Mid Sweden University

The mutual relationship between the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and land use, zoning and planning law is quite apparent. “Positive” interactions, namely win‐win situations are of particular interest in this context. Less apparent is what the implementation of the CBD concretely contributes –unidirectionally – to enhancing land use, zoning and planning law. Particularly, issues of causality of such a potential influence regarding goal and target setting in connection with the implementation of the CBD are hardly taken into consideration. This presentation assesses how the implementation of the CBD contributes to enhanced land use, zoning and planning law (de lege lata) and how far could it contribute (de lege ferenda). One hypothesis in this context would be that in countries/regions with well‐established conservation legislation, the impact of the CBD on land use, planning & zoning law is low or even negligible. While in other countries/regions it is high/considerable (and these are usually the countries with a higher rate of biodiversity). The methodology applied is implemented twofold and consecutively interconnected. First, in order to receive a rough overview in qualitative and quantitative terms of UN‐documents, the UN‐online search tool InforMEA was used by inserting different combinations of the relevant terms in connection with the CBD. A similar keyword search in the two internationally leading data bases ‐ Web of Science and Scopus‐ was carried out to get the scientific perspective on the influence of the CBD on national implementation, and to identify best practice examples.The current analysis indicates mixed conclusions. The quantitative analysis by means of the InforMEA database leaves the impression that the search tool in connection with the Adobe Reader DC is only able to bring approximate and unreliable results. The quantitative assessment by means of the CBD database of national reports and NBSAPs also arrives at similar results. The overall results from the literature review indicate that the CBD impacts developing countries and certain “overdeveloped” countries, particularly when other international commitments are widely lacking. Overall, the findings indicate that the implementation of the CBD contributes to enhanced land use,zoning and planning law (de lege lata) and there are many proposals in the literature on how this contribution could be enhanced (de lege ferenda). More research could be put into the quantitative side of the implementation of the CBD towards improved land use laws, zoning law and planning law. Additionally, more evidence of the causality between actions taken at the national level and the goals, targets and actions required under the CBD.

The presentation has its focus on SDG 15.5 “Take urgent and significant action to reduce the degradation of natural habitats, halt the loss of biodiversity and, by 2020, protect and prevent the extinction of threatened species”.