Planning for Implementation: Shifting the Focus of National Biodiversity Strategies to Local Narratives, Existing Institutional Settings and Social Capital

Abstract

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has repeatedly failed to meet its global targets in 2010 and 2020, pointing to persistent obstacles to implementation. National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) are the central instrument for translating global targets into actions across sectors and levels of government, also referred to as mainstreaming. This paper focuses on Peru as a case study to analyse to what extent NBSAPs are capable of addressing context-specific implementation challenges. It develops an analytical framework based on the literature on conservation governance in Peru to analyse to what extent the NBSAP from 2014 and the action plan from 2019 (1) reflect national biodiversity narratives; (2) address dominant causes of biodiversity loss; (3) link targets to sector-specific institutions and processes; and (4) to what extent the Peruvian National Commission for Biological Diversity builds social capital for implementation. The results indicate that the NBSAP (1) is dominated by a capitalist narrative focussing on economic values of biodiversity while giving less importance to other, particularly local narratives; (2) addresses most direct causes, but fails to operationalise its targets into conservation action; (3) has not been designed to connect and guide relevant sector policies, such as environmental impact assessments or agricultural policies; and (4) the strong participation in the commission for biodiversity is not used to foster implementation, but mostly on CBD reporting and planning. Thus, addressing these challenges provides powerful levers for how to harness the NBSAPs’ potential to mainstream biodiversity and increase their relevance for mobilising and guiding implementation and stimulate institutional learning.

1. Introduction

The world has failed to reach the agreed 2010 global Biodiversity Target as well as the Aichi Targets of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) [1,2], revealing pressing shortcomings in implementation at the national level. At present, human activities are severely impacting 75% of the Earth’s land area and 66% of its oceans, resulting in direct and indirect threats to biodiversity and ecosystem functions [1,3,4]. Regulating these threats requires multi-sectoral planning and strategic policy mixes [1]. Despite almost 30 years passing since the CBD was ratified, the countries that are party to it have not successfully mainstreamed biodiversity into political levels and sectors as mandated by Article 6. Biodiversity is not yet considered in all relevant policies and regulations in various sectors such as agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure and other extractive and productive industries. Sector policies often continue supporting the drivers of biodiversity loss [1].

The newly approved Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) includes mainstreaming as a specific target (Target 14), asks countries to address drivers related to agriculture, forestry and fisheries (Target 11) and aims at further integration through sustainable reporting of businesses (Target 15), sustainable consumption (Target 16) and the reform of harmful subsidies (Target 18) [5]. National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) are the central instruments for mainstreaming biodiversity into national policies to achieve the global targets [6] (article 6). The GBF gives guidance on how to develop NBSAPs and frequently evaluate and review them to dynamically improve the implementation performance [7].

The existing scientific literature highlights that mainstreaming remains a key challenge across the world [1,8,9,10] and that even though the foundations for mainstreaming biodiversity are being laid in the NBSAPs of many countries, more needs to be done to acknowledge the value of biodiversity in productive sectors [10,11]. The process of translating the idea of mainstreaming into tangible institutional reconfigurations is at a “very early stage” [12] (p. 25). As competences for governing biodiversity are dispersed across governmental sectors and levels, a missing coordination and collaboration leads to institutional responsibility gaps leaving uncertain the role and effort that is expected from different agents in the pathway to implementing biodiversity targets [13]. Effective implementation requires both horizontal collaboration across sectors and vertical arrangements within strong accountability frameworks [14,15,16].

This paper identifies four leverage points highlighted by the existing literature for strengthening mainstreaming and national planning through NBSAPs. Firstly, generating ownership and accountability among core actors across sectors and levels will depend on the ability of NBSAPs to target them and to address their interests, values and attitudes [10,16,17]. Secondly, NBSAPs need to guide both political and non-political action more effectively to explicitly address direct and indirect drivers of biodiversity loss [12,14,18,19]. Thirdly, for NBSAPs to guide implementation, they need to relate to existing institutional arrangements to facilitate mainstreaming and induce accountability [13,15,20]. Lastly, NBSAPs need to create structures that facilitate exchange and cooperation between actors to integrate environmental aspects into other policy areas [21] and to create accountability for the implementation of the targets [13,22,23].

This article looks at Peru as a case study to look at specific aspects of NBSAP design and collaborative structures between political sectors to identify unused potential. Peru belongs to the group of mega-diverse countries that are committed to implementing the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020 [24]. Peru’s unique ecosystems vary from the marine biodiversity in the Humboldt Current across the Andes to the global biodiversity hotspot in the Amazon basin [25]. However, biodiversity in Peru continues to be severely threatened [26,27]. Peru adopted its second NBSAP in 2014, highlighting that threats to biodiversity have further diversified and accumulated since the adoption of the first NBSAP [28]. An updated action plan was published in 2019 [29] (see Supplementary Material S2 for more background on Peru). While most sectors have committed themselves to biodiversity conservation, the operationalisation of biodiversity objectives into concrete measures remains weak [22]. In 2009, the Ministry for Environment (MINAM) created the CONADIB to coordinate the implementation of CBD activities [30].

