversity strategy, but they mainly documented what happens anyway. It was not strategically deliberate.” 38

“It was difficult to include any measures that would have to be implemented by the federal provinces.”39

34 I09-42 35 I05-39 36 I06-181 37 I12-98 38 I09-68 39 I06-181


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“Any issue that was related to a change of the nature conservation laws was met with opposition from the federal provinces.”

Members of the NBC that followed the discussions throughout the last decade stated that in their opinion the federal provinces have become increasingly rigid in defending their interest positions over time.40 It was also reported that federal provinces would refuse to co-operate even in cases where financial means are available from the central government because they regard it as outside interference.41 Furthermore, some believe that the federal provinces are rather happy with the status quo and a weak biodiversity strategy.42 To conclude, the federal provinces have taken a rather tough stance in order to defend their interest positions and showed no interest in any form of multi-level co-ordination during the elaboration of the Austrian biodiversity strategy. This strong defence position has clearly added to the general problems of multi-level co-ordination in a federal system.

7.3.2 Multi-level co-ordination in the revision process

The updated biodiversity strategy is still embedded in a multi-level system. The international level has become even more important in recent years. To reduce the loss of biodiversity significantly by 2010 is a widely accepted global goal since its adoption in 2002, in which Europe has an even stronger goal: to stop the loss by 2010. The Austrian biodiversity strategy is affected at least by three recent policy developments at the international level: efforts to substantiate the 2010 biodiversity target with more concrete and result-oriented targets, efforts to develop biodiversity monitoring and indicators for biological diversity as important tools in

support of the 2010 biodiversity target, and recent policies at the EU level including a communication and an action plan on the 2010 biodiversity

target published by the EU Commission in May 2006. None of these international developments surrounding the 2010 biodiversity target had a far reaching impact on the updating process of the biodiversity strategy in Austria. The objectives and goals of the Advanced Biodiversity Strategy are still written in a general and vague language and they have not been operationalised by concrete measures. The results from ongoing research activities on biodiversity indicators have not been included in the updated biodiversity strategy, which would have been logically and necessarily based on the results of the evaluation of the first strategy, which had requested exactly this kind of improvement for the biodiversity strategy. It seems that the most recent developments on the EU level might have a strong impact on the Austrian biodiversity strategy, but it is too early to give any further indication if this will happen. On the other side, the involvement of the provincial level in the Biodiversity Commission and the strategy process has not changed significantly lasting recent years. The provinces still use the same mechanisms for their co-ordination with the Biodiversity Commission as were used eight years ago. Two or three representatives from the provinces regularly attend the Commission meetings. The provinces contributed to the update of the biodiversity strategy in the form of oral and written comments on both

40 I19-36 41 I07-65 42 I07-28

Aspects of governance in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process Accountable expertise

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draft versions of the updated biodiversity strategy. However, as many competences in the policy fields and sectors that are relevant for the biodiversity strategy lay at the provincial level their involvement needs to be strengthened to ensure an effective implementation of the biodiversity.

7.3.3 Internationalisation and its effects in a federal system

The domestic implementation of the objectives of the CBD cannot be realised by the mere introduction of single measures. It is a rather continuous process, which is to finally result in a change of perspectives in all sectors and at all levels. Here, the National Commission on Biodiversity occupies a central position as an information pool to link the activities on different levels. The Austrian biodiversity strategy is a central factor in drawing up and building a consensus on these activities (UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2004: 19). One of our interviewees labelled this general approach towards the elaboration of the Austrian biodiversity strategy as administrative behaviour in terms of compliance, instead of problem-oriented strategic thinking43. Indeed, the biodiversity strategy seems to be more like a product of international obligations than national problem pressure, and the point was made more than once by members of the Biodiversity Commission that the biodiversity strategy has to be internationally representative. In this sense, the biodiversity strategy largely resembles the focus of work of the National Biodiversity Commission, the orientation of which is much more geared towards international than national issues. While multi-level co-ordination is of special importance for the Austrian biodiversity strategy, it does not give much weight in the elaboration of the strategy. The Biodiversity Commission has not fulfilled its potential as a central institution that links the activities at different levels. In addition, the biodiversity strategy failed to link the objectives of the CBD with policies at the national and provincial levels in a convincing manner. Furthermore, the exclusive formal rights of the provinces for legislation and enforcement in the field of nature protection create additional difficulties for the implementation of the biodiversity strategy as a federal government programme. The majority of interviewed stakeholders regard the degree of multi-level co-ordination as insufficient, and “the black hole between the federal and sub-national levels”44 as one interviewee called it, as a major reason to explain the shortcomings of the Austrian biodiversity strategy. It seems that the internationalisation in the field of nature conservation has led to a passive and defensive behaviour on the side of the provinces (Bußjäger, 2007: 89). As a result, the biodiversity strategy remains weak, because most of the measures included in the strategy cannot be implemented by the central government. Furthermore, there is no direct financing available for the implementation, only indirectly through other programmes and funding sources. Moreover, as long as the biodiversity strategy has no financial resources for its implementation at the provincial and local levels it will remain merely paperwork.45

43 I09-125-127 44 I19-34 45 I07-28


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7.4 Accountable expertise

Regarding its overall character, the formulation and implementation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy was very much influenced by experts and expertise; however, it is fair to say that the whole process was not only expert-driven but was also influenced by political factors.

7.4.1 Institutionalisation of expert advice

In the development of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy, expertise was used at all the stages of the process. Furthermore, the National Biodiversity Commission is very much an expert body. The Commission has a diverse membership with members both from the scientific realm (especially universities and federal research agencies) and the political realm (such as federal ministries, provincial governments, and interest groups). However, most of the non-scientific members of the Commission can also be seen as “experts” as it is typically not high-ranking political functionaries who attend the meetings but rather expert-level officials.46 The dominant forms of institutional integration of “expertise” and “politics” can be described as a typical “integration model”. While in a “separation model” political actors and experts would make great efforts to divide the “technical” issues from “political” ones, e.g., by having completely separate “expert bodies” and “policy bodies”, in an “integration model” expert advice takes place in multipartite bodies made up of experts and policy-makers that are capable, simultaneously, of negotiating differences regarding scientific and political questions (Pregernig, 2004). The National Biodiversity Commission is a “mixed body” in which administrative officers, interest group representatives, and scientists sit side by side without a clear separation of roles: The role of scientists is not exclusively restricted to providing expert inputs while also policy makers (in the widest sense) contribute to the knowledge base on which negotiation processes build upon. Only when external experts are consulted on a temporary basis, then their contributions are typically more or less restricted to providing content-wise input on a specific topic and, after that, leaving the deliberations and negotiations on the actual text of the strategy to the ordinary members of the NBC.47

7.4.2 Experts involved in the strategy process

Austria can look back on a long tradition of scientific research in biodiversity-related fields. Universities, natural history museums, federal agencies and research centres, private research institutes, as well as numerous independent researchers have been conducting scientific research in various fields related to biodiversity (from basic to applied research) (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR UMWELT‚ JUGEND UND FAMILIE, 1997). All of the above-mentioned categories of experts have also been involved in one way or another in the formulation or implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy. The most active were the following: scientists from universities (especially from the University of Vienna and from the University of

Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences Vienna – BOKU);

46 I16b 47 I06-196


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experts from the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA), which is the expert authority of the federal government for environmental protection and environmental control;48

experts from federal research agencies (such as the Research and Training Centre for Forests, Natural Hazards and Landscape – BFW, the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety – AGES, or the Federal Institute for Less Favoured and Mountainous Areas);

experts from natural history museums and botanical gardens (such as the Natural History Museum Vienna or the botanical garden of the University of Vienna).

On the other hand, some of the most renowned Austrian scientists in the field of biodiversity did not take an active part in the formulation and implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy or in the work of the NBC in general.49 Possible reasons for that “abstention” could be that, on the one hand, active involvement is seen as too time-consuming while, on the other hand, the potential to change things with that involvement is seen as negligible.50 Nearly all of the experts involved in the work of the NBC have a natural science background; the Commission has rarely used expertise from the social sciences or the humanities (exception, e.g. Pülzl, 2003). Only a few natural scientists, however, are competent and interested in the socio-political dimensions of biodiversity that make up the core of biodiversity strategy processes.51 With new, emerging modes of governance, science and scientists seem to take on a new, additional role, namely that of process designers and process managers. In other strategy processes (e.g. the Sustainable Development Strategy or the Forest Dialogue) scientists – particularly social scientists – played an important part in the procedural design and management of the processes. In contrast to that, the National Biodiversity Commission did not use external expertise to arrange the updating process or to moderate workshops, working group meetings or the meetings of the Commission itself. When looking at the involvement of scientists and other experts since the start of the biodiversity strategy process, one sees no marked changes over time. Some other Austrian strategy processes (e.g. the Sustainable Development Strategy or the Forest Dialogue) experienced a striking loss of commitment by scientists between the stages of status-quo reporting and goal formulation. It seems that scientists shied back from too strong an engagement in political processes because that could endanger their scientific credibility. This phenomenon is new to Austrian science-policy interactions insofar as in the traditional closed, corporatist setup scientists could easily engage in political processes because consultation took place in a “protected space” shielded from public scrutiny. Now, with the opening of policy processes, additional “boundary work” is necessary (Pregernig, 2005, Pregernig, 2007). This need of scientists having to demonstrate their independence from political actors and processes did not arise that much in the case of the National Biodiversity Commission. Since the NBC is everything else than in the “limelight” of public interest, scientists seemingly have no problem in engaging in political deliberations and negotiations without having to fear a loss of credibility.

