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This paper demonstrates from an economic point of view what characterises rational biodiversity conservation efforts, why the present methods for the conservation of biodiversity are not rational, and what measures should be taken to change this state. This economical approach is demonstrated by analysing international policy mechanisms used for the avoidance of one of the internationally greatest ecological risks — the continuing loss of global biodiversity. The international environmental policy is formed by sovereign states which cannot order each other to take certain measures. Rather, they must choose different ways to influence global biodiversity conservation. The states must choose to realise this conservation either by unilateral or international agreement. In Sect. 6 and 7 each of these possibilities is analysed as to the extent to which it is used in international biodiversity conservation policy. Further, it is explained from an economical point of view how well the central task of international policy measure, e.g., the internalisation of international external benefits and costs, is fulfilled.

The contribution concerns the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) and the provision of money for biodiversity protection in developing countries. The CBD proposes a solution to solve the problem of insufficient biodiversity protection in developing countries: the contracting developed country parties have committed themselves to provide »new and additional financial resources« to developing countries in order to enable them to protect their own biodiversity (Article 20). This contribution describes what is understood as an economic analysis and an economic perspective. Biodiversity services are considered as global public goods. The problem of providing these goods is explained. Articles 20 and 21 are presented as a solution to the market failure problem of providing global public goods. The following questions are examined: (1) Do the new and additional financial resources provided through GEF lead to an appropriate level of biodiversity protection? (2) Will the negotiations lead to an appropriate level of biodiversity protection? To answer the first question, estimated costs for biodiversity protection and actual spending of the GEF are compared. With regard to the second question, the replenishment regulations are analysed. Both of these considerations lead to the hypothesis that the actual regulations lead to an undersupply of global biodiversity protection. It is argued that the economic criterion for the amounts of money provided by the industrialised countries should equal the benefits derived from biodiversity protection. To corroborate the hypothesis a contingent valuation study and its results are presented. The results of the survey are compared to the actual spending of the GEF. They support the assumption that the request for global biodiversity protection is definitely higher than the actual spending of the GEF.

The rise of modern biotechnology during the 1980s has been associated with various hopes in different fields. At the same time however, this development has also raised serious concerns. To control the risks which this technology might pose to the environment, the international community addressed the issue of biosafety in the Convention of Biological Diversity. As the Convention's general obligations were considered insufficient, states agreed to regulate the field of biosafety in a specific treaty, the Cartagena Protocol which was signed in January 2000 and came into force in September 2003. The Cartagena Protocol focuses on the regulation of trade in LMOs. This has recently triggerd a heated debated in international law about the question of the Protocol's relation to other international trade regulations, specifically to WTO law. While this question considers the Cartagena Protocol essentially from a trade perspective, this contribution approaches the Protocol from a more environmental perspective and asks whether the focus on trade constitutes an efficient mechanism to regulate biotechnology and whether the instruments which the Protocol provides for this regulation are adequate. To answer these questions, the contribution describes the risks and benefits associated with biotechnology to clarify the regulatory object of the Protocol and undertakes a detailed analysis of the central provisions of the Protocol and their functions. Based on this this contribution comes to two conclusions: first, if risks to the biological diversity should occur, these will not be limited to the country in which the LMO was released as an unintentional transboundary movement of these organisms will be hardly avoidable. As a result, the focus on the transboundary pollution caused by trade is insufficient. Second, if one considers the efficacy of the trade measures as such, one can note that the flow of information especially from developed to developing countries will strengthen the decision-making capacities of developing countries and will thus contribute to a heightened ability of these countries to exercise, in practice, their sovereignty with regard to imports of LMOs. Summing up, one can therefore state that the Cartagena Protocol represents some amelioration with regard to the status quo ante, that the concept of the focus on trade as well as the way in which the AIA regulates this trade, however, remains behind what would have been desirable from an environmental point of view.

The declaration of protected areas is the most important policy instrument in nature conservation worldwide. Using the policy window approach developed by John Kingdon (cp. Kingdon 1984), this contribution deals with the conditions under which it is politically feasible to place comparatively large areas of land under protection. We compare the case of East Germany, as example of an industrialized country, and Guatemala, as an example of a developing country. The policy window approach stipulates an analysis that distinguishes between problem stream, policy steam and politics stream, and places attention on the coupling of these streams by political entrepreneurs and their ability to make use of windows of opportunity. Our comparative study of East Germany and Guatemala shows that in spite of country-specific differences a fundamental change of the political regime, the formation of a conservation movement and the development of policy options under the prior regime made it possible in both cases to place a comparatively large proportion of the country under protection in a short period of time. Further conditions were political entrepreneurship of leaders in the conservation movement as well as international support. Our study shows that this analytical approach provides valuable insights for the analysis of important events in conservation policy as there is a growing need to better understand the political conditions under which protected areas are being implemented.

It is an implicit goal of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the hope of some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that the conservation of biodiversity will become a major issue on the agenda of industrial companies. I will show that this development is not something one could only hope for but that these dynamics follow a mechanism, which in principle can be modelled, explored, explained and, last but not least, influenced. Here the first prototypical model of this mechanism is specified. The main feature of this specification is the so called >diffusion of associations< mechanism. This mechanism has the public, the legislature, NGOs and pro-biodiversely acting companies as its determining players. Finally the approach presented here offers another alternative evaluation method for biodiversity using multiagent based social simulation techniques.