This study contrasts existing findings in the literature with the content of the Peruvian NBSAP and documents of the National Commission for Biodiversity (CONADIB) in order to investigate how national planning processes related to NBSAPs can be fostered (see Figure 1 for conceptual overview). Based on insights from the governance literature on Peru, I build the following hypotheses, which propose that in order to foster implementation, NBSAPs need to be strengthened by:

• Reflecting different narratives in biodiversity reasoning to improve their legitimacy and accountability.
• Targeting direct and underlying causes of biodiversity loss as a prerequisite for effective governance.
• Linking biodiversity targets to existing institutional structures to facilitate mainstreaming and induce accountability.
• Assuring targeted collaboration for institutional learning processes to gradually integrate biodiversity into policy mixes and improve its performance.

Section 2 shows how these four hypotheses can be derived from the literature. Section 3 explains how the hypotheses are operationalised to analyse the second and most recent Peruvian NBSAP, as well as the documents of CONADIB. The results are presented in Section 4 (see Supplementary Material S2 for more detailed results) and discussed in light of the scientific debate in Section 5. Section 6 presents the conclusions and policy recommendations. This article does not intend to showcase policy challenges, but instead uses the example of Peru to point to leverage points for an integrated view on national planning that can be applied to all other CBD parties.

2. Theoretical Framework

Hypothesis 1.

Reflecting Different Narratives in Biodiversity Reasoning.

The different components of biodiversity and ecosystem services are valued from a wide range of ecocentric and anthropocentric value systems [31,32] and are linked to different knowledge systems that shape the understanding and perception of biodiversity loss as a societal problem [33,34]. Environmental narratives explain human–nature relationships in a specific social and institutional context and thereby influence institutional arrangements and implementation [35,36]. Powerful actors influence these narratives according to their interests, and thereby they shape the justification and orientation of biodiversity governance [37]. Both the legitimacy of target definition and the accountability of actors for implementation depend on the extent to which stakeholders see their narratives reflected in the political framing [38,39].

The text of the convention specifically refers to the importance of indigenous and local knowledge [6] (Article 8j). This was also considered in Target 18 of the Strategic Plan 2011–2020 [40] and in the GBF, particularly in Target 22 on inclusive decision making [5]. Thus, society’s value systems and world views need to be reflected in NBSAPs as central instruments for national implementation.

Hypothesis 2.

Targeting Direct and Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss.

Biodiversity loss is caused by direct ecological changes (e.g., deforestation and climate-related changes), human activities (e.g., land-use change and mismanagement) and related political structures that both favour those activities and fail to regulate them effectively [1]. In Latin America, principal causes of biodiversity loss are linked to unsustainable economic growth patterns, demographic trends, and weak governance systems, as well as inequality and poverty linked to unsustainable resource extraction [4]. The Kunming Declaration at COP 15 pointed at the need to address drivers of biodiversity loss, as well as “underlying drivers of change” [41] (p. 2).

In this paper, I argue that the effectiveness of governance processes depends on their ability to identify and acknowledge causes of biodiversity loss and to link them to the specific social and political processes they are derived from [27]. The political acceptance of a measure by the political arena and society is conditioned by the recognition of a problem (input legitimacy), the way a policy is selected and implemented (throughput legitimacy) and by the impact the policy produces (output legitimacy) [38]. Accordingly, the effectiveness of an NBSAP depends on its potential to address causes and underlying drivers and to link them to potential policy responses. The policy responses can be evaluated by the extent to which they specify the policy or instrument (policy output), the way it is supposed to change the human behaviour causing biodiversity loss (social outcome) and the dimension in which the improved state of biodiversity will become measurable (ecological impact) [27].

Hypothesis 3.

Linking Objectives to Existing Institutional Structures.

Mainstreaming is a central challenge for NBSAPs [10]. NBSAPs have so far struggled to lead to institutional reconfigurations and integrated approaches to economic drivers [11,12]. To address this, existing relevant institutional structures need to be identified and revised to identify possible adjustments for strengthening collaborative and integrated solutions [15,20]. Thus, national biodiversity targets need to be connected to relevant policies and institutional arrangements, as effective implementation requires the assignation of distinct responsibilities [13]. To date, the level of policy integration into sector policies in Peru remains low [22] and institutional settings and policies continue to prioritise intensified, non-sustainable practices [23]. Biodiversity policies are bound to fail if they do not directly target the practices and the underlying support policies and discourses leading to threats to ecosystems and biodiversity [14,19]. Hence, biodiversity objectives need to be linked to existing institutional structures to facilitate mainstreaming and induce accountability.