48 Although the federal government has a 100% ownership of the Agency, UBA still has a large degree of autonomy

(Bromley, 1997). 49 I19-170 50 I19-174, I15-56 51 I15-18, I12-132


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7.4.3 Selection of experts

Due to the NBC’s special character as a “mixed body” where administrative officers, interest group representatives, and scientists were represented without a clear separation of roles, the question of the selection of experts also cannot be clearly distinguished from the more general question of how membership in the Commission was organised. From the beginning, the NBC has been an “open body”. All the relevant institutions were invited to nominate representatives and still today the Commission is open to new members.52 Nevertheless, the number of institutions and persons that have attended regularly and that have actively participated has never been excessive (especially when compared with the high degree of engagement of actors in the Forest Dialogue). Possible reasons for that can be seen in the low political profile of the NBC and its low public awareness. Whenever the Commission faced special tasks or problems, additional external experts were invited on an ad hoc basis. The selection of those experts was very much driven by pragmatic arguments:

“We tried to invite a broad spectrum of experts representing different thematic areas. In addition, we have, of course, also taken into consideration whether a specific person is likely to take part … whom we know and whom we can rely on.”53

Since the Commission and its contractors only had limited budgets available, the range of invited experts was largely restricted to the Greater Vienna area.54 Several non-academic members of the Commission expressed the presumption that some scientists used – some would say “misused” – the NBC for their own advantage.55 The Commission undoubtedly provides a good forum for presenting one’s ideas and getting in touch with possible research contractors. The Biodiversity Strategy and other related policy papers (e.g. Action Plans) can likewise be used as a source of argumentation. If scientists or research organisations manage to have “their” topics included in the Strategy, then they can use that as a welcome argument for demanding more funds for their research and, in the end, create their own research projects:

“What all the scientists say is that we need more research, we need more funds.”56

Scientists, of course, saw that respective question in a slightly different way. They typically pointed out that there is lack of knowledge in many biodiversity-related fields and that a high-ranking political strategy document could be a good vehicle to argue for more scientific research and therewith improve the knowledge base in this field.57

“There is nothing new to the fact that every scientist thinks that their field of research is the most important. However, since the Commission gathered input from a broad spectrum of experts, all the possible biases were relativised.”58

52 I16a-16, I04-29, I19-46, I15-14 53 I06-198 54 I06-198, I15-58 55 I14-26, I06-199, I16a-38, I19-170, I02-118, I12-132 56 I06-199 57 I15-42, I19-61, I10-84 58 I15-56


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Somewhat contradictory views could be found on research priorities, especially regarding the question of whether to go more into basic research (such as taxonomy projects) or rather more into applied research.59 Another source of conflict was the general design of the Austrian biodiversity monitoring scheme for which a pilot study (MOBI-e) was carried between 2003 and 2006 (Holzner & Mohl, 2006).

7.4.4 Sources of expert input into the biodiversity strategy process

During the elaboration and implementation of the biodiversity strategy, expertise was used and brought into the process in different forms, such as: studies commissioned to private consultants; the elaboration of draft papers commissioned to the Federal Environmental Agency; various forms of input by members of the National Biodiversity Commission; informal input by experts in different workshops.

In 1996, the Federal Ministry of Environment, Youth and Family Affairs (BMUJF) commissioned a report on the state of implementation of the CBD in Austria, which was conducted by an external private consultant. The final report was delivered to the Ministry in December 1996 (SYNERGY, 1996). The results of the study comprehended six volumes: 1. Biological diversity, methodology and legal interpretation of the Convention; 2. Environmental protection and education; 3. Nature conservation and land use planning; 4. Agriculture and forestry, hunting and fishery, water management; 5. Biotechnology, technology-transfer, development co-operation and research: 6. Summary and strategic considerations. The study concluded that no essential implementation deficits with regard to the CBD existed in Austria, but it showed many possibilities to substantially improve compliance with the Convention. Moreover, the last volume of the study included an analysis of strategic issues relevant for the interpretation of Article 6 of the CBD. This analysis, along with the related recommendations, completely changed the legal position of the Austrian government: While the government at first did not see any necessity to develop a national biodiversity strategy because the obligations under Article 6 were seen to be fulfilled with the existing legislation and policies, the study convinced the government of the necessity to elaborate an Austrian strategy (NBC, 1997a). Strong external expert input also came from the Federal Environmental Agency (UBA), in which UBA experts were involved in the following processes: It was the experts from the Federal Environmental Agency who prepared a first draft of the First

Austrian National Report on the CBD on behalf of the BMUJF (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR UMWELT‚ JUGEND UND FAMILIE, 1997).

Also the first draft of the biodiversity strategy was compiled by the Federal Environmental Agency in response to a request made by the members of the National Biodiversity Commission in 1997 (NBC, 1997c). UBA experts used the information available from academic organisations and interest groups

59 I19-16


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to compile the first draft of the strategy, which was later strongly amended in the course of the deliberation processes in the NBC.

Both evaluations on the status of implementation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy were commissioned to UBA (Götz, 2001, Röhrich, 2003a). The evaluations were carried out by UBA experts under the perfunctory guidance by the NBC.

In the formulation of the Action Plan on Alien Species (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004), the influence of the UBA experts was even more far-reaching. The same two scientists who had published a comprehensive study on the non-native species in Austria (Essl & Rabitsch, 2002) just two years before, also prepared the draft of the Action Plan, which was changed in the deliberation process in the NBC only to a minor extent.60

Lastly, the Federal Environmental Agency was contracted to rewrite and update the Biodiversity Strategy in 2003. UBA experts prepared several draft versions that were discussed in the NBC and that, eventually, led to the Revised Austrian Biodiversity Strategy (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2005).

A third important source of expertise in the elaboration and implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy was the members of the National Biodiversity Commission themselves. Since its foundation, the NBC members have acted as experts and have provided expertise and scientific input into various reports and strategy papers, such as the First Austrian National Report on the CBD (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR UMWELT‚ JUGEND UND FAMILIE, 1997), the first Biodiversity Strategy (FEDERAL MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT‚ YOUTH AND FAMILY AFFAIRS, 1998), the revised Biodiversity Strategy (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2005), and the Action Plan on Alien Species (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004). Input was delivered in terms of oral contributions at the commission meetings and as written statements proposing textual changes to the draft versions of the different reports and strategy papers. In several stages of the process, the NBC set up temporary thematic working groups, in which selected members of the NBC in turn prepared draft papers that were, thereafter, fed back into NBC plenary discussions. Sometimes, NBC members sought help from colleagues in their own departments or organisations or invited external experts to draft papers as informal ghost writers that were not officially known. Such working groups were set up in the last phase of the formulation of the first Biodiversity Strategy in 1997/98, in the initial phase of the evaluation of the first Strategy in 2000, and in the follow-up to CBD/COP6 in 2003 when the outline of the revised Biodiversity Strategy and the Action Plan on Alien Species were discussed. A fourth major venue for expert input into the biodiversity strategy process was the organisation of expert workshops on various topics. Expert workshops were typically open for and attended by a broad audience of specialists going beyond the membership of the NBC. It was a series of four workshops that were organised by the Federal Environmental Agency and WWF attended by approximately 100 representatives of various public authorities, provincial governments, NGOs and scientists in 1996 that appears to have initiated further activities around the CBD in Austria (Dick & Tiefenbach, 1996).61 An expert workshop was again organised in 2002 to present and discuss the findings of the first comprehensive research study on alien species in Austria (Essl & Rabitsch, 2002), which laid the ground for the Action Plan on Alien Species that was adopted by the NBC in 2004 (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004). In 2003, the National Environmental Agency organised an expert workshop on the

