This talk presents results from the interdisciplinary research project Governance of Biodiversity (GoBi), which evaluates the success or failure for implementing protected areas and biosphere reserves.

Its main hypothesis is that the ecological outcome of implementing protected areas depends on the appropriateness of the selected governance and management systems with regard to the local context, and on broader economic and political issues.

The results show that typical imperfections of governance and management institutions such as enforcement and monitoring problems, insufficient political support, lack of stakeholder involvement, corruption, lack of capacity and leadership play an important role in determining success or failure for implementing biodiversity policies.

Adaptable institutional arrangements including responsive leadership and capacity building are necessary to manage biodiversity and ecosystems that have complex social, political, cultural and ecological dimensions.

About Professor Stoll-Kleemann
Susanne Stoll-Kleemann is Professor and Chair of Applied Geography and Sustainability Science at the University of Greifswald and is still associated with the Humboldt University of Berlin where she leads the interdisciplinary Research Group GoBi.

Susanne is an inter- and transdisciplinary social scientist focusing on human-environment relations, especially in the areas of climate change (such as risk perception), biodiversity research and sustainable natural resources management. Her research interests are in the human dimensions of global environmental change and sustainability science.