Episode 3 - Policy to Practice, Regulatory Instruments in the EU

00:00:00: Hello and welcome to the third episode of European Land Use Talks, a mini-podcast series of The Horizon Europe Project Europe Land.

00:00:07: We're happy you are here!

00:00:08: On this podcast we talk about anything land use in biodiversity related whilst sharing our project progress.

00:00:14: My name is Megan Kerling And I'm the communications manager for the project from Hamburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.

00:00:33: Today we're excited to share with you our interview with Joanna Adus, Professor of Social Science at Urepland Partner University Bialystok University of Technology in Poland.

00:00:42: Together with her team, Joanna recently published deliverable three point one providing a comprehensive analysis of the policy instruments employed across a set of EU member states to influence land use decisions.

00:00:54: The teams report categorizes describes and compares existing national level regulatory instruments highlighting their roles in promoting sustainable land management practices.

00:01:03: It underscores the role of tailored policies with national contexts to achieve desired outcomes and highlights the multi-faceted nature of land use policy tools, emphasizing their critical role in addressing climate and biodiversity challenges within agricultural and forestry sectors.

00:01:19: Now let's meet Joanna!

00:01:22: My name is Joanna Aydes I'm professor of social science And i represent Bialystok University of Technology in Poland And we are one of the partners for Europlan project.

00:01:35: So, you guys recently as your team published deliverable three.

00:01:39: point-one which was taking a look at all of the policy instruments across set of EU member states and so I'm curious in this report your analysis differentiated among different categories namely regulatory economic informational involuntary instruments.

00:01:56: Which of these categories appear to be most important to your team?

00:02:00: Why do think that?

00:02:01: Let's start with very short definition of policy instruments?

00:02:05: because we defined them asset tool by which directly on indirectly different state institutions or other organisations can influence the behaviour of enterprises, citizens and to achieve policy connected with agriculture forestry biodiversity or nature protection as in our project.

00:02:26: And mainly we can distinguish four types of instruments regulatory economic informational and voluntary.

00:02:33: but we should remember that each place a different function within the policy system.

00:02:40: They are not used individually, but rather as specific set of instruments so that's why it is very important and for instance their regulatory instrument.

00:02:53: they play the regulation, what is required.

00:03:00: What is prohibited?

00:03:02: Defined permitted or forbidden in particular areas and examples of such instruments are special development plan protected area management plans.

00:03:15: mainly they're connected with nature conservation areas.

00:03:19: economic instrument works in different way because many day take into account the cost-benefit analysis so that people, citizens and land users can decide what is more beneficial for them from an economic point of view.

00:03:36: If it's easier or beneficial to pay the tax or fee all two undertake particular action.

00:03:43: So example includes for instance different payment subsidies.

00:03:47: also the tax And fee connected with excluding clans for instance agriculture protection.

00:03:55: And the last two groups are more informative and educational, building awareness instruments.

00:04:05: they also very important.

00:04:07: so it's difficult to answer which of these Instruments is the most important, but in my opinion and opinions of team members that set different combinations of instruments can give us much more benefits than individual use of particular instrument.

00:04:32: really all of these instruments are working in tandem with one another.

00:04:36: Your analysis focused on the twelve Europe land partner countries, so we're curious.

00:04:42: among those policy instruments that you analyzed and have described now What stood out most to you not as the most important, but either a good example of success story or is common challenge across these different kinds of instruments and countries?

00:04:56: In our opinion it was also an excellent example for forest management initiatives.

00:05:03: It's called Integrated Networks.

00:05:07: The main leader in this network is European Forest Institute And the main idea of these initiatives is to gather together three levels of stakeholders.

00:05:21: The decision-making policy level, the representative for forest and nature conservation practitioners and managers.

00:05:28: And third is research and academia.

00:05:32: So this activity includes exchange scientific knowledge but also practical evidence of good practices connected with forest management offering to all partnership different training successful application communication.

00:05:52: And nowadays, the network consists of two hundred different demonstrations and learning sites.

00:06:00: So we can learn from each other how to manage forest land in an innovative way... ...to achieve biodiversity protection but also economic and social.

00:06:17: The network offers a variety kinds of activities.

00:06:22: Each year they organize the annual meeting, They also offer different workshops training and free online courses too.

00:06:30: so their influence is wider even not only dedicated to members on network but whole society all over Europe or world.

