Presentation for Royal Geographical Society Annual Conference 2014 - London, August 2014.

1. Justice-relevant conditions to
participation in biodiversity governance
An ex-ante approach to environmental justice
Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference 2014
London, UK – 27 August 2014
Brendan Coolsaet
Biodiversity Governance Unit
Centre for Philosophy of Law

2. Participation as a pathway to effectiveness?
Effective
pathway
Participation outcome
• greater compliance
• adherence to the norm
• legitimacy
• institutional fit
• bottom-up action
• …

3. Under which conditions can participation lead to
3
effectiveness?
pathway
Effective
outcome Participation
Conditions
?

4. Evolution of participation in biodiversity governance
Images: Jan Sasse (TEEB)
4
Bottom-up
governance
Post-normal
science
Utilitarian
narratives
environmental governance increasingly concerned with ‘people'

5. Environmental justice as parity of participation
(economic)
distribution
(socio-cultural)
recognition
(political)
representation
Source: Nancy Fraser (applied to environmental governance by
David Schlosberg)

6. Justice-relevant conditions for participation
pathway
Effective
allocation Participation
Conditions
• (economic)
distribution
• (socio-cultural)
recognition
• (political)
representation

7. A real-life example: participatory pig-breeding in
Schwäbisch Hall (Germany)
Structural support for
farmers' participation
Fixed market price +
'adaptation premium'
Guaranteed buying of
the wole production of meat
No imposed production
amount
Explicit learning from the
South
13 years to get legal
recognition
Collaborative training center
community-based
quality-control through
local NGO
elected chairmen for day-to-day
management
clear 'boundaries of
participation'
fully bottom-up/
community based
community-owned butcher
shops & slaughterhouse

8. Thank you.
brendan.coolsaet@uclouvain.be
http://twitter.com/bcoolsaet
http://uclouvain.academia.edu/BrendanCoolsaet