Unfolding the organised irresponsibility: Ecosystem approach and the quest for forest biodiversity in Finland, Peru, and Russia

The decline of biological diversity is one of the major global concerns of our time. Despite all the efforts over the past 15 years since the Rio Summit, we have seen no improvement in the state of biodiversity; in fact, if anything, the decline has accelerated. The paper argues that problematic institutional incentive structures are an important contributing factor that aggravates biodiversity crisis worldwide. In this, countries do differ from each other, but in essence biodiversity loss has become more severe because of the empty status function for biodiversity and the organised irresponsibility allowed by erroneous natural resources policies not able to reasonably and efficiently address the interlinkedness of human and ecological systems. The paper uses Finland, Peru, and Russia as examples. The paper concludes by offering an explanatory hypothesis how slowly acknowledged significance of ecosystem functions and, consequently, ecosystem approach is initiating changes in the governance principles of forest resources in these three countries – and why.

Research highlights▶ The forest biodiversity related institutional setup is becoming more thoroughly organized and liberty-oriented in Finland, Peru, and Russia. ▶ The workability of new incentive structures builds on civic commitment to their purpose and civic acknowledgement of their legitimacy. ▶ A success of biodiversity protection, which is a matter of assignment of status function to ecosystem function, though exercised from above, comes from below.