Hypothesis 4.

Assuring Targeted Collaboration for Institutional Learning.

The mandate for NBSAPs is to coordinate the implementation of biodiversity targets across political sectors [6] (Article 6). In addition, non-governmental action such as individual projects, traditional practices and private initiatives promoting sustainable production can take over important functions in biodiversity governance [42]. Instead of a complementary collaboration between political and non-political actors, a responsibility gap has been identified, meaning that actors do not perceive themselves as accountable for implementing the objectives [13,22,23]. A key approach to integrating environmental aspects into other policy areas is therefore the creation of structures that facilitate exchange and cooperation between actors [21]. As actor constellations and complementary settings are key for biodiversity policy integration [22], I argue here that political arenas need to develop their social capital to support collaboration in policy design and implementation.

The concept of social capital assumes that social interaction and common rules increase the capacity of a governance system to achieve sustainable development, e.g., [43,44]. While experience from empirical studies has shown that an increase in social capital does not automatically lead to more effective environmental management [23,45], it is a prerequisite for constructive ideas to spread more rapidly and thus enable change and innovation in nature conservation [43,46]. The literature points out that social capital can lead to effective results if stakeholders benefit from cooperation and believe in common rules [45,46]. I assume here that social capital needs to be targeted to existing implementation in order to support the achievement of national targets.

3. Methodological Approach

This study uses the second Peruvian NBSAP from 2014 and its updated action plan from 2019 to analyse (1) biodiversity narratives in Peru, (2) the causes for biodiversity loss and (3) the integration of targets and sector policies. Additionally, it uses the documents of CONADIB from 2010 to 2019 to analyse (4) the orientation of social capital in the biodiversity commission. The methodological approach is guided by the four hypotheses derived from the literature. It comprises different steps, as explained below.

3.1. Analysis of Biodiversity Narratives

In the political discourse among conservationists in Peru, five characteristic narrative groups have been identified: biodiversity protectionists, traditionalists, capitalists, localists and pragmatists fundamentally differ in the way they perceive and address biodiversity loss [36]. While these narratives co-exist across stakeholder groups, there are predominant proponent profiles [36]. The protectionist narrative is concerned with the conservation of biodiversity apart from human use, such as in protected areas, and is applied mainly by ecologists working for international or national conservation organisations or the national government. The traditionalist narrative argues that indigenous communities and traditional practices are best suited to respect biodiversity values, mostly applied by indigenous organisations and civil society organisations. Capitalists argue that the economic potential is the most powerful argument for considering biodiversity in development decisions, mostly applied by representatives of national governments and international cooperation organisations. Localists critically reflect on how biodiversity conservation can be incorporated into different land-uses, taking into account multiple local interests, a problem mostly emerging for regional and local governments or local NGOs. Pragmatists argue that biodiversity should be integrated into individual policies according to the instruments in each of the political sectors, mostly national actors working in governments, NGOs or private organisations. These narratives were distinguished along with the respective perspectives on the principal aspects conceptualisation of biodiversity, participation and leadership roles, knowledge and value system and substitutability of natural capital and political strategy.

In a first analytical step, the strategy’s introduction was coded for these principal discursive aspects (see

Table 1. The narrative reflected in the introduction of the Peruvian NBSAP. The table identified central lines of argumentation for each of the principal discursive aspects and links them to the respective Peruvian Conservationist narrative it reflects (according to Zinngrebe 2016b [36]).

Principal Discursive Aspect	Central Lines of Argumentation	Dominant Narratives
Role of protected areas	Source of biodiversity-based ecosystem services	Capitalists
Role of local population	Local resource users with cultural practices	Pragmatists (Traditionalists)
Political level initiating change	International	Capitalists, Protectionists
Knowledge and value systems	Scientific survey of species diversity	Protectionists
Substitutability of natural capital	Substitutable (for economic benefits)	Capitalists
Dominant policy measure	Valorisation mechanisms	Capitalists
Land use planning	Primarily source of information	Capitalists

, additionally Supplementary Material S2 for detailed results). In a second step, these central lines of argumentation were categorised with respect to their correspondence to one of the five narratives. A narrative was regarded as dominant if more than a single statement positioning the NBSAP on an aspect could be assigned to this specific narrative. The quotations have been translated from Spanish. The page numbers refer to the page of the biodiversity strategy from which the quotation was taken.

