International efforts to protect biodiversity date back to the 1970s in the form of Multilateral Environmental Agreements and regional legal instruments like the Directives of the European Union (EU). Their effectiveness in halting biodiversity loss has been heavily influenced by national implementation; in this process, subnational governance plays a crucial role. A complex set of dynamics develops at the subnational level when national policy objectives complying with international commitments and EU obligations need to be pursued through the implementation phase in different countries and their regions. Regional governments and administrations are pivotal in the conservation of biodiversity since they translate international targets and national biodiversity policy objectives into concrete actions through tangible initiatives and direct relations with their citizens.

Since the early investigations on policy implementation, its success and failure have been considered the result of many factors, with particular attention to the complexity of joint action. It is generally assumed that the involvement of an increasing number of actors acting as potential veto points can jeopardise the execution of public policies. The complexity of implementation structures of public and private actors is even higher in political systems characterised by multiple levels of governance. In these contexts, subnational politics – played between public and private organisations at central and subnational levels – is pivotal in the implementation of intergovernmental policies. This is particularly true where processes of political and/or administrative decentralisation have delegated more powers to subnational authorities at regional and local level. Indeed, different values, interests, priorities and objectives may prevail at different layers of governance, with a consequent variation in the level of commitment to the implementation of specific policies.

While decentralisation is usually expected to benefit the environment through more responsive policy interventions and more accountable decision-makers, it can also have negative consequences for the environmental performance of a state in the form of fragmentation of competences, subnational discretion and policy capture. First, the possibility of vertical clashes increases in multi-level governance where competences are shared, distributed and fragmented across multiple political-administrative levels (i.e. national, regional and local). Second, policy implementation in multi-level governance can be affected by issue prioritisation and the politics of attention at the subnational level. Political agendas set at the national and regional levels may differ in the way they prioritise information and policy issues. It follows that some national policy objectives may be contextually unachievable at the subnational level. Third, the presence of vested interests with strong political influence on public decisions through their constituencies can cause policy capture at the local level.

In this context, several recommendations can be proposed:

1. Improving centre-local administrative coordination in multi-level systems of governance through institutional arrangements and cultural predisposition for collaboration.
2. Aligning national and subnational policy agendas by taking into account both international commitments for biodiversity conservation and local priorities of economic development.
3. Strengthening public engagement and promoting balanced representation by involving a plurality of societal actors, not only the more powerful predominant sectors.
4. Investing in a participatory culture around increased environmental awareness.
5. Adopting regional strategies to enhance the political relevance of biodiversity conservation also as budget distribution to increase the administrative capacity at the territorial level.

The coordination of diverging preferences and priorities, and the engagement of a  plurality of views, values and interests in the formation of public decisions and the implementation of policy actions is relevant for any attempt to halt environmental degradation, not only biodiversity loss. Contemporary environmental challenges have in common high degree of complexity, uncertainty and contestation. Like biodiversity loss, problems of pollution (including plastics), overexploitation of natural resources (e.g., fish stocks) and climate change are wicked problems. In these cases, the same definition of the policy problem as well as its possible solution brings along social conflicts and political disagreement often fed by insufficient and controversial scientific information. Clashes between competing interests and diverging values (e.g., economic development and social well-being vs. environmental protection) are even more acute in contexts of scarce availability of resources.

– Gianluca Ferraro, University of Portsmouth and Pierre Failler, University of Portsmouth

– The authors’ Journal of Public Policy article ‘Biodiversity, multi-level governance, and policy implementation in Europe: a comparative analysis at the subnational level‘ is available open access.