60 I10-37 61 I09-14


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implementation of the 2010 biodiversity target in Austria, the results of which were then integrated into the revised Biodiversity Strategy (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2005). The workshop on the 2010 target provides a good example for the marked “expert-ladenness” of the whole biodiversity strategy process. The majority of the participants had a scientific background, in which the workshop was even criticised for being too scientific in its outline and, thereby, making it difficult for interest groups to actively participate.62 When trying to summarise what role expertise played in the formulation and implementation of the National Biodiversity Strategy, three distinct phases can be made out. When the strategy formulation process started in 1997, it was planned that the Federal Environmental Agency, as the declared expert body of the Federal Ministry of Environment, Youth and Family Affairs, would elaborate a draft of the strategy on its own, and that the NBC would, then, build its deliberations and negotiations on this draft with (probably) only minor things having to be adjusted. However, the first proposal that was tabled in autumn 1997 was already heavily criticised by various members of the NBC. After intense discussions, it was decided to radically change course in the strategy formulation: an editorial group made up of NBC members from various institutions took over UBA’s task to compile the draft chapters. With that, the initially more top-down, expert-driven model of strategy formulation was replaced by a more bottom-up model. After the first Biodiversity Strategy was finished and adopted by the Council of Ministers in 1998, the pendulum swung back and the process became more expert-driven again. Both evaluations of the first biodiversity strategy as well as the formulation of the Action Plan on Alien Species were commissioned to the experts at UBA (Götz, 2001, Röhrich, 2003a, Essl & Rabitsch, 2004). Lastly, the Federal Environmental Agency was contracted to rewrite and update the Biodiversity Strategy in 2003 (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2005). That work was, of course, not performed completely detached from, but rather under the continuous guidance of, the NBC. However, one still gets the impression that the Strategy formulation and implementation process has become more “technical” and less “political” in recent years.

7.4.5 Accountability of expertise

In public discourse, technocratic, purely expert-centred forms of decision-making are commonly dismissed as insufficient. Before that background, a new concept was introduced both in the scientific and political debate, namely the concept of accountable or democratic expertise. Accountable expertise is a normative concept that mainly deals with the question of how the relationship between science and society can be organised in a more democratic way. Especially the European Union has put great efforts into the “democratisation of expertise” and to involve science and scientists in governance processes and to make science more accessible to European citizens (EUROPEAN COMMISSION, 2001, EUROPEAN COMMISSION, 2003). In the following, we would like to address the question of whether and to what extent the political principles that have been formulated especially at the EU level have been taken up in the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process on a rhetorical as well as practical level. In the formulation and implementation of the Biodiversity Strategy the involvement of experts and expertise was seen as important; nevertheless, a clear profile for the role of science was largely

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missing. This applies to an even larger extent to questions of how expertise can be integrated in a (more) democratic and accountable way. Principles such as accessibility, accountability, and pluralism have not been addressed in any policy statements. This means that the strong political rhetoric of the “democratisation of expert advice” has not been taken up in the case of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process – at least not on a proclamatory level. When looking at the question of whether and how principles of accountability of expertise have been taken up in effective practices, one gains a more differentiated picture: Openness and accessibility: The NBC is in principle a rather open body as all the relevant institutions

were, and still are, free to nominate representatives.63 Actually, access is restricted to government officers and representatives of interest groups of nationwide importance. Scientists have typically been brought in on a more ad hoc basis. Compared to other countries, such as for example the UK (Ellis & Waterton, 2004), the expertise of local organisations (such as local chapters of nature conservation associations) or lay people (e.g. so-called “amateur naturalists”) played no role in the Austrian strategy process, although there are quite some lay monitoring activities going on in Austria.64 With that, the NBC can be said to have some sort of “elite bias”.

Transparency: Basically, the NBC uses a rather transparent mode of operation with the Chair regularly distributing relevant documents, including relevant scientific studies and expert opinions, to all the Commission members. Transparency is more restricted when it comes to the political reconciliation of positions, e.g. in the formulation or reformulation of strategy documents. Since NBC members send their comments to the Chair only, individual comments are not accessible for all the Commission members (principle of negative co-ordination).

Plurality and balance of expertise: Different types and sources of expertise have been used in a rather balanced way, i.e. one sees no dominance of one type of expertise or the depreciation of other types. Neither the thematic type of expertise (such as: ecological expertise) nor an institutional source of expertise (such as: governmental expertise) has dominated the process. This is probably due to the fact that, first, the Convention on Biological Diversity uses a rather broad notion of “conservation”, including the “sustainable use” of biodiversity, and second, that the Austrian Biodiversity Commission has been set up as a very broad, pluralistic body. Regular NBC members, who are also to be considered as an important source of expertise, come from a range of institutional backgrounds (such as federal ministries, provincial governments, interest groups, as well as research organisations). When having to fall back on additional, external expertise the Commission typically attempts to include a broad spectrum of experts.65 However, the spectrum of expertise typically only refers to different thematic areas or disciplines (such as botany, zoology, or ecology) and not to different “schools of thought” in the sense of “expertise” and “counter-expertise”.

Consensus: In the Biodiversity Strategy process there was not too much controversy about the scientific questions.

“There is broad consensus on the underlying causes of the loss of biodiversity. Maybe one expert says that this cause is more important than that cause; but since this cannot be proven in a strict, scientific sense, we are faced with personal valuations anyway.”66

63 I16-16, I04-29, I19-46, I15-14 64 I19-170 65 I06-198 66 I06-199

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There were a few topics that sparked off more controversy among NBC members, such as whether to use the “ecosystem approach” as the core structuring principle for the Biodiversity Strategy; or whether newly planted forest trees should be ecologically “adequate” for a specific site (“standortsgerecht”) or should only be “suitable” for a specific site (“standortstauglich”); or what has to be considered as an “invasive”, “potentially invasive” or “non-invasive” species (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004).67 Although all of those questions are apparently scientific questions, the controversies were more to do about their political and economic implications, such as how much leeway forestry should have in introducing foreign tree species, such as e.g. Douglas fir.

Understandability: “Biodiversity” is per se a rather difficult concept; compared to related concepts such as “nature conservation” or “species conservation”, “biodiversity” is difficult to communicate to policy makers and a broader lay audience.68 Furthermore, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy is burdened with this disadvantage and the NBC has not (yet) found an appropriate way out of that problem. Key documents, such as the two versions of the Strategy or the Action Plan on Alien Species, are written in rather technical language. In addition, the length of the documents makes them difficult to penetrate. Even in the revised Strategy of 2005, the Commission could not agree on a prioritised, and thereby reduced, list of targets. Only very recently, a small brochure that synthesises the key messages of the revised Biodiversity Strategy was published (BUNDESMINISTERIUM FÜR LAND- UND FORSTWIRTSCHAFT‚ UMWELT UND WASSERWIRTSCHAFT, 2006a).

7.5 The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy as an iterative and adaptive process

In a GoFOR context, a governance process is said to be “iterative” when repetitive or recurrent steps are used, rather than one large step, to achieve outcomes, goals, or solutions to a problem. A process is said to be “adaptive” when it changes, or is at least able to be changed, so as to become suitable to a new situation. When analysing strategy processes, as a special type of governance processes, the concept of “iterativity” has to especially be defined in a more specific way. Following Jänicke and Jörgens (2006), a strategic approach is marked by consensual, broad-based target and strategy formulation with a long-term horizon. Success monitoring with a diverse range of reporting obligations and indicators is another key tenet of a target and results-oriented model of governance.69 Target and results-oriented governance approaches are a necessary response to deficits of exclusively reactive and, therefore, insufficiently effective policies. Targets are best developed from a problem diagnosis and initially are formulated as quality targets from which action targets can then be derived at increasing levels of detail (Jänicke & Jörgens, 2006). Building on specific targets, a strategic management process would then strive to identify the means of achieving them, and finally monitor the achievement as a guide to the next round of a type of learning process. Research conducted on national sustainable development strategies found that nations appear to be transitioning from “misconceptions of ideal and static master plans and one-off initiatives,” to “sets of co-ordinated mechanisms and continuing processes of monitoring, learning, and improvement.” (Dalal-Clayton and Bass, 2002, cited in Swanson et al., 2004)

67 I16a-53, I14-109, WG-45 68 I09-42, I05-95, I07-36, I08-17, I02-92, I19-88, I04-83, I12-25 69 Other key elements of an integrated model of governance are participation, integration of sectors, and co-operation

between state and private actors (Jänicke & Jörgens, 2006).