3.2. Analysis of Causes for Biodiversity Loss

In a participatory process during the preparation of the new NBSAP in Peru, I asked 219 Peruvian experts from 20 political regions, working in 16 focus groups, to identify causes and effects of biodiversity loss [36]. The analysis of the empirical material with qualitative content analysis resulted in five main groups of causes: (1) changes in the natural environment, (2) economic land-use issues, (3) human expansion, (4) ignorance and unawareness, as well as (5) weak political structures. These categories are interdependent and can potentially refer to the same cause on different levels of abstraction. For instance, deforestation (change in the natural environment) can be land transformation and agricultural expansion (economic land-use issues), which again is connected to overall migration and population growth (human expansion). Using these groups as an analytical framework, I test in a first step to what extent the objectives and activities of the NBSAP, including the action plan 2014–2018 [28] and the updated action plan for the period 2018–2021 [29], explicitly address these causes (see Supplementary Material for the detailed analysis). In a second step, I analyse to what extent activities point to either studies (evaluation), the development of new institutions (policy output), desired behavioural changes (social outcomes) or direct aspired changes in biodiversity (ecological impacts, see

Table 2. The NBSAP’s activities categorised into the level of implementation they aim at.

	Categorised Objectives of Activities	Activities
		Action Plan 2014–2018		Action Plan 2019–2021
Evaluation	Studies, Evaluations	18%	53%	17%	55%
	Protocol, proposal, plan, guidelines	22%		11%
	Registry, Systemised data sets	13%		27%
Policy Output	Strengthening capacities	1%	29%	2%	28%
	Communication and knowledge transfer	10%		10%
	Development of political instruments	9%		9%
	Implementing programmes and projects	10%		7%
Social Outcome	Control mechanism will be implemented	6%	18%	4%	16%
	Train actors involved in biodiversity governance	5%		3%
	Implementation has started	6%		10%
	Aiming at an aspired behavioural change	0%		0%
Ecological Impact	Aiming at an aspired ecological change	0%	0%		0%
Total		100%	100%	100%	100%

).

3.3. Analysis of Integration of Targets and Sector Policies

Analysing Biodiversity Policy Integration (BPI) in Peru has shown that while biodiversity and environmental concerns have been acknowledged by most sectors, their level of operationalisation remains low [22]. Nonetheless, I identified key biodiversity instruments for each of the principal production sectors ([22], see

Table 3. Principle biodiversity instruments of key sectors (as identified by Zinngrebe 2018 [22]) and references to activities in the 2014–2018 action plan (A) and the 2019–2021 action plan (NA). (For exact wording see Supplementary Material Table S4).

	Ministry for Agriculture (MINAGRI)	Forestry Service (SERFOR)	Ministry for Economy and Finance (MEF)	Ministry for Energy and Mining (MINEM)	Ministry for Transport and Communication (MTC)	Ministry for Production (and Fishery) (PRODUCE)
Main Instruments and Strategies for considering biodiversity	EIAs for large projects, ex-situ conservation of crop-varieties	Concessions for forestry and agroforestry systems	Appraisal of ecosystem services in cost-benefit assessments of public spending	EIAs for large projects	EIA for infrastructure projects	Best practice rules, extraction quotas for large fishery, added value replacing quantity
Corresponding Activities in the Action plan 2014–2018	Establish mechanism for the supervision of genetic resources (A50)	Strengthening implementation of forestry plan (A35) Investments into forestry are strengthened (A40)	Adjust finance programmes to support in situ conservation (A16) Values for biodiversity shall be considered in national accounting (A42)	Develop a guide for best practices and cooperate practices for mining and gas companies (A70)	Study causes of ecosystem degradation and develop mitigation strategies (A73)	Finalise planning process for fishery sector (A15) Strengthen control mechanisms for commercial fishery (A87)
Corresponding Activities in the Action plan 2019–2021	Establish methodology for prioritising sites for agro-biodiversity conservation (NA2) Establish and validate methodology for sustainable practices in Amazon, Andean and/or coastal areas (NA55)	Advance and regularly update forest and wildlife inventories (NA3) Implement and monitor National Forestry and Wildlife Plan (NA57)	Identify public and private investment initiatives for at least four new biodiversity products with potential for competitive bio-businesses, prioritising initiatives by indigenous people and women (NA37) Training regional governments for the process of articulation to the budget programme for biodiversity and conservation (NA74)	As of the first half of 2021, the main threats associated with the degradation of ecosystems have been defined and characterised, and the level of their impact on ecosystems has been determined (NA58)		Starting the implementation of the coastal management plan (NA 4) Update procedures for controlling and monitoring the marketing of main hydrobiological resources (NA65)

). I assume that in order to give guidance for implementation, the NBSAP should reference those instruments and indicate targets for their performance. Table 3 gives an overview of the instruments of each of the sectors and assesses to what extent the action plans for the periods 2014–2018 and 2019–2021 have addressed them. In addition, I assume in this paper that the NBSAP should give guidance and indicate processes for making trade-off decisions and accommodate land- and resource-use interests. For this purpose, the analytical step consists of the identification and analysis of references to mechanisms and processes that coordinate biodiversity conservation with sectoral interests, such as Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEA) and spatial planning.

