Protecting Biodiversity: Global Challenges at the National Level

At the 1992 Earth Summit, the concern about the global loss in biodiversity and degradation of ecosystem services gave rise to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is the single comprehensive international agreement on biodiversity.

Yet despite the recognized and growing significance of biodiversity to human kind, it remains under-investigated by social scientists in comparison to, for example, climate change.

Implementation of the CBD in all 193 participating nations is a huge challenge. This dissertation project seeks to provide a better understanding of the mechanisms facilitating and/or hindering the implementation by comparing the policy development in Germany and Japan of the last two decades. I argue that the process of implementation, especially the policy formation at the national level, is shaped by cultural and institutional factors existing at the national level. Identification of the explanatory variables is the aim of the dissertation.

First results show that Japan was very quick on adopting a strategy under the CBD, it remains sectoral, primarily government oriented and with still limited goals and quantitative indicators. On the other hand, Germany was very late in adopting a strategy, but which now has one of the most comprehensive strategies with over 330 concrete goals and 430 indicators and which is based on an extensive multi-stakeholder process.

Asuka Ashida is a Ph.D. student in Forestry and Environmental Policy at the Technical University Munich. She is currently conducting her fieldwork in Japan.