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To what extent can the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process be regarded as an iterative and/or adaptive process? The process around the formulation and implementation of the Strategy has already undergone more than 10 years of development and thus, more or less inevitably, has included several steps.70 However, that alone does not yet qualify the process as an iterative or adaptive process. When applying the definition of “iterativity” as provided above, the process leading to the first Biodiversity Strategy can hardly be labelled as a good example of an iterative process. From the perspective of strategic planning, it did not have a sophisticated design with a step-wise approach. The process did not start off with a proper problem analysis. In fact, the chapters on the state of the biological diversity in Austria that had been included in an early draft were deleted at a later stage of the elaboration phase as requested by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in order to avoid an “unnecessary overlapping” with the first national report to the CBD (NBC, 1997e). The formulation process, which lasted from 1996 until 1998, proceeded in several steps with drafts being sent out for comments by the relevant stakeholders and new draft versions being prepared based on the comments received. With that, the process was not a “one-shot event”, but it still resembled more of a political negotiation process than a rational planning process. The process also did not set short, medium, and long-term objectives and goals, and did not outline specific measures to reach these goals. The objectives of the Biodiversity Strategy are rather written in a general, non-committal language and concrete measures including timeframes are totally missing. All in all, the degree of iterativity of this first phase of strategy formulation has to be assessed as rather low. This situation changed markedly as soon as the first Strategy was finished. Already at the time of its development, the demand for regular reviews and for the evaluation of the Biodiversity Strategy was recognised. Soon after the Strategy was completed, the additional question arose as to how effectively the contents of the Strategy were implemented (Röhrich, 2003a). Therefore, an evaluation design was set up that included two steps (Götz, 2001):71 (i) an evaluation of the degree of implementation of the measures formulated in the Strategy; (ii) an evaluation of the strategy document itself.72 The first evaluation study (Götz, 2001) strove to assess to what degree the measures formulated in the Strategy were already implemented and by whom. The evaluation was carried out in two steps with a first informal inquiry among the members of the National Biodiversity Commission and a subsequent questionnaire was sent out to a great number of relevant actors who were asked to report which measures they already implemented in their fields of competence. This principle of “self-reporting” gave rise to some doubts concerning the thoroughness and reliability of the results of the evaluation. After the evaluation, the activities that were reported were entered into a database, the so-called “Living Document”, and published on the national Clearing-House-Mechanism website (www.biodiv.at). From that time on, it was possible to enter current activities into this web-based database. As of February 2003, the “Living Document” contained a total of 501 activities (Röhrich, 2003a). Today, still no more

70 For a detailed genealogy of the process, see chapter 6. 71 Both evaluation studies were commissioned by the Federal Ministry to the National Environmental Agency. With that, the

question of whether the evaluations were “internal” or “external” cannot be clearly answered. Although UBA is a legally independent body, it still has rather strong (contractual) ties to the Ministry. In addition to that, the evaluation design was “negotiated” by the National Biodiversity Commission and UBA had to report to the NBC on a permanent basis.

72 For further details on the procedural setup of the evaluations, see chapter 6.2.


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than 501 activities are documented in the database. This means that the “Living Document” is no longer operative. The second evaluation study (Röhrich, 2003a) strove to assess the strategy document itself. The study started out with depicting a clear model of how a strategy based on the modern principles of strategic planning should look like (e.g., formulation of targets following the SMART principles, use of indicators etc.) (Röhrich, 2003b). Based on that model, a catalogue of questions was worked out, which was intended for review by means of the following criteria: completeness, balance, structure, layout, ease of operational implementation, and reviewability. The evaluation detected a number of strong points, but it also stressed a number of severe weaknesses in the first Biodiversity Strategy. When looking at the underlying rationale for the two evaluations, one sees marked differences: The first one provides more of an impression of being a “work-to-rule exercise” that was mainly done because international obligations call for the evaluation of national biodiversity strategies and action plans and, especially, because the Federal Ministry wanted to present the first evaluation results at CBD/COP5 in 2000. In addition to that, the Ministry saw the early start of an evaluation process as a chance to keep the topic of “biodiversity” on the political agenda (or at least on the agenda of the involved stakeholders, i.e. NBC member organisations).73 Therefore, altogether, the first evaluation was intended to fulfil more or less symbolic or strategic functions. In contrast to that, the second evaluation was planned to have tight connections to the intended revision of the Biodiversity Strategy. Based on the results of the evaluation, proposals should be made for further improvements to the Strategy (Röhrich, 2003a). Table 9 shows a qualitative assessment of the impacts that the second evaluation study had on the revised Biodiversity Strategy. Some of the recommendations were actually taken up while others were neglected. The pattern of recommendations considered is interesting: It was seemingly easy to implement the more “technical” amendments (such as adding clear definitions or structuring the report in a more consistent way), whereas the “political hot potatoes” largely remained untouched. Setting clear priorities, and specifying quantifiable targets, timeframes, interim targets or indicators, as well as determining the responsibilities of the relevant actors, all requires strong political commitment – commitment that apparently could not be mobilised in the reformation of the Strategy.

Points of criticism in the evaluation

Considered in the revised strategy

lack of a clear definition of “biological diversity” fully level of genetic diversity insufficiently considered largely inconsistent structure of the report largely great differences in the lengths of the chapters largely measures formulated at different levels of abstraction/detail partly lack of cross-references between thematic areas partly lack of clear priorities of targets hardly lack of quantifiable target, timeframes, and indicators not at all relevant stakeholders were not explicitly addressed in the strategy not at all

Table 9: Qualitative assessment of the impact of an evaluation on the revised strategy

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Possible explanations for that phenomenon can also be found in the general literature on target-oriented, MBO-style environmental policy. Jänicke and Jörgens (2006) describe the situation in a succinct way as follows:

“Target-oriented policy […] not only tends to impinge on vested interests, it also assigns monitoring powers that strong policy sectors and their economic constituencies soon try to escape. The resulting evasion tactics range from outright rejection of targets and dispensing with deadlines to adopting of various types of targets that are either irrelevant or nonbinding. Then there is always the option of subjecting unexceptional, routine tasks to a meaningless target with correspondingly little effect. In this latter scenario, targets paradoxically legitimise a status quo whose inadequacy was the reason for setting them in the first place.” (Jänicke & Jörgens, 2006: 184)

Before the background of this rather critical comment, it is fair to state that the second Biodiversity Strategy evaluation study was not naïve this respect. The study did not call for a “one-shot” revision but rather proposed that the revisions should take place in several steps. On the one hand, regular reviews and updates of the Strategy were seen to be necessary because of the permanent changes in the overall conditions (especially as regards new scientific insights and new international obligations). On the other hand, the author of the evaluation study also seemed to be quite realistic about the political feasibility of too far-reaching revisions:

“The criteria for future evaluations of the implementation (e.g. time frames, quantifiable targets and indicators) can only be included in several revision stages.” (Röhrich, 2003a: 3)

A first step in this direction has already been set, namely through the elaboration of the first Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004). As already described in chapter 6.2, the second evaluation had not only called for a revision of the Strategy itself but it rather proposed a new policy instrument, i.e. “Action Programmes” or “Action Plans”:

“[A]ction programmes should be prepared either for a defined time schedule or restricted to a certain subject. For these action programmes priority topics should be defined that can be covered within certain realistic periods of time. It is furthermore necessary to describe measures as precisely and as accurately as possible, to define the competencies and to address the acting parties and stakeholders as directly as possible. As for the further procedure, it will be particularly important that the level of implementation of these action programmes that are either prepared for a certain time schedule or restricted to a certain subject can be evaluated. It is therefore necessary to consider evaluation criteria such as time frames or indicators when preparing these action programmes.” (Röhrich, 2003a: 3)

Up to now, only one action programme has been elaborated. As described in greater detail in chapter 6.4, the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species comes far closer to the ideal model of rational strategic planning than the revised Biodiversity Strategy. Compared to the rather vague formulation of goals and measures in the Strategy, the Action Plan formulates rather specific and stringently operationalised goals and measures. However, one major drawback still remains: no formal political commitments for funding can be found in the action plan. On top of that, the National Biodiversity Commission has currently no plans to elaborate another action plan. It seems that the ambitious new instrument has already been brought to a halt before it could gain full momentum.


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In summary, the answer to the question of whether the Biodiversity Strategy process was iterative or not is mixed. The formulation process leading to the first Biodiversity Strategy in 1998 did not show too many features of a step-wise procedure (except for the several rounds of “political” negotiations in the National Biodiversity Commission). Compared with that, the two evaluations that followed and the revision of the Biodiversity Strategy that built on the results of those evaluations come rather close to an ideal-type rational planning model, at least on paper. While some recommendations from the evaluation were assimilated in the revised Strategy, many suggestions of how to improve the Strategy were frustrated because of the political opposition from strong actors. When assessing the degree of the adaptivity of the Biodiversity Strategy process, one also arrives at mixed results. Altogether, the procedural design of the process and especially the working mode of the National Biodiversity Commission have been rather stable over the years. Even the formulation of the second, revised Strategy did not bring comprehensive, “strategic” adaptations, such as, for example, the change from a narrow deliberation setting among the members of the NBC to a broader strategy process comparable, e.g., with the Austrian Forest Dialogue. Adaptations happened more on a “tactical” or “operative” level. One example for such a tactical adaptation would be the change from a more top-down, expert-centred model to a more bottom-up model of strategy formulation as described in chapter 7.4. Therefore, adaptations have typically been more the result of either pragmatic adjustments to political necessities (“Sachzwang”) or of external triggers, such as new international obligations (especially from the CBD and the EU) to which the Austrian government, and in the end, the National Biodiversity Commission, were obliged to react.