3.4. Assessing Collaboration in the Biodiversity Commission

Many competencies for biodiversity conservation in Peru are decentralised and managed by individual sectors. The National Commission for Biological Diversity (Comisión Nacional de Diversidad Biológica—CONADIB) has a mandate to coordinate the development and implementation of the NBSAP among sectors [30]. CONADIB is responsible for technical advice, monitoring and evaluation, as well as for the implementation of the biodiversity strategy. CONADIB is chaired by the Vice Minister for Environment and administered by the department for biodiversity. The analysis for this section is based on the CONADIB agendas (2010–2019) and participation lists (2015–2019) for sessions hosted by the Ministry for Environment [47].

In a first step, I analysed the attendance lists to evaluate if central political sectors are participating in the sessions. Participation of at least one representative of a Ministry or a subordinated agency from the respective sector was graded with “1”, no participation with “0”.

Table 4. Percentage of CONADIB sessions per year, at least one representative of a key Ministries participated in.

Year	No. of Sessions	Ministry for Agriculture	Forestry Service	Ministry for Economy and Finance	Ministry for Energy and Mining	Ministry for Transport and Communication	Ministry for Production (and Fishery)
2015	5	20%	40%	20%	40%	0%	60%
2016	9	44%	67%	0%	78%	33%	89%
2017	4	25%	100%	0%	75%	25%	100%
2018	6	67%	83%	33%	100%	0%	83%
2019	4	75%	50%	50%	75%	50%	100%
Total/Average	28	46%	68%	21%	74%	22%	86%

indicates the percentage of sessions representatives participated in. In a second analytical step, I grouped agenda items from each of the sessions into the categories (a) presentation of studies and experiences, (b) discussion of international negotiations, (c) development of planning processes and (d) implementation processes in order to assess the main focus of the platform’s activities and assessed in relation to the overall number of agenda items per year (see

Table 5. Overview on CONADIB conferences. Column 2 lists the number of conferences per year. Columns 3 to 6 divide the agenda items into four categories. The percentages indicate the share of agenda items per year, falling into the respective category. The grey shaded fields indicate the years the CBD hosted a Conference of the Parties requiring member states to prepare.

	Number of Formal Conferences	Presentation of Studies and Experiences	Discussion of International Negotiations	Development of Planning Processes	Implementation Processes
CONADIB			Focus CBD
2011	2	26%	33%	33%	8%
2012	11	25%	57%	12%	6%
2013	7	29%	23%	39%	9%
2014	13	23%	56%	15%	6%
2015	5	47%	26%	20%	7%
2016	9	32%	48%	12%	8%
2017	4	6%	41%	53%	0%
2018	6	11%	61%	17%	11%
2019	4 (until October)	25%	31%	31%	13%
Total	61	25%	42%	26%	7%

). Planning processes refer to the development of further strategies or plans, whereas implementation indicates the coordination of a specific policy or regulatory adjustment.

4. Results

4.1. Reflecting Different Narratives in Biodiversity Reasoning

The biodiversity narratives represented in the NBSAP (see Table 1) are dominated by the capitalist narrative. The strategy emphasises that “biodiversity was an essential part of natural capital and historically the basis and preservation of ‘our’ development” (p. 8). The economic potential offered by Peru’s biological diversity and its “comparative advantage” for the country’s sustainable development is stressed in various sections (e.g., p. 27).

Protected areas are seen as areas separated from human life in which the diversity of species must be protected according to the protectionist perspective. Protected areas are expected to generate ecosystem services through tourism and in situ protection of biodiversity components. Moreover, the ecosystem approach is solely applied to the management of protected areas. The NBSAP also takes up the traditionalist narrative by stating for example that “cultural diversity shapes parts of biodiversity” (p. 33) and that “resources of the sea and of flora and fauna have enabled the emergence and manifold establishment of cultures” (p. 33). However, this view focuses on the economic potential of traditional practices and does not refer to a linkage of local and indigenous knowledge with identity and self-perception of socio-ecological systems. The concept of landscape pursued by the localist narrative does not emerge. When conceptualising biodiversity threats, the strategy avoids talking about conflicting interests, pointing to illegal processes and the lack of institutionality as drivers instead, corresponding to the pragmatist narrative.

The strategy’s position on the local population stresses the importance of participation by all stakeholder groups, especially indigenous and local communities. The local population is presented here as a “user of resources with cultural practices” (p. 26), as argued in the narrative of the pragmatists. Local knowledge (traditionalists, p. 27) and the importance of the interest of use and the safeguarding of intellectual property (capitalists, p. 47) appear, but are less prominent. The political level to initiate change clearly points in a top-down direction. The justification refers to the CBD and its Aichi targets, the National Constitution (article 68 stating the need of conserving biodiversity) and the law for biodiversity [48]. The NBSAP primarily refers to value chains of biodiversity products and organic trade in a top-down perspective (p.15), corresponding to the capitalist narrative.

