Governance of Ecosystem Services

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The working group focuses on the analysis and co-creation of governance and market-based approaches that promote the targeted provisioning of societally desired ecosystem services and the conservation of biodiversity. We place a strong emphasis on financial incentive instruments and voluntary collaboration and their interactions with regulatory frameworks. Our research is particularly focused on a) understanding actors’ individual perspectives and how they can influence different governance approaches, b) the interaction of different actors and how they share governance tasks, as well as c) the behavioral response of individual land users to policy interventions.

Research Approach: Our team holds expertise in implementing transdisciplinary research and co-designing research with local actors within the framework of individual projects. One example of our commitment and engagement is the spin-off of Agora Natura Startup, a marketplace for biodiversity in Germany.

Theoretical Background: Our team works particularly within the frameworks of ecological economics, behavioral economics, and institutional economics.

Research Foci: Our focus areas include Payment for Ecosystem Services, Collective Payment for Ecosystem Services, Agri-environmental and Climate Measures, Value Chains, and Market-based Solutions.

Geographic Regions: Currently, our team is particularly focused on developing solutions for agri-environmental issues in Germany and Europe. Additionally, we conduct research projects on biodiversity conservation instruments in low- and middle-income countries such as China and Mozambique. In the past, we have also carried out several projects focusing on community-based governance in Latin America, for instance, in Brazil and Costa Rica.

Methods: We employ a diverse portfolio of methods, including quantitative, mixed, and qualitative approaches.

Our team consists of researchers with social and natural sciences backgrounds, ranging from landscape planning to agricultural sciences and economics. This range of scientific expertise offers a broad methodological toolkit available in the working group, where questions are often approached with more than one single method.