Germany is a small, densely populated country with necessity for agriculture, significant pressure on natural habitats and a high proportion of manmade open habitats. About 80.000 species of plants and animals exist in a diverse landscape with much anthropogenic disturbance of different kinds. Few endemic species occur; no hot spots of species diversity had developed. Thus the Central European region is a complex, in many parts steadily changing container filled with the biota. The population dynamics of the species is largely shaped by habitat fragmentation and by a dynamic subpopulation structure with distribution on habitat islands and by much influence of disturbance and stochasticity. I suggest a triple approach to the preservation of biodiversity — conservation of species and of habitats (with the problem of defining priorities and designing action plans) and a landscape/habitat/species or >comprehensive< approach with the focus on the maintenance and enhancement of the diversity of the (natural and cultural) landscape.

The declaration of rural areas which are valuable in an nature conservative context to national parks has been an important instrument for the protection of nature for a long time. Originated in the USA, the national park model has spread across the entire world. However, the same environmental circumstances as those existing in the USA do not predominate everywhere. Consequently, the US-American concept is not appropriate for many countries.

In the meantime fifteen national parks have also been established in Germany. In this context, the legal prerequisites for the designation of national parks in Germany are not always undisputed. Above all, the fact that Germany, as a densely settled country, no longer has the requisite extensive and pristine natural landscape causes problems. This contentious question culminated in the court case of the National Park, which had already been established, with the result that the declaration of protection was rescinded. This problem is symptomatical for other national parks in Germany, e.g. the National Park, the German investigative area of the DFG Graduate Training Programme. As a consequence of this, the German federal legislators have eased the legal prerequisites for the establishment of national parks. To begin with, this contribution presents the currently valid preconditions for the designation of national parks in Germany.

Since the concept of national parks has meanwhile become established world-wide, standards for national parks have been developed on an international level. As an integral contribution within its sphere of competence, the IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas promotes the establishment and the effective management of a world-wide representative network of protected areas. In the course of this task the IUCN worked out a definition and criteria for the national park protection category in good time and ratified a resolution on them at its 10th General Assembly in 1969. The Federal Republic of Germany, as an IUCN contract state, is bound by this resolution. As a consequence, the question as to whether the new statutory regulation still conforms to these international requirements will be positively answered.

Studies on insect and amphibian communities as well as on selected meadow bird species were carried out in the floodplain of the Lower Oder Valley National Park. The aim of these three studies was to analyse the effects of the present land use and management of the flooding regime on the selected species. The floodplain mainly consists of grassland habitats. Parts of the grassland are extensively used for farming whereas other parts were taken out of use in 1995. Currently, dykes bordering the river Oder prevent natural inundation of the floodplain during the summer months. During winter, floodgates, that are integrated into the dykes, stay open. Thus, the typical winter flooding can inundate the floodplain. The national park is still in the developmental stage. In plans for the future development of the national park, two main conservation strategies are discussed. On one hand conservation management is proposed with the aim to preserve and generate suitable habitats for the selected target species, corncrake (). On the other hand, process conservation is suggested intending to create habitats suitable for the typical wetland fauna and flora by leaving some areas to natural processes and succession. On the basis of the three case studies the effects of the two conservation strategies on the selected taxa are discussed. On one hand Auchenorrhyncha and Anura will not necessarily benefit from conservation effort carried out for the benefit of the target species corncrake. These results call the selection of the corncrake as umbrella species into question. On the other hand, conservation of processes negatively affects corncrake populations while the anuran community is neither positively nor negatively affected and insect communities benefit from the conservation strategy.

The importance of ecosystem functions for humankind is well known. But only few attempts have been undertaken to estimate the economic value of these ecosystem services. In particular, indirect methods are rarely used, even though they are most suitable for the task. This discrepancy is because quantitative knowledge of changes in ecosystem functions is scarce. This paper presents a user-friendly procedure to quantify the increased N-retention in a renaturated river using easily available data. In a case study of the renaturated River Jossa (Germany) the benefits of increased nitrogen retention caused by beaver reintroduction are determined by using the replacement cost method. The quantification of chemical processes is discussed in detail, as well as the problems of defining an adequate reference scenario for the substitute costs. Results show that economic benefits from the evaluated ecosystem service (€12,000/annum) equal 12% of the total costs of the corresponding conservation scheme.

In the stress field between World Trade Organization (WTO) policies to reduce agricultural overproduction and the public desire to preserve agricultural landscapes, secure the livelihood of inhabitants of rural regions in Germany and at the same time, to foster biodiversity and conservation issues in agriculture, agri-environmental payment schemes seem to be a promising perspective for agriculture in the decades to come. How can these schemes be designed and implemented in a way that ensures sustainability? This contribution resumes the results of a case study on a rural region of central Germany with regard to public demand for environmental services of agriculture. The population's willingness to pay for a specific ecological good was elicited by means of a contingent valuation survey. At the same time, the motivation of the local population to participate in this survey as an instrument of public decision making was evaluated. The contribution concludes discussing the suitability of the contingent valuation method and complementary techniques as an approach to sustainable policy making that takes into consideration ecological, economic and social criteria alike.