Several value systems are considered by the NBSAP, though with distinct roles. The sections on “management, investigation and knowledge on biodiversity” (p. 28) and the state of biodiversity primarily refers to biological-scientific categories, such as endemic species, genetic variability, or “life zones” (p. 22) and the need for education reflecting the protectionist narrative. When expressing the value of biodiversity per se, the strategy uses elements of the capitalist narrative, such as ecosystem services, “economic potential for sustainable development” and “natural capital” (p. 33). The traditionalist narrative and indigenous knowledge are framed as a “potential for sustaining local livelioods” (p. 43) and “economic potential” (p. 45). The framing of biodiversity as economic potential for current and future generations (p. 42) and the absence of a reference to ecological targets or limits identifies a soft concept of sustainability that allows natural capital to be substituted by other forms of capital.

The primary political strategy in the NBSAP focuses on individual instruments rather than on overall pathways, which corresponds to the pragmatist narrative. The strategy envisions new instruments such as “valuation of ecosystem services”, “positioning of sustainable enterprises” or “financing of forest protection projects” (p. 15) that mostly correspond to the capitalist narrative. The idea of spatial coordination is only specified in the marine context, linking spatial activities to a management plan and extraction rates (p. 26). In the terrestrial context, land-use planning is mainly seen as an analytical process of identifying potentials (activity 106, p. 60).

4.2. Targeting Causes and Underlying Causes of Biodiversity Loss

Most causes of biodiversity loss identified in the participatory process are addressed in the introduction of the NBSAP (see Table S2 in Supplementary Material S2). Powerful exceptions are in the group of causes relating to water issues, pollution and other aspects potentially related to mining activities. Another group of non-addressed threats are also interlinked, as they refer to agricultural expansion and urbanisation, land degradation and ecosystem fragmentation, in parts linked to the immigration into the Amazon region, as well as demographic growth. Other aspects not reflected by the NBSAP are overfishing and aspects linked to political structures, such as inappropriate policies or lack of political will.

When looking at the level of implementation activities are designed for, only 53% of those defined in the first action plan for 2014–2018 and 55% of those defined in the second from 2018 to 2021 are targeted at evaluations (Table 2). These include the provision of new information through studies, registries or guidelines to prepare for better political decisions or actions. Another 29% (28% in the new action plan) of the activities are targeted at a policy output, including the development of new monitoring mechanisms, new regulations or laws, or mechanisms for knowledge exchange and awareness raising. These activities are primarily targeted at developing new, non-existing policies, and call on other political sectors, regional and local governments, as well as other actors to develop their own instruments. The activities falling into the group of social outcomes comprise 18% (16% respectively) and specify how to improve implementation by “strengthening cooperation structures between sectors” (strategic objective 6), “starting the implementation of the coastal management plan” (new activity 5), or “effectively protect 17% of the terrestrial area” (new activity 67), with the latter directly referring to Aichi Target 11 [40]. While sub-target 8 aims at “increasing the effectiveness of control, supervision and enforcement in the use of biodiversity by 30% until 2018”, it does not specify how to assess “effectiveness”. An ecological impact is only specified by Target 7, aiming at a reduction in deforestation by 5% by 2021, though without linking any specific activities to it.

4.3. Linking Objectives and Targets to Existing Institutional Structures

Some of the NBSAP’s activities directly reference specific sectoral policy instruments and suggest measures to strengthen their performance (see Table 3). For instance, Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs) are key planning instruments to control and mitigate the effect of large projects in the sectors Energy & Mining, Transport & Communication and Agriculture. The action plan 2014–2018 aims at developing general biodiversity indicators to be considered in EIAs, while the action plan 2018–2021 plans to specify threats linked to ecosystem degradation. Other instruments, such as control instruments for forestry concessions or fisheries, shall be strengthened. However, there is no specifying criteria or indicators to assess their performance. In the sector for Economy and Finance, new mechanisms are supposed to facilitate funding for biodiversity and ecosystems services and promote public and private investments into sustainable use of biodiversity. However, no indicators or best practices standards are specified. Other policy instruments, such as a compensation mechanism for ecosystem services, are envisioned, but as in many of the other processes, no indication of an envisioned outcome is provided. Targets for small and artisanal extraction of timber, fishery, mining or agriculture are not defined, as they are in the responsibility of regional and local governments.

