First International Meeting

First International Meeting and in-person launch of the interregional cooperation initiative

“CiBioGO – Citizen Participation in Biodiversity Governance”

Venue: Provincial Council Room and MCR2030 Resilience HUB, Piazza Mario Pagano, Potenza, Italy

The idea of CIBIOGO is to influence regional/territorial policy for the pro-active engagement of citizens in the governance of biodiversity and the sustainable management of ecosystem services through an integrated approach. The participatory governance proposed by CIBIOGO refers to the process of enabling citizens to be more participatory in public decision-making and is seen as a tool to address issues related to the disillusionment of democracy and to improve public accountability and the provision of public services.

While not an innovative phenomenon in itself, as many governments and projects have experimented with a number of innovative practices to expand mechanisms for citizen participation in governance that go beyond voting in elections, it is necessary to overcome public apathy towards of involvement in the decision-making process is a challenge that requires further attention, especially when dealing with governance and land use.

Greater citizen participation in policies and decision-making processes on the governance and use of the territory is one of the main strategic objectives of the Province of Potenza. Greater citizen participation in biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services provides an innovative approach to biodiversity governance. This should include a shift from a top-down administrative understanding of decision-making to a flexible range of bottom-up approaches, together with a shift towards improving public action related to biodiversity through developing a framework to bridge communication issues between policy makers, scientists and citizens, and moving from a single conservation objective to a “goods and services” approach on ecosystem services and nature protection.

These measures can reduce the gap between the rhetoric of public participation and the actual implementation of participatory biodiversity and ecosystem services governance. Research on barriers to large-scale public participation in the governance of biodiversity and ecosystem services indicates that issues of power relations, lack of deliberative motivation and instrumental reasons have been the main drivers of changing patterns of participation. Using existing research, decision makers can build on existing knowledge and tools to overcome these barriers.

The general objective of CIBIOGO, therefore, consists in the improvement of policy-making tools to increase the inclusive governance of biodiversity and in the sustainable management of ecosystem services and is implemented as part of the initiatives conducted by the Resilience HUB of the Province of Potenza capitalized in the broader MCR2030 initiative on territorial resilience.