Planning for Implementation: Shifting the Focus of National Biodiversity Strategies to Local Narratives, Existing Institutional Settings and Social Capital

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has repeatedly failed to meet its global targets in 2010 and 2020, pointing to persistent obstacles to implementation. National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) are the central instrument for translating global targets into actions across sectors and levels of government, also referred to as mainstreaming. This paper focuses on Peru as a case study to analyse to what extent NBSAPs are capable of addressing context-specific implementation challenges. It develops an analytical framework based on the literature on conservation governance in Peru to analyse to what extent the NBSAP from 2014 and the action plan from 2019 (1) reflect national biodiversity narratives; (2) address dominant causes of biodiversity loss; (3) link targets to sector-specific institutions and processes; and (4) to what extent the Peruvian National Commission for Biological Diversity builds social capital for implementation. The results indicate that the NBSAP (1) is dominated by a capitalist narrative focussing on economic values of biodiversity while giving less importance to other, particularly local narratives; (2) addresses most direct causes, but fails to operationalise its targets into conservation action; (3) has not been designed to connect and guide relevant sector policies, such as environmental impact assessments or agricultural policies; and (4) the strong participation in the commission for biodiversity is not used to foster implementation, but mostly on CBD reporting and planning. Thus, addressing these challenges provides powerful levers for how to harness the NBSAPs’ potential to mainstream biodiversity and increase their relevance for mobilising and guiding implementation and stimulate institutional learning.