Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Biodiversity resources know-no-boundaries and are therefore a composite of international, regional, national, and local decision rules. Activities considered useful in facilitating or hampering biodiversity protection are complex and cut across economic and non-economic factors. Economic factors are comprised of monetary related opportunity costs while non-economic factors include education and the simple belief in the efficacy of biodiversity. These are large scale activities grounded on so many different interests and contributions from each country and conservation organizations. When there are many and different stakeholders, it is difficult to develop a joint action and the only way of ever getting to some agreement on any policy is through bargaining and persuasion. The challenge with biodiversity protection when decisions are made through bargaining and persuasion is that stakeholders otherwise referred to as players from now on, count more on what they might lose individually than what is to be gained collectively. Players representing highest consumers of biological resources follow a sincere strategy that is consistent with their own preference ordering. Countries are interested in advancing strategies that specifically benefit their own citizens regardless of whether they hurt other countries. This is more so especially when there is incomplete information and players have no other basis for selecting a strategy other than their preference order (Zagare, 1984).

Conservation of biological resources cannot be achieved through players following their individual preferences. National Biodiversity Strategy Action Plans (NBSAPs) from 16 countries, four from each continent are analyzed to identify substantive issues that have formed the basis of ongoing negotiations, goals and expected outcomes of each country’s conservation plans. There are considerable differences within and between countries with respect of how possible losses and benefits are determined. The study has undertaken a deeper and broad inquiry into the underlying characteristics of the stakeholder values and decision rules using game theory to expand the scope and analysis of the players involved. Broadly speaking, there are three decision rules or expected outcomes: Stalemate (D_r1), Compromise (D_r2) and Unanimous (D_r3) . The stalemate (D_r1) outcome is when each country decides what is best for itself and follows through to implement a strategy that is beneficial only to its citizens. A compromise (D_r2) strategy arises when decisions are made where players agree to lose some benefits for others to gain. A unanimous (D_r3) outcome is one where decisions that offer the most desired conservation outcomes are agreed upon. Biodiversity protection negotiations have effectively moved beyond D_r1 as more than 190 countries have signed onto the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) to D_r2. The study has examined the decision rules that are hampering countries from moving from D_r2 to D_r3. Within individual countries, it is expected that D_r1, D_r2 and D_r3 still exist. Strategies developed by international players are tested within countries. Preliminary findings show that compromised strategies fall short of desired biodiversity protection outcomes and movement towards a unanimous agreement is a very difficult task.