There are cross-references neither in the NBSAP to other relevant topics within the environmental sector (e.g., forestry, climate change, spatial planning) nor in other sectors, with the exception of the strategy for forests and climate change, indicating new monitoring mechanisms. The action plans highlight the need for stronger collaboration by calling for reporting mechanisms for regional and local governments, voluntary mechanisms to support private initiatives, support for integrative management, or an analysis of institutional capacities across the levels of government. The second action plan particularly indicates the need to provide training for regional governments and assess experiences with participatory governance. In the analysed documents, responsibilities for implementation are indicated by listing involved agencies. Specific roles and modes of interaction are not specified and related accountability frameworks remain undefined.

4.4. Targeted Collaboration Enables Institutional Learning Processes

Results show that in four to thirteen sessions per year, particularly agencies from the sectors agriculture, forestry, energy and mining, as well as production and fisheries have frequently participated in the sessions (see Table 4).

In 2018 and 2019, the participation of the Ministries for Economy & Finance and Transport & Communication has increased. Thematic working groups with experts from various governmental and non-governmental sectors are formed (or are already operating) to advance technical work including the development of monitoring and implementation strategies.

Agenda items in the years from 2011 to 2019 focus primarily on CBD related issues (43%), preparing planning or reporting documents for compliance with the convention (see Table 4). Particularly in the years when the Conferences of the Parties (COP) to the CBD took place, more than half of the agenda items were dedicated to coordinating Peru’s preparation. Other agenda items focus on the presentation of studies and experiences (25%) and further planning and coordinating processes (26%, see Table 5). By contrast, only 8% of the agenda items were related to implementation activities. These implementation items include preparation for the day of biodiversity, biosecurity and information exchange. Conservation policies are rarely discussed.

5. Discussion

Existing scientific efforts assessing the effectiveness of the biodiversity convention from a top-down perspective have managed to attest shortcomings in implementation, e.g., [49,50], however, this was without identifying specific levers for transforming these trends. By contrast, I argue that looking at local implementation challenges and using them in a bottom-up perspective can reveal powerful options for national strategies and actions. In this study, I neither claim to assess Peru’s biodiversity policy nor do I provide a comprehensive evaluation of its NBSAP. Instead, this paper looks at selected aspects of NBSAP design and collaborative structures between political sectors to identify an unused potential in four dimensions.

Compared to the biodiversity narratives found among Peruvian conservationists [27] the NBSAP mainly represents the capitalist and to some extent protectionist and pragmatist narrative. Interestingly, all of these narratives were introduced into the Peruvian discourse from the international level [51]. By contrast, particularly the localist narrative dealing with local implementation challenges is not reflected by the NBSAP’s concepts, pointing to a missing coordination of national biodiversity policy with representatives from regional and local governments. Due to the importance and the transformative potential of Indigenous and Local Knowledge (ILK) in CBD policies [52], national governance could go beyond participatory processes and integrate respective terminology and references, as reflected by the traditionalist narrative. The legitimacy of policies among stakeholders will depend on the reflection of their understanding of biodiversity governance [38]. If governance actors do not feel accountable for implementing the NBSAP, they will not engage in its implementation [39]. The current narrative rather reflects an orientation of the national strategy towards the international level than to local implementing agents. Although the MINAM is the central focal point for the NBSAP and the CBD, it will depend on regional and local initiatives and implementation to reach national targets. Accordingly, the perceived ownership of key stakeholders will depend on their inclusion in meaningful participatory processes and the reflection of their narratives in the line of argumentation of the final strategy.

Most causes for biodiversity loss are acknowledged by the NBSAP. However, even though the participatory process for the elaboration of the NBSAP linked key drivers of biodiversity loss to migration, mining, deforestation and land-use change, and overfishing [27], these were not addressed by the final NBSAP, revealing pressing gaps. In addition, there are incoherences among political strategies, as the NBSAP aims at reducing deforestation by 5% until 2021, the national development plan “bicenternario” speaks of reducing deforestation to zero by 2021, the multi-annual plan for agriculture until 2016 spoke of reducing 10%, while the national strategy for forests and climate change does not indicate a specific target. It will be important for the next NBSAP to include a more comprehensive vision for biodiversity conservation, as effective biodiversity conservation requires addressing direct and underlying causes of biodiversity loss in all levels of government [1].

The main share of the activities of the Peruvian action plans (73% of the first plan, 76% of the second) is oriented towards better-informed decision-making and calling actors to develop new policies. Only the remaining activities aim at improving implementation, though without qualifying how activities shall be implemented. For instance, no definition of effectiveness in the management of protected areas is given. The accountability frameworks for implementation can be strengthened if an NBSAP explains how targets and related actions are supposed to address social outcomes or ecological impacts, and if it specifies the responsibilities for specific actions (as envisioned by the concept of SMARTness (“SMART” refers to targets being specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic, and time-bound, see for instance [53])). Beyond the quantification of targets, it will be essential to overcome institutional fragmentation and dispersed action and to mobilise coherent action across sectors and actor groups [54]. Therefore, a stronger specification and alignment of implementation measures could facilitate and guide political action. As global targets by the CBD show a high level of abstraction, further guidance and technical support could focus on helping CBD Parties developing transformation pathways tailored to addressing their social–ecological dynamics and institutional settings.

