10. Strategic environmental management analysis: the antagonistic component of acting for biodiversity
10.2.4. ETBs can strengthen the environmental sector To overcome resistance to change, ETBs have to be used by an environmental actor with enough strength, skill and expertise. Just as the users he is facing, the environmental actor does not act in isolation, but is himself part of a wider network of action, which we can call the biodiversity conservation sector. Just like the forestry, the farming or the mining sectors, it is a source of strength through union and of competence through the complementarity of statuses and skills – for instance, between environmental administrations, specialised research centres, NGOs, training programs, etc. One of the results of our review of ETBs was that their use almost invariably required the combination of economics and economic tools with equally high skill and investment in legal, administrative, scientific, sociological and other approaches of the biodiversity issue at hand. This complemenarity of approaches around shared purposes is precisely one of the benefits of activity sectors at all levels (from local to global) and at all stages from training to project implementation. To work in synergy with the other types of tools and approaches required in dealing with biodiversity issues, and to benefit from sufficient clout to take effect in the face of resistance to environmentally motivated change, the use of ETBs has to be embedded in a strong biodiversity sector. Consider for instance payments for ecosystem services and, as we saw, their use of “deals” agreed to in negotiation. PES brings one important lever in such negotiations: the payments that can condition an agreement for change and help in making the change stick over time. But it provides no substitute for many other aspects of such negotiations. To succeed in such negotiations, the environmental actor using the tools requires sufficient clout and skills. For an NGO, this may imply for instance being backed by a governmental environmental agency, being familiar with the local field conditions through continued presence, being able to mobilise researchers, experts and interns in support, being able to disseminate information about the case in the specialised press or on specialised websites to help increase support from the public, being able to share experience and advice with others in the biodiversity sector, etc. Again, as he negotiates with actors who – apart from a few exceptions – are themselves backed (and often, actually constrained in terms of their margins of manoeuvre) by powerful activity sectors, the environmental actor who is the main “payer” in PES usually needs to find similar support in his own, environmental, sector. The same holds true for buying land or land-based rights: the means to buy, the level of support required to acquire the necessary goodwill, the expertise to choose and justify the purchases and the skill to implement it all quite rarely come to isolated
September 2014 / Tools for what trade? / © AFD
[303]