The political scientist Ass.Prof. Dr. Alice Vadrot was practically born with a love of nature. Her research offers solutions on how environmental and nature conservation issues can be communicated and implemented in politics. In Austria, she is involved in the Biodiversity Council to promote a broader knowledge of the diversity of nature.
Dr. Alice Vadrot,you are a political scientist, but you are committed to environmental issues and biodiversity, how did that come about?
As a child, I spent many summers on my grandparents' farm in the Nockberge mountains. In everyday life and on long hikes, my grandmother taught me about biodiversity and explained many phenomena to me that seemed like small miracles. Years ago, my grandmother described and interpreted changes that are now scientifically substantiated as climate change or species extinction.
As a political scientist, I am particularly interested in the question of how scientific and non-scientific knowledge can be made useful for the protection of nature and what selectivities arise in this process. Not all knowledge is considered legitimate to represent nature or to underpin political decisions that may have a negative or positive effect on our environment. In this sense, knowledge about nature is always political.
Inan international study, you and your colleagues investigated the obstacles to the introduction of protective measures by policymakers. You discovered that they are similar worldwide. What solutions do you see?
That's right. We were able to establish that there is a consensus that the priority and legitimacy of environmental protection and nature conservation must be increased in politics and among the public. Environmental protection and nature conservation must not be ground down on the periphery of day-to-day politics. Before the survey, we had assumed that the barriers could lie in communication between science, politics and practice. However, the respondents' assessment showed that communication actually works very well and that the foundations for evidence-based environmental policy are certainly in place. The problem lies in the fact that the population does not sufficiently demand environmental protection and nature conservation, which is also reflected in voting behavior.
We must therefore first and foremost appeal to people's "hearts and minds" so that nature conservation measures are implemented more effectively.
The developments of recent months show that we are not wrong: the "Fridays for Future" movement has re-politicized climate change, raised awareness of the problem and given new legitimacy to scientific knowledge about climate change.
Howcan scientists make their voices heard in politics? When is the right time to approach politicians?
Basically, this depends on the respective political system and the political and scientific culture in a country. Austria does not have a long tradition of formalized scientific policy advice in parliament, such as the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology (POST) in the UK and the Office of Technology Assessment at the German Bundestag (TAB) in Germany. Scientists can, however, get involved in the public review of laws or in hearings. However, this requires close attention to what is happening in parliament and appropriate networks with political decision-makers.
Against this background, we argue that scientists who want to make a contribution need to know about the political process, the structures and the content of environmental policy. Only then can they assess when their knowledge becomes relevant and how they can contribute it.
This is precisely why it is important in Austria to keep an eye on international processes and to make use of windows that arise internationally through the thematization or politicization of environmental issues.
The completion of the global report on species extinction, for example (LINK Worth knowing), has opened a window to put the issue on the national agenda and demand action from the government so that the international goals can be achieved.
There are also many opportunities at a local level, for example by participating in the preparation of expert reports that map the ecological impact of infrastructure projects and make it visible to the general public. The developments surrounding the third runway have shown how difficult and lengthy such processes can be and how little scientific expertise is listened to.
Doyou have a personal experience where you were able to influence politics as a scientist?
A few years ago, I was the lead author of a TAB report. The topic was the significance and implementation of the concept of ecosystem services in German nature conservation policy. The concept, which emphasizes the benefits that people derive from ecosystems, had gained new momentum at the time and was seen by many scientists as a way of mapping the social relevance of nature in economic terms and making the costs of inaction tangible.
It was important to me that not only the positive but also the possible negative effects of the concept were depicted, which was ultimately successful. In the Global South in particular, the concept is also used to legitimize reorganizations in land and resource use, sometimes even dispossessing local communities and effectively excluding them from the use of certain resources that are vital for survival.
On a more abstract level, too, we need to ask ourselves whether portraying nature as a service provider is the right way to achieve an ecologically sustainable society or whether there are other ways to establish environmental protection and nature conservation as priorities.
In 2014, you published a book analyzing the creation of the World Biodiversity Council (IPBES). Why has the call for a council been growing among scientists? Did the World Biodiversity Council fill a hole that had existed for a long time?
In a way, yes. The 1992 Earth Summit resulted in the establishment of the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Framework Convention on Climate Change. While climate science was already speaking with a more or less united voice and had an institutional framework at its disposal with the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988, the biodiversity community was lagging behind.
The lack of internationally pooled scientific findings on species decline has long been seen as the reason for the low priority of the topic and the implementation deficit of the Convention on Biological Diversity. The idea of establishing a World Biodiversity Council gained new momentum around 2005 and after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA). The MA closely linked biodiversity to the concept of ecosystem services and emphasized the link between species decline and human well-being. Coupled with the idea of an institutional framework that would enable the formal recognition of the reports by policy makers, the Biodiversity Council was born.
It also recognized the central role of local and indigenous knowledge for the protection of biodiversity from the outset. In this, it differs significantly from the IPCC and provides a new model for global knowledge production.
Youyourself are now a member of the newly founded Austrian Biodiversity Council. What is your role?
I am currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Board. In particular, I would like to work to strengthen interdisciplinarity in biodiversity research and increase the social and political relevance of research. I am also keen to highlight the contribution that the social sciences can make by identifying and analyzing the social and political causes of environmental problems.
Whatare the next projects or goals of the Austrian Biodiversity Council?
The most important goal of the platform is to make a significant contribution to the conservation of biodiversity. This is to be achieved by better bundling, presentation and representation of the science and data available on biodiversity in Austria. On this basis, not only science, but also the interface between science, politics and society should be strengthened. To this end, it is essential to combine existing scientific knowledge, make it visible and communicate it to the public.
Whatelse would you like to tell our readers?
It is important for me to emphasize that knowledge about nature is not only important in a scientific context, but should also play a greater role both in educational institutions and in everyone's everyday life.
About Alice Vadrot
Alice Vadrot is Assistant Professor of International Politics at the University of Vienna. She conducts research on the role of science in international environmental policy and has investigated the history and functioning of the World Biodiversity Council. Since November 2018, she has been leading a 5-year research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with EUR 1.4 million, in which she and her team are developing an empirical approach to researching the role of science in international marine conservation policy (www.maripoldata.eu).