00:06:44: So that's why we decided talk more about this case.

00:06:49: Both of those sound really impressive, and I'm curious that you found some other regulatory instruments.

00:06:55: while they're effective.

00:06:57: They can lack flexibility or local acceptance.

00:06:59: so i'm curious what makes the difference between a regulation that works on paper

00:07:07: when we say that regulatory instruments can be effective, but don't always work well at the local level.

00:07:15: Within our reports... We suggest there are real differences between regulation on paper and one that works in practice comes down to how it's designed supported and implemented.

00:07:31: so only the issue that we have to elaborate, but most important and key success factor is in which we

00:07:43: support

00:07:44: implementation.

00:07:46: at a local level.

00:07:48: And across countries this regulation often work in terms of compliances, let limited to flexibility and low acceptance so... So In our opinion the success implementation deregulation not working only on paper is social acceptance for people or maybe whole society.

00:08:13: besides answering question what?

00:08:16: Also we need to ask the question how and why.

00:08:20: To explain them, why this regulation is important?

00:08:25: How does it should be implemented in an appropriate way?

00:08:34: We also discovered that Regulation works better when stakeholders are involved at the very early and beginning stage of their implementation.

00:08:45: So we have to discuss with them, organize any kind of discussion in social workshop too... ...at the very beginning stages of their implementations.

00:08:57: so If people experience a regulation as something done to them, just only two.

00:09:04: To give the regulation resistance growth if they experienced is or something shaped with them compliance and cooperation arise?

00:09:14: Yeah but I'm curious when we do talk about that kind of collaborative success across our stakeholders and citizens And implementers.

00:09:24: your report proposes a standardized procedure for an out analyzing policy instruments like you guys did.

00:09:30: And I'm curious how decision makers can actually apply that in their daily work, in a way that really is fruitful for the people who are reading that analysis?

00:09:41: So finally at the end of our report we propose some kind of procedure for analyzing the policy instrument.

00:09:49: so and this procedure can be applied also at national, regional and local level.

00:09:59: but mainly it can be applied in three points before the adaptation of particular instruments.

00:10:07: When we are on this stage thinking what kind of instrument should be more beneficial?

00:10:13: We should implement so that we use the criteria for assessment the question which of the instruments is best and which will be suitable for our very particular circumstances at a local level, national level.

00:10:32: As I mentioned before it's important because one instrument that has proven effective in one city or country will not necessarily be equally effective in another.

00:10:45: so we have to check and the second possible implication using this procedure is during the implementation, if existing instruments work well or not.

00:11:01: And for these purposes, we propose a set of different criteria which allow the decision-making makers to assess and evaluate from an economic point of view.

00:11:14: From environmental protection point of views or social points of view because those sort of criteria are very broad and wide.

00:11:23: Finally as exposed evaluation After the functioning of particular instruments we can conduct some kind of comparison between different countries, region municipality and Czech.

00:11:39: if our instruments work well or not and based on these results improve, do some kind of improvement within our system.

00:11:52: So I think that it's very beneficial.

00:11:55: but the most important aspects of this procedure is set-up criteria which can be used to assess the instrument.

00:12:05: according divided this criteria into five groups.

00:12:12: One connected with impact of climate change, impact on biodiversity and the impact of stakeholders which is very important as I mentioned before.

00:12:21: social participation in the fourth criteria.

00:12:24: and cross sectoral approach.

00:12:26: we propose a lot of different criteria for assessment.

00:12:32: Of the instruments and this is very wide catalog so each managers, each stakeholders can choose appropriate and build their own let's say matrix instrument assessments.

00:12:48: So I hope that it will be useful to make decisions managers and the policy makers as well.

00:12:58: I think it's clear both through this conversation, in the report itself that your team put a lot of care into making very comprehensive and beneficial reports.

00:13:07: so i'm hopeful that This encourages even more listeners to go read the report because It really is impressive.

00:13:13: And thank you for taking time To talk about today.

00:13:16: Thank You also for inviting me.

00:13:21: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of European Land Use Talks.

00:13:24: If you liked what you heard, we hope that you'll subscribe and join us on future episodes!

00:13:28: But In the meantime please visit our website europe-land.eu To learn more about work we're doing And stay connected with us by joining our stakeholder pool.

00:13:36: We will see ya next time.