NW: Assessing Biodiversity Governance and Management Approaches - The Case of Biosphere Reserves

Losses in biodiversity are becoming alarming. To safeguard what is left means placing priority on the protection of species and habitats. Ideally, this should be a goal in its own right. In practice, people have to see a direct gain. An innovative approach to conservation are Biosphere Reserves which comprise a strategy to conserve biodiversity with the scope for regional sustainable resource use. The GOBI research group assesses on the basis of a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods such as a meta-analysis, a questionnaire and conducting case studies in Tropical and Subtropical Countries the success or failure of current management and governance approaches used in biosphere reserves. Typical imperfections of governance and management institutions (e.g. enforcement and monitoring problems, incoherent objectives, political pressure) will be considered. A focus will also be on defining, developing and applying criteria and indicators to identify the regional, socio-economic, institutional and psychological factors that contribute to the success or failure of an integrative sustainable biosphere reserve management and governance. The GOBI research group investigates which theoretical concepts can help to better understand these success and failure factors, and to develop an adequate framework that integrates theoretical and empirical findings. Furthermore, the research group wants to compare these results to further different biodiversity management approaches (other protected areas like national parks and conservation strategies outside protected areas) in order to increase the capacity and effectiveness of integrative sustainable biodiversity and biosphere reserve management and governance.