Abstract
The current biodiversity crisis demonstrates that biodiversity protection must go beyond national boundaries to embrace a more holistic vision of ecosystems and nature protection. The TRANSNATURE project explores the transboundary governance of biodiversity in Europe. Through a comparison of four selected case studies, the project examines how transboundary biodiversity governance incorporates different stakeholders and how cooperation mechanisms among these stakeholders can improve biodiversity conservation. These cases are: (1) the cooperation between subnational authorities and local communities in the framework of the EGTC ZASNET concerning the Meseta Ibérica located at the border between Spain and Portugal; (2) the increasingly more formalized collaboration between the regional park Prealpi Giulie and the national Triglav park at the borders between Italy and Slovenia; (3) the treaty-based cooperation in the Scheldt Estuary between the Netherlands and Belgium explicitly balancing biodiversity-related and economic concerns; and (4) the different cooperation schemes implemented in an area of Lapland going from the Baltic to the Barents (Finland/Sweden/Norway), involving multilateral parks and indigenous peoples. After a very short introduction of the cases, this presentation will focus on the IT/SI and the BE/NL case studies. First, the presentation will discuss the main formal and informal cooperation mechanisms in place to ensure transboundary biodiversity protection. After that, it will discuss what the main obstacles to transboundary biodiversity cooperation in the case studies as well as identify good practices. Finally, the presentation will discuss how these lessons learned can be relevant for the governance of other transboundary biodiversity.