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8 Effects of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy: output and impact

In the previous chapter, the main focus of analysis was on the procedural aspects of the formulation and implementation of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. In addition to those procedural questions it is, of course, interesting to know what effects a specific process actually had. Therefore, the key question that is addressed in this chapter is: In what way did the Biodiversity Strategy process change the way public and private biodiversity-related policies are formulated? As described in great detail in chapter 7.5, the National Biodiversity Commission monitored the implementation of the first Biodiversity Strategy from 1998 in a two-step evaluation (Götz, 2001, Röhrich, 2003b). In the course of the evaluation, it soon became clear that a review of the contents of the Biodiversity Strategy would not be easy for two reasons: First, in the absence of a national monitoring network for biodiversity, key data was missing (Röhrich, 2003b: 7). Second, the Strategy itself contributed to significant evaluation problems because of several flaws relating to its content: The individual chapters do not follow the same internal structure, in which the distribution of the topics over the individual chapters is inaccurate, and the coverage of the topics sometimes overlaps. Not all the problems are described in adequate depth, in which the targets and measures are also described with varying precision. The strategy does not contain quantifiable targets, timeframes, interim targets, or indicators (see Table 10). The legal backgrounds or competencies are neither presented in adequate depth nor are responsibilities of the actors for the implementation of the suggested measures clearly defined. Furthermore, the strategy lacks clear priorities with regard to the implementation of the measures and priority research topics (Röhrich, 2003b: 7). In the revised Biodiversity Strategy from 2005, which strongly built on the results of the second evaluation of the first strategy, some of the most severe flaws were able to be fixed. The revised strategy has a coherent and convincing structure and the individual chapters follow the same logic and do not differ substantially in style and length. Despite these improvements, the revised Strategy is still disappointing in terms of the formulated goals and measures. First of all, the distinction between the goals and measures is not clearly established, in turn leading to the situation where many measures are in fact goals. Additionally, the goals are frequently written in a very general and non-committable language, and rather few of them have been operationalised in measurable qualitative or quantitative terms. With that, it is still rather difficult to analyse the implementation of the Strategy and to measure its respective effectiveness. Before the background of the intricacies described above, we attempted to approach the question of the effects of the Biodiversity Strategy by falling back on proxy measures and more qualitative assessments. The analysis of the effects concentrates more on the first Biodiversity Strategy; for the revised Strategy, which was finished only two years ago, it is not yet possible to state anything about its implementation.

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Chapters

Quantifiable Targets

Timeframes

Interim targets

In-situ preservation Partly No No Ex-situ preservation No No No

Agriculture Partly No No Forestry No No No Hunting No No No

Fisheries No No No Species conservation Partly No No Landscape protection No No No

Recording biological diversity No No No Monitoring changes in biodiversity No No No

Tourism and recreation No Indirect (NEP) *) No Mining No targets formulated No targets formulated No targets formulated

Industry Indirect (NEP) Indirect (NEP) No Energy No No No

Transportation No No No Development Co-operation No No No

Indigenous Peoples No No No Ecosystem protection No targets formulated No targets formulated No targets formulated

Protection of endangered groups of organisms No Partly No

*) NEP = National Environmental Plan

Table 10: Targets and timeframes in the first Austrian Biodiversity Strategy Source: (UMWELTBUNDESAMT, 2007)

8.1 Biodiversity-related activities

The first evaluation study (Götz, 2001), therefore, fell back on a proxy measure for the effectiveness of the Strategy by providing an overview of past and ongoing biodiversity-related activities of various organisations and by assigning those activities to the goals formulated in the first Biodiversity Strategy. All of the reported activities that were collected were entered into a web-based database, the so-called “Living Document”, which also permits the regular entry of new activities. As of February 2003, the “Living Document" included 501 activities (Röhrich, 2003b). The reported activities cover various spatial levels: most activities were reported on the national level (36 per cent) and on the provincial level (30 per cent). Twenty per cent of all the activities were reported to have taken place at the local level. The lowest share of reported activities (10 per cent) is related with the international level, e.g. the EU. A similar picture emerges when the reported activities are analysed with regard to the levels of biological variety that they focus on (genes, species, and ecosystems). Nearly half of all the activities cover more than one dimension (43 per cent). The evaluation, furthermore, showed that the activities

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aiming at one level of biological diversity are not equally distributed between the three levels: studies explicitly aiming at the genetic diversity presented only 10 per cent of the reported activities, but 27 per cent focus on the diversity of species and another 20 per cent on ecosystem diversity. Grouping the activities according to the articles of the CBD, the databank comprises a large number of activities in the field of research and monitoring (39 per cent). Two other fields comprising many activities were in-situ measures (21 per cent) and financial/legal measures (23 per cent). Only 34 projects, or 7 per cent, were reported in the field of ex-situ measures and 50 activities dealing with information, communication, and education (10 per cent). As can be seen in Figure 6, the majority of the activities that were collected in the “Living Document” covers those measures related to the chapter on the sustainable use of biological variety (with its sub-chapters on agriculture, forestry, hunting, and fishery) as well as the measures related to the chapter about species conservation and landscape protection. In contrast to that, activities in the sectors of tourism and recreation, industry, mining and energy as well as traffic and development co-operation were strongly under-represented. No activities were reported for the chapter on indigenous peoples.

Figure 6: Reported biodiversity-related activities by thematic areas Source: Röhrich (2003: 22, modified)

Despite the fact that many organisations reported a remarkable number of past and ongoing activities in the various thematic areas, the connection of those activities to the Biodiversity Strategy remains highly unclear. Although it is, of course, difficult to infer, from the simple list of activities in the “Living Document”, of what relation a specific activity has with the Strategy, it is still safe to say that the activities were seldom initiated because of the targets and measures formulated in the Strategy. Several

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interview partners affirmed that many organisations had reported activities that they had carried out largely because of other reasons than the Biodiversity Strategy.74 Some activities even started before the Strategy was elaborated and, therefore, simply on logical grounds, could not have been triggered by the Strategy. This lack of explicit, one-to-one causal links between the Biodiversity Strategy and biodiversity-related activities by the relevant actors, however, does not automatically mean that the Strategy remained without an impact. The literature on policy implementation calls for the use of a broader conceptual framework: As strategy processes can affect the social response to environmental challenges in a number of ways, the effectiveness of a strategy cannot only be evaluated through its ultimate impacts on the (ecological, social, and economic) environment, but has to be assessed across a spectrum of policy-relevant factors: changing strategies and behaviour of key actors, putting an issue on the policy agenda or raising its visibility, mobilising support, building actor networks or institutional capacity, identifying knowledge gaps and needs or building knowledge communities (Knott & Wildavsky, 1980, Rich, 1997, Cash & Clark, 2001, Pregernig, 2006). In the following, we would like to provide a qualitative assessment of the possible outputs, impacts, and outcomes of the Biodiversity Strategy process. This assessment is based on a broad conception of the “effects” as depicted above, and mainly builds on the information from our expert interviews.

8.2 Direct outputs of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process

The National Biodiversity Commission was founded in 1996 and has commissioned and/or produced a number of policy documents since that time. The most prominent documents are, of course, the first Austrian Biodiversity Strategy of 1998 and the adapted Austrian Biodiversity Strategy of 2005. In the course of the revision of the first Strategy, a new policy instrument was introduced, namely thematically focussed “Action Plans”. The first (and up to now only) action plan elaborated was the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species that was published in 2004. In addition to that, the NBC commissioned a number of reports: three National Reports on the Convention on Biological Diversity (1997, 2001, and 2005), seven Thematic Reports75 as well as several questionnaires, surveys, and case studies. Most of the documents produced by the Commission are of informative character and all are legally non-binding.76 Since the first Biodiversity Strategy was adopted by the Council of Ministers it naturally has some political weight at least.77 The revised Biodiversity Strategy was not submitted to the Council of Ministers and, with that, does not have this formal political backing. Beyond those formal criteria, both the National Biodiversity Commission and the Biodiversity Strategy show low political weight. A good indicator for that is that the Biodiversity Strategy and the Action Plan contain some rather far-reaching, “ambitious” targets and measures that have – or rather: could have – severe economic and political implications for the affected groups, but still have never been contested by those (sometimes politically quite strong) interest groups. It seems that strong political actors can simply ignore what is written in the Strategy and, therefore, they did not even find it worthwhile to oppose those strict goals and measures

74 I09-46, I05-53, I07-40, I08-69, I15-34, I01-32, I16a-46, I11-64, I04-80 75 Thematic reports were prepared for the following topics: access and benefit sharing, invasive alien species, forest

ecosystems, mountain ecosystems, protected areas, transfer of technology and technology co-operation, and the implementation of a programme of work on the Global Taxonomy Initiative (see http://www.biodiv.at/).

