Institutional innovation in conservation law: Experiences from the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives in the Netherlands

In 2016, the Fitness Check of the EU Birds and Habitats Directives concluded that, in order to reach their most important objectives, the implementation of both directives needed to be improved. This paper analyses the institutional changes that characterise the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives in the Netherlands. These institutional changes include revisions of the rules embedded in Dutch nature conservation law, the introduction of new policy instruments, and the emergence of widely shared concepts and additional norms and rules that are used in decision-making procedures. In the first phase of the implementation of these directives, their legal requirements were integrated into national laws. In later years, national aims and rules were gradually removed from conservation law, and new instruments and rules were added. The analysis shows that most important drivers for institutional change were a discourse focusing on ways to stretch the legal requirements of the two directives and the interpretation of key concepts and rules that emerged in assessment and decision-making procedures and court rulings. In sum, these institutional changes have not improved the implementation of the Birds and Habitats Directives and have made it more difficult to ensure the sustainable conservation of species and their habitats in the Netherlands.