BIOPOLICY: Biodiversity and Nature Index - understanding, adaptive planning, and economic policy means for management of open lowlands and forests

Project details

Project manager

Iulie Aslaksen

Partners

NINA v/Erik Framstad og Signe Nybø, Bioforsk v/Ann Norderhaug, Arne Grønlund og Daniel Rasse, SNF v/Ivar Gaasland, NOVA v/Ørnulf Seippel. Internasjonale eksperter: Silvio Funtowicz, Bruna De Marchi, David Zilberman, Tor-Bjørn Larsson

Clients

NFR Miljø 2015 (2011-2013)

Project term

Open

Project status

Ongoing

Research field

• Sustainable development

About the Project

The purpose of the BIOPOLICY project is to identify appropriate economic policy means for biodiversity protection in open lowlands and forests, in the context of the Nature Index for Norway. BIOPOLICY is a highly interdisciplinary project where a common basis for understanding threats to biodiversity, interpretations of targets for biodiversity conservation, and challenges for biodiversity policies will be developed through cooperation between natural scientists and social scientists, with an economic policy application of the Nature Index for Norway. Targets for biodiversity protection, specified in terms of the Nature Index, will be combined with economic models of environmental impacts of agriculture and forestry. These two economic models will be augmented by measures of biodiversity. The BIOPOLICY project will contribute to enhancing the basis for adaptive planning by economic policy means, where adaptive planning is understood as iterative implementation of policy means towards reaching a given policy target. In particular, the project addresses how various elements of biodiversity can be expressed and interpreted in terms of diverse disciplinary and societal perspectives, so-called narratives, that illustrate how different parts of society, interest groups, sector interests, lay people and politicians express their understandings of biodiversity threats and policies for biodiversity protection. The project comprises 15 research partners nationally and internationally.