76 I13-37, I05-106, I15-38 77 I07-34, I15-31, I16a-68

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in the course of the negotiations of the Strategy.78 That the NBC has learned to live with its political “toothlessness” can be strikingly seen in the following quote from the official minutes of one of the meetings shortly after the first Biodiversity Strategy had been adopted:

“It doesn’t make sense to elaborate an additional action plan because those actors who want to implement measures can do that on the basis of the Strategy itself; those actors who don’t want to implement measures, however, won’t even be convinced by a detailed action plan.” (NBC, 1998c)

Does this mean that the Biodiversity Strategy process can easily be dismissed as nothing but a l’art pour l’art exercise? That would, most probably, be too hasty of a judgement. To come to a more realistic – and maybe also more positive – picture of how the Strategy process influenced policy, a broader assessment framework that also looks at more indirect effects is needed.

8.3 Outputs that are indirectly related to the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process

In a first step towards a broader analysis of the effects, one would look at the outputs, in the sense of new or revised policies that were not directly “produced” in the Strategy process itself but are more indirectly related with the process.79 In the more than a decade of the NBC’s existence, of course, numerous changes with relevance for biodiversity have been made in various policies in Austria. New laws were enacted, existing laws were reformulated, administrative acts were adopted, different policy instruments (such as, e.g., guidelines for subsidy schemes) were issued or amended, and many of those reforms had sometimes far-reaching consequences for the protection and sustainable use of biological diversity. According to the valuation of our interviewees, none of those changes can be (more or less) directly attributed to the Biodiversity Strategy or activities of the National Biodiversity Commission in general. While the Strategy seemingly did not trigger outputs on the level of policies, it showed some effects on an institutional level. During the formulation of the first Strategy, the NBC set up thematic working groups that were responsible for drafting the chapters on a chosen topic. Similarly, working groups were installed during the evaluation and in the course of the reformulation of the Strategy. However, all of those groups were only of a temporary character and were dissolved after having finished their assignments. With that, long-term capacity building has not been possible. There is one institution that is not only of a temporary character, i.e. the National Focal Point on Invasive Alien Species. This Focal Point, which has been institutionalised at the National Environmental Agency, can be seen as a rather direct spin-off of the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species (Essl & Rabitsch, 2004).80 All of the above-mentioned institutions were made up of the members of the NBC or its contractors (such as UBA). This means that the Commission was not able to reach out to and involve any new actors. Just to the contrary, the NBC could not even maintain its “thematic leadership” on the

78 I11-185 79 We are fully aware that the causal relations are difficult to establish in social science analyses, but in many cases it is still

possible to provide at least a well-founded “expert opinion” of what could probably be the reason for a certain outcome. 80 I10-80

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biodiversity-related topics as the development of some kind of “parallel organisations”, such as the National Nature Conservation Platform, demonstrates.81 An output of the Biodiversity Strategy, or to be more specific: the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species, which goes beyond policies and institutions, is the implementation of a national database on invasive alien species (AliensAustria). This database, which contains a comprehensive inventory of non-native species in Austria, was updated only recently.82

8.4 Impacts of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process

When asking for the “impacts” of a governance process, one not only has to look at the direct products that a process generates but also at the changes in the actors’ behaviour that those products have induced. Accordingly, the key question here is whether and how the Biodiversity Strategy process has led to the changing behaviour or changing strategies of key actors and target groups. None of our interviewees could think of examples of where the Strategy might have induced such changes. A similarly bleak picture emerges when looking at the resources (budgets, personnel etc.) that the Strategy could mobilise. On the one hand, the chair of the NBC obtains only little resources for administering the Strategy process.83 That partly explains why the Biodiversity Strategy process had to do without a complex process design (e.g. with external moderations) or sophisticated public relations activities that, for example, other similar strategy processes such as the Austrian Sustainable Development Strategy or the Austrian Forest Dialogue could easily afford. On the other hand, direct financing was never available for the implementation of the Strategy. It was especially the Ministry of Finance that always attempted to make sure that the goals and measures that were outlined in the Strategy did not represent a precedent for the allocation of additional funds. Therefore, implementation has only been possible via funding from other programmes. The impacts of a strategy process cannot only be assessed by means of concrete implementation measures, but also impacts often show less tangible dimensions, such as putting certain topics on the policy agenda or raising the visibility of policy issues. “Biodiversity” has never been a topic placed high on the political agenda, at least not in Austria. This has partly to do with the fact that biodiversity is a complex, expert-laden term that is poorly comprehensible to a lay audience and, with that, also to policy makers. The Biodiversity Strategy process and the NBC in general did not manage to improve the visibility of biodiversity concerns in any notable way.84 Policy actors still often “circumscribe” biodiversity-related matters by related, more easily communicable concepts, such as landscape or species protection. However, that again diminishes the argumentative power of the Biodiversity Strategy. When it comes to more specific biodiversity-related topics, the Strategy process, in fact, played some agenda setting role: The work of the NBC helped make the Convention on Biological Diversity and its key contents better known, especially among the provincial administrations and interest groups. In recent years, the NBC also certainly contributed to the propagation of the 2010 Biodiversity Target in Austria.85 Therefore, even if the Biodiversity Strategy process could not provide the topic of “biodiversity” with a great breakthrough in public discourse, it at least succeeded in keeping the topic on the agenda 81 I11-77 82 I10-71 83 I15-16, I16a-69 84 I09-128, I05-97, I08-19, I13-42, I06-133, I07-54, I16a-32, I11-59, I04-73 85 I09-14, I06-242

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of the NBC member organisations. It is here that the NBC rarely set topics by itself, but it rather served as a kind of translator and transmitter that communicated topics coming from the international level to the national and provincial levels.86 A special type of impact is the “argumentative use” of the Biodiversity Strategy. Various actors (such as environmental NGOs or citizens’ action groups, sometimes even ministries and provincial administrations) have used the Strategy or the Action Plan as an argument to legitimise their actions or to reinforce their political demands:87

“Strategy documents of that kind are, for example, highly useful for provincial nature conservation departments who would like to convince the responsible member of the provincial government of the fact that more funding is needed for this or that concern. […] One or the other member of the provincial government will then provide funding for one or two additional projects. […] NGOs use the Strategy in a similar way. They put pressure on the relevant department or ministry by saying: ‘Stop, you have subscribed to those targets; now, you also have to implement them. We want to realise this or that project.’”88

Strategy documents have proven especially useful for scientists and research organisations that can refer to targets or measures that are formulated in the Strategy when applying for the funding of research projects:

“When a topic is addressed in a Strategy that was approved by the Council of Ministers, then the chances of obtaining funding for a specific research project are multiplied.”89

The Strategy not only addresses those topics deemed relevant for society in general but it often directly spells out the present knowledge gaps and research needs. Especially the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species contains a large number of science-related targets and measures. Some scientists were able to instrumentalise those science-related statements in the Strategy and the Action Plan and to obtain research funding based on that argumentation.90 Most calls for more research funding, of course, remained (and will remain) unfulfilled, however. A last indirect impact of the Biodiversity Strategy process can be seen in its networking function. The National Biodiversity Commission brought together organisations and people that probably would not have come together otherwise.

“What I see as one of the most important achievements of this Commission is that it broadened the basis of communication. One learned to know who the potential partners on the other side are. Today, I know the proper contact persons in the Ministry of the Interior, in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in the Ministry of Agriculture. I did not have a chance previously to gain direct access to them.”91

86 I06-241, I11-34, I04-70 87 I09-46, I05-53, I07-40, I08-69, I15-34, I01-32, I16a-46, I11-64, I04-80 88 I11-67 89 I15-31 90 I14-93, I15-30, I10-71 91 I15-56

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Over the years, some selective co-operations further evolved, such as projects, campaigns, or conferences jointly organised by environmental NGOs and the Federal Ministry or enterprises, especially the Austrian Federal Forests Enterprise (ÖBf AG).92 Some NGOs saw participation in the work of the NBC as a good chance to gain access to new actor networks.93 However, that mainly applies for smaller, more “marginal” NGOs. For the large, well established NGOs, the NBC does not seem to be an attractive venue for networking activities. The low (and still declining) degree of attendance by NGOs is sufficient proof of that. Larger NGOs apparently have other, more efficient ways of gaining access to policy makers.94 The networking effects of the Strategy even reached the scientific community. For some scientists, the NBC opened doors to new co-operation partners.

