Biodiversity and Green Infrastructure in Europe: Boundary object or ecological trap?

Eneko Garmendia; Evangelia Apostolopoulou; William M. Adams; Dimitrios Bormpoudakis

doi:10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.003

Biodiversity and Green Infrastructure in Europe: Boundary object or ecological trap?

Eneko Garmendia^*, Evangelia Apostolopoulou, William M. Adams, Dimitrios Bormpoudakis

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review

84 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The concept of green infrastructure is widely used in environmental planning, but so far it has no standard definition. Planners, conservationists and scientists tend to welcome the term because it can serve as a boundary object, providing links among policy makers, developers and different academic disciplines. However, the concept of green infrastructure creates risks for biodiversity conservation in its adoption. It can be used to water down biodiversity conservation aims and objectives as easily as it can be used to further them because of the different ideas associated with it and the multiple interests pursued. In this paper, we address such risks by looking, among others, at the European Union's Green Infrastructure Strategy and we suggest how planners and conservationists might deal with its growing importance in environmental policy and planning to enhance its value for biodiversity conservation.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	315-319
Number of pages	5
Journal	Land Use Policy
Volume	56
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.003
Publication status	Published - 1 Nov 2016

Keywords

Biodiversity
Conservation
Ecological connectivity
Ecosystem services
Green economy
Natural capital
Planning

Access to Document

10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.003

Cite this

@article{67aff3c6257e4173bb186827e4f59040,

title = "Biodiversity and Green Infrastructure in Europe: Boundary object or ecological trap?",

abstract = "The concept of green infrastructure is widely used in environmental planning, but so far it has no standard definition. Planners, conservationists and scientists tend to welcome the term because it can serve as a boundary object, providing links among policy makers, developers and different academic disciplines. However, the concept of green infrastructure creates risks for biodiversity conservation in its adoption. It can be used to water down biodiversity conservation aims and objectives as easily as it can be used to further them because of the different ideas associated with it and the multiple interests pursued. In this paper, we address such risks by looking, among others, at the European Union's Green Infrastructure Strategy and we suggest how planners and conservationists might deal with its growing importance in environmental policy and planning to enhance its value for biodiversity conservation.",

keywords = "Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecological connectivity, Ecosystem services, Green economy, Natural capital, Planning",

author = "Eneko Garmendia and Evangelia Apostolopoulou and Adams, {William M.} and Dimitrios Bormpoudakis",

note = "Funding Information: EG acknowledges the Basque government{\textquoteright}s postdoctoral research grant and support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through CAUSE project under the 2012 National Plan . EA acknowledges the Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship within FP7 (PIEF-GA-2013-622631, Conservation and Ecosystem Services in the New biodiversity Economy—CESINE). DB acknowledges the SCALES project, an EU Large-scale Integrating Project within FP 7 (226 852). We thank Chris Sandbrook for insightful comments on a previous draft of this manuscript. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2016 Elsevier Ltd.",

year = "2016",

month = nov,

day = "1",

doi = "10.1016/j.landusepol.2016.04.003",

language = "English",