The existing institutional framework and key policy instruments in productive sectors are only indirectly acknowledged by the Peruvian NBSAP. The strategy acknowledges key instruments in productive sectors but does not indicate targets and best practice standards for their implementation. Effective mainstreaming and accountable implementation structures, however, require revising and adjusting existing institutional structures [12,20]. Linking the future NBSAPs to policy sectors will not only help with overcoming responsibility gaps [13], but it will also further strengthen accountability frameworks among governance actors [54,55]. The NBSAP acknowledges the need for stronger collaboration and institutional linkages on many levels. The example of land-use planning in Peru however illustrates that technical processes are limited by missing regulatory frameworks and political support [27]. A future NBSAP could strengthen the links between targets and sector policies in order to explicitly acknowledge their interdependence and to specify performance standards and indicators for aspired social outcome and ecological impact.

CONADIB strengthens the social capital in the political arena by connecting agents governing key sectors for biodiversity governance, including agriculture, transport, mining and fisheries. The sudden increase of participation of the Ministry for Finance (MEF) as well as the development of the ecosystem service valuation manual could indicate a higher importance of financing and valuation in biodiversity policy, reflecting a similar development in international debates around CBD processes. The strong participation of governmental and non-governmental agents in the national biodiversity commission CONADIB indicates a strong social capital in Peruvian biodiversity governance [22,46]. This capital could be used to strengthen collaborative implementation and to join forces for institutional learning processes. However, to date, meetings are primarily dedicated to preparing for CBD events and reporting, as well as exchanging background information. It has to be acknowledged that the personnel responsible for organising CONADIB sessions is very limited and that its primary mandate is to coordinate Peru’s position for CBD processes. Instead, adjusting the political mandate, CONADIB could prioritise its work on implementation and could contribute to biodiversity policy integration and sector coordination. This would require the reallocation of capacities and political commitments by all political sectors. This again will depend on the legal status of both biodiversity strategy and commission, as well as the manner and legal rigour with which the “whole of government” approach [5] is interpreted. Thus, existing social capital can be harnessed for concrete action by dedicating more time and resources of CONADIB to these implementation processes.

6. Conclusions and Policy Recommendations

National governments have a central responsibility to build bridges between global targets and the national and sub-national policy. Equipped with a political mandate, they can do a lot to implement future biodiversity agendas and meet national and global targets. In comparison to the absence of specific actions in the first Peruvian NBSAP from 2001, the second NBSAP adopted in 2014 has advanced its level of operationalisation by defining 147 specific activities, indicators to measure progress and responsibilities for implementation. However, Peru’s biodiversity strategy still compiles a collection of many small projects, studies and activities that fail to project a coherent vision for biodiversity as part of Peru’s development.

The analysis of the NBSAP’s structure as well as the organisation of the intersectoral Biodiversity Commission CONADIB in Peru indicate that the primary objective is to comply with the international commitments instead of prioritizing and guiding implementation. As a consequence, some key causes of biodiversity loss are not addressed and the strategic orientation of the NBSAP is disconnected from existing institutional settings and key policies governing biodiversity in Peru. This stands in stark contrast to the mandate for NBSAPs, as stated in the CBD ([6], article 6a). After almost 30 years of the entry into force of the CBD, member states still treat biodiversity as a segregated add-on to national policy and fail to mainstream targets into related governance structures. Conversely, transforming trajectories of biodiversity loss and related policy failures will only be possible with a strong commitment by all sectors and agents taking decisions on the use of ecosystems and derived natural resources and services.

As confirmed by this study, top-down NBSAPs only result in a rudimental sectoral biodiversity policy integration [12,22], will continue to produce responsibility gaps between sector policies [13], and fall short in producing stronger accountability frameworks [15,16]. To reverse these trends, I developed the following recommendations:

• The narratives in the NBSAP have to reflect biodiversity concepts of all governance actors to be perceived as legitimate within a specific context and thereby induce accountability and ownership of key stakeholders to engage in implementation.
• Clusters of underlying causes of biodiversity loss should be directly addressed and transformed into a coherent strategy for the development of the respective sector, acknowledging all existing regulatory processes.
• In order to effectively operationalise the NBSAP, targets and activities should be defined in relation to existing institutional settings. The NBSAP can define best practice guidelines and give orientation for implementation.
• The importance of implementation and the coordination of related policy processes should receive a higher priority and be reflected in the allocation of staff time and resources.