“It was only through NBC membership that some persons were able to get to know each other. In that very specific case, the NBC work strongly altered the Ministry of Agriculture’s search strategy for expertise in biodiversity-related questions. While up to that time, the Ministry more or less automatically turned to the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, the Ministry’s perspective on the relevant sources of expertise has become much broader now, and studies are commissioned to other Austrian universities as well.”95

Finally, networking also happened beyond national borders. Specialists involved in the work on the Action Plan on Invasive Alien Species were invited to share their experience gained in the elaboration of the Austrian plan by contributing to the development of international strategies on that topic.96

8.5 Outcomes of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process

The “outcomes” of a strategy process are defined as the real-world consequences in terms of the biophysical changes that have materialised because of the outputs and impacts of a specific process. While it was already quite difficult to pin down the impacts of the Biodiversity Strategy process, it is even more difficult to analyse its outcomes. For one thing, it is probably still too early to see the specific outcomes “in the field”; for another thing, it is difficult to establish clear causal relations between a policy process and the changes in the biophysical world. In our interviews, we only obtained one example of direct outcomes, namely the first measures to eradicate invasive alien species based on the Action Plan.97 However, in that case, the effects are also questionable because the chances of success of such measures are known to be exceedingly low as most species re-immigrate again soon; concerted action with neighbouring countries is necessary.98

92 I09-50 93 I01-25 94 I19-124, I17-48, I11-48 95 I15-56 96 I10 97 I02-98 98 I10-76

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9 Explaining the strengths and weaknesses of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy

The National Biodiversity Commission was founded in 1996 and has since then published a number of relevant policy documents. The most important documents are the first Austrian Biodiversity Strategy of 1998 and the adapted Austrian Biodiversity Strategy of 2005. In this final chapter, we would like to evaluate the overall strengths and weaknesses of the Strategy and attempt to work out the relevant factors that influence its effectiveness. Compared to the “textbook approach”99 on strategic environmental planning, calling for broad public participation, the mainstreaming of decision-making by integrative inter-sectoral and multi-level co-ordination, clear and quantifiable targets and deadlines, as well as instruments for monitoring and evaluation, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process does not look very promising. Without a doubt, the Strategy falls far behind an ideal-type strategic planning approach: It contains vague formulations, no timetables, and no concrete measures; it states no responsibilities, and it makes no resources available for its subsequent implementation. It suffers from several problems, including limited public participation, a lack of inter-sectoral co-ordination, a complicated mode of multi-level co-ordination and the unavailability of financial resources for its implementation. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that our analysis was not able to manage to sift out any direct positive effects of the Strategy and governance process surrounding it on the state of biodiversity in Austria. When measuring the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy against the ambitious principles of target and results-oriented policy planning (as described in chapter 7.5), the Strategy can be seen as an example of many other national strategies for sustainable development that were elaborated as part of the Rio process in 1992, which ended up gathering dust on the shelves while showing rather limited policy relevance. However, some positive impacts of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy process were still identified by our case study analysis. Most important is the networking function that the work of the National Biodiversity Commission fulfilled for its members. Engagement in the NBC provided scientists as well as the representatives of interest groups and NGOs with an opportunity for direct and easy access to ministerial officials. One of the main impacts of the Strategy is, therefore, the change in the communicative behaviour of NBC members that it initiated. Furthermore, the Biodiversity Strategy played an agenda setting role with regard to those topics related with the CBD and its objectives as well as the biodiversity 2010 target. Last but not least, the Biodiversity Strategy and its targets have been used by environmental NGOs but also by public authorities as an argument to legitimise their actions and demands. In this sense, the Strategy has proven to be most useful for scientists and research organisations applying for the funding of research projects.

99 Following Jänicke and Jörgens (2006: 177), an integrated model of governance is marked by the following principles:

Strategic approach: Consensual, broad-based target and strategy formulation with a long-term horizon; Integration: Integration of environmental concerns, and in particular environment and development, into other policy

areas and sectors, Participation: Widespread participation by NGOs and citizens; Co-operation: Co-operation between state and private-sector actors in environment-related decision-making and

enforcement processes; Monitoring: Success monitoring with a diverse range of reporting obligations and indicators.


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The Austrian Biodiversity Strategy would have to overcome a number of barriers on its way to success. Some of those problems are directly linked to the Strategy process and the work of the NBC in general, whereas others are more structural problems, the solution of which lies beyond the limited capacities of the NBC and the Strategy process. Below we will summarise the main factors that help to explain the overall effectiveness of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategies and its specific strengths and weaknesses. Most of those factors have already been referred to in the above chapters; therefore, here we will only provide a short summary of the key arguments.

1. Little guidance on NBSAPs by the Convention on Biological Diversity Article 6 of the CBD obliges the Parties to the Convention to develop National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs).100 According to the Convention, the main goal of national biodiversity strategies is to mainstream the conservation and sustainable use of biological resources into all the economic sectors and the overall policy-making framework. However, the CBD and its technical bodies provided little guidance on the development of national biodiversity strategies until 2002. Furthermore, little attention has been paid to the procedural aspects of this kind of strategic policy planning. Adding to this problem is the lack of institutionalised policy learning on the international level. Neither the CBD secretariat nor the technical bodies made an in-depth evaluation of the national experiences with the national biodiversity strategies. With that, the CBD has foregone the chance to analyse the lessons learned in those processes and to draw relevant conclusions for the future. In addition, the CBD amplifies this problem by producing an enormous amount of non-binding political decisions at each Conference of Parties. Those documents have little impact on the ground, not least because most public officials working in this policy field at the national and provincial levels simply do not have the time or interest to read all those papers. The work of the National Biodiversity Commission, which is, inter alia, supposed to function as the link between the CBD and the national and provincial levels is thus strongly hampered by the CBD’s high degree of complexity.

2. “Biological diversity” as a poorly comprehensible term Many of our interviewees pointed out that the term “biological diversity” is difficult to communicate. This has partly to do with the fact that biodiversity is a complex, expert-laden concept that is poorly comprehensible to a lay audience and, with that, also to policy makers. As a consequence, many target groups do not know what to expect from initiatives under the label “biodiversity” and are, thus, very cautious. Public and private policy actors still often circumscribe biodiversity-related matters by related, more easily communicable concepts, such as landscape or species protection. However, that strategy of evasion, again, diminishes the argumentative power of the biodiversity strategy itself.

3. Low problem pressure and lack of public attention For “soft” political issues, such as the conservation of biological diversity, it is always difficult to find its way onto the political agenda. A problem typically only reaches the top of the political attention cycle when there is some degree of (perceived) “urgency”. Numerous environmental policy studies show that the degree of environmental problem pressure strongly determines the level of effective policies undertaken by countries to ameliorate environmental problems (Sprinz, 2004). At the moment, the loss of biodiversity is not perceived as an urgent policy problem in Austria. This might, once again, have to do with the high degree of complexity of this issue. Biodiversity-related problems typically develop slowly, manifesting themselves as creeping forms of degradation and implicating a plethora of actors,

100 see chapter 4.3


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and many of them only indirectly. Jänicke & Jörgens (2006: 170) come to sobering conclusions for this type of problems:

“Substantial distances or delays between cause and effect, […] and problematic additive impacts make reactive environmental policy a non-starter while simultaneously raising the bar for precautionary strategies targeting environmentally relevant sectors.”

Biodiversity policy in Austria currently seems to be in this kind of “political void”. To quote one of our interviewees:

“It is fair to say that the conservation of biological diversity is probably not the most important political issue in Austria.”101

The biodiversity strategy process and the NBC in general were not able to manage to improve the visibility of biodiversity concerns in any notable way.

4. Low political weight and weak institutionalisation The first Biodiversity Strategy of 1998 was adopted by the Council of Ministers, which provided the document with some political weight at least. The revised Biodiversity Strategy of 2005 was not submitted to the Council of Ministers and does not have this formal political backing. Beyond those formal criteria, both the National Biodiversity Commission and the Biodiversity Strategy show low political weight. The NBC in its current form does not have a formal legal base or formal decision-making power; thus, it only has little direct impact. Its main functions are to advise and inform. With that, it does not act as a “political body” in a narrower sense and it has no authority to make politically binding decisions. It has no rules of internal procedure and the Ministry has no intention to develop such internal procedures in the near future. In addition to that, the NBC even has a low standing within the responsible Ministry. This is most apparent in the fact that the Commission is not chaired by the Head of Section or at least by the Head of Department in charge within the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management, but it is chaired by a normal staff member. On top of that, the NBC only has few resources (budgets, personnel etc.) available. On the one hand, the chair of the NBC only obtains rather limited resources for administering the Strategy process. On the other hand, there has never been direct financing available for the implementation of the Strategy. This weak institutionalisation has severe negative effects on the participation of other federal ministries and other sections and departments within the BMLFUW, as it clearly signals that this Commission and its work is not regarded as very important within the Ministry. It also explains why the number of participating interest groups and NGOs has declined over the years. They are seemingly not willing to spend their time and scarce resources on a political process that has such a low political standing and relevance. Interest groups need a “stage” on which they can visibly and vociferously propound their arguments, ideally, vis-à-vis the Minister or the Head of the Section. The NBC has not provided such a stage up to now. In case the National Biodiversity Commission now decided to take on political leadership in the future, this would probably be contested by various stakeholders, at least as long as the Commission is without a legal mandate and as long as it is not supported by a strong commitment from the federal government.

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5. Low-profile, “static” mode of operation of the National Biodiversity Commission The weak institutionalisation of the National Biodiversity Commission and its low political weight have been aggravated by the fact that the NBC has adopted – or maybe was assigned – a rather low-profile, “static” mode of operation. It was unclear from the outset as to what profile of functions that the NBC actually has or should have: Should it merely be an information platform on which administration officials report on the results of international meetings, or should the NBC serve as more of a locus of political deliberation and negotiations? The procedural setup of the NBC meetings clearly reflects the unsolved ambivalence in its functional profile: A large – first (!) – part of the agenda is typically reserved for reports on international meetings. It is mostly representatives of public bodies, i.e. ministries and provincial governments, who seem to be interested in those kinds of reports. In a second part of the NBC meetings, more “political” and “strategic” topics are taken up. While the first reporting part of the NBC meetings is typically characterised by one-sided communication, it is only in the second part that more active forms of communication and interaction between participating actors take place. For the representatives of interest groups and NGOs it is more of those “political” topics that are relevant and of interest to them. Unfortunately, only a few NGO representatives are prepared “to take on the chore of listening to detailed reports of business trips of civic servants.”102 The work of the NBC could maybe gain more drive again if the two functions of “international reporting” and “political deliberations” were organisationally disentangled, e.g. by holding thematic workshops separate from the reporting-style NBC meetings.

6. Complex allocation of competences and high number of veto players The conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity, as targeted by the Convention of Biological Diversity, is a cross-sectoral political issue. Its implementation touches upon many different competences across the federal political system in Austria. In many important areas, the federal government has no or little legal competences; for example, nature protection, hunting, and land use planning are in the competences of the Länder. This creates a complex network of actors when it comes to the implementation of the CBD in Austria, including a high number of possible veto players. While formally multi-level co-ordination has been of special importance for the National Biodiversity Commission, it was not given much weight in the Strategy process. The Biodiversity Commission has not fulfilled its potential as a central institution that links the activities of different levels. As a consequence, the biodiversity strategy has failed to link the objectives of the CBD with the policies at the national and provincial levels in a convincing manner. Furthermore, the exclusive formal rights of the provinces for legislation and enforcement in the field of nature protection create additional difficulties for the implementation of the biodiversity strategy as a federal government programme. A Federal Framework Law on Nature Protection could possibly make co-ordination easier, but given the current political actor constellation it is highly unrealistic that such a law will be passed in the near future. The majority of interviewed stakeholders regard the degree of multi-level co-ordination in biodiversity-related matters as insufficient. Some even see the lack of vertical co-ordination as the main explanatory factor for the shortcomings of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy. It seems that internationalisation in the field of nature conservation has led to a passive and defensive behaviour on the side of the federal provinces. Since most of the measures included in the Biodiversity Strategy cannot be implemented by the central government, the Strategy remains weak. Furthermore, there is no available direct financing for the implementation, in which it is only indirectly available through other programmes and funding sources.

102 I01-63


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7. Antagonistic stakeholder interests: a weak environmental coalition and strong economic interest groups

The actor network surrounding the Biodiversity Strategy was split from the outset into two major opposing coalitions: a coalition of nature conservationists on the one side, and a coalition of resource users and other economic interests on the other side. The nature conservation coalition mainly included environmental NGOs, scientists, and the Federal Environmental Agency. The coalition of economic interests included, among others, interest groups representing agriculture, forestry and hunting, the Ministry of Economics and Labour, and the Ministry of Finance. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Environmental and Water Management was split: some departments supported the interests of the nature conservation coalition more while other departments gave their voice to the economic coalition, especially patronising the interests of agricultural and forest land owners. The role of the representatives of the nature conservation departments of the federal provinces was also somewhat ambivalent. Content-wise they were closer to the interests of the nature conservation coalition, but their primary goal was to defend the position of the federal provinces against any intervention of the federal government. Therefore, in general, the actor configuration surrounding the Biodiversity Commission and the Biodiversity Strategy shows a weak environmental coalition with little influence on the one side, and vested economic interests on the other side. This situation was even aggravated by the fact that environmental NGOs did not see and use the National Biodiversity Commission and the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy as a platform and vehicle for influencing Austrian biodiversity policy. This probably has to do with two phenomena that were already described above: first, the problematic character of the term “biological diversity” which does not work well for campaigning purposes; and second, the low political profile and weight of the Commission and Strategy. As a consequence of that, the Biodiversity Commission has seen little progress over the last decade of its existence. The weak Biodiversity Strategies can be regarded as a symptom and outcome of this antagonistic stakeholder configuration. When measured against its “textbook ideal type”, the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy as a use-case of the modern instrument of “strategic policy processes” can be viewed as not much more than a “work-to-rule exercise” that is mainly initiated and driven by international reporting obligations. The case study of the Austrian Biodiversity Strategy is, thus, striking proof for the insight that the application of governance principles per se is no guarantee for policy success. The new modes of governance also require a “benign” political environment. Otherwise, they tend to degenerate to merely symbolic politics.

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UMWELTBUNDESAMT (2007): Umweltsituation in Österreich: Achter Umweltkontrollbericht des Umweltministers an den Nationalrat. Wien: UBA.

UNITED NATIONS ENVIRONMENT PROGRAMME (2005): Guidance and Guidelines on National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans. UNEP/CBD/WG-RI/1/INF/8. Nairobi: UNEP.

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Government documents BMUJF (1994): Konvention über die biologische Vielfalt – Ratifizierung, innerstaatliche Umsetzung.

Sitzungsbericht vom 19. Jänner 1994. NBC (Nationale Biodiversitätskommission) (1997a): Protokoll der 4. Sitzung der Nationalen

Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 21.Februar 1997, BMUJF. NBC (1997b) Protokoll der 6. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 9. Juni 1997,

BMUJF. NBC (1997c): Protokoll der 7. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 1. Juli 1997,

BMUJF. NBC (1997d): Protokoll der 8. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 13. Oktober 1997,

BMUJF. NBC (1997e) Protokoll der 9. Sitzung der Österreichischen Kommission für biologische Vielfalt am 15.

Dezember 1997, BMUJF. NBC (1998a) Protokoll der 13. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 28. April 1998,

BMUJF. NBC (1998b) Protokoll der 14. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 28. Mai 1998,

BMUJF. NBC (1998c) Protokoll der 15. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 29. September

1998, BMUJF. NBC (1999a) Protokoll der 19. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 21. September

1999, BMUJF. NBC (1999b) Protokoll der 20. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 21. Dezember

1999, BMU. NBC (2000) Protokoll der 21. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 14. März 2000,

BMU. NBC (2001) Protokoll der 25. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 20. Februar 2001,

BMU. NBC (2003) Ergebnisprotokoll der 5. Sitzung der NBK-Arbeitsgruppe Umsetzung der CBD/COP6

Beschlüsse am 23. Oktober 2003, BMU. NBC (2004) Protokoll der 36. Sitzung der Nationalen Biodiversitäts-Kommission am 30. November

2004, BMLFUW.

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Persons interviewed

Name Organisational Affiliation

Dr. Gerald Dick WWF Austria

Dr. Herwig Dürr Ministry of Economics and Labour (BMWA)

Ms. Elfriede Fuhrmann Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW), Section “Sustainability and Rural Areas”, Div. II/1 “Research and Development”

Ms. Tanja Gottsberger Federal Environmental Agency

Mr. Georg Greutter Austrian Association of Agriculture and Forest Enterprises

Mr. Josef Hackl Federal Environmental Agency

Mr. Hermann Hinterstoisser Province of Salzburg, Department of Nature Protection

Prof. Dr. Michael Kiehn University of Vienna – Botanical Garden

Ms. Beate Koller Arche Noah

Dr. Peter Lebersorger Zentralstelle Österr. Landesjagdverbände

Dr. Andrea Nouak Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW), Div. on International Environmental Policy

Ms. Gabriele Obermayr Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management (BMLFUW), Chair of National Biodiversity Commission

Dr. Wolfgang Rabitsch Federal Environmental Agency (Action Plan Neobiota)

Dr. Anton Reinl Austrian Chamber of Agriculture

Dr. Friederike Spitzenberger Museum for Natural History

Ms. Maria Tiefenbach Federal Environment Agency, Head of Nature Conservation Department

Dr. Reinhold Turk Province of Styria (Common representative)

Dr. Christoph Wildburger Consultant

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