Rethinking the role of state institutions in nature recovery
In England there has been a long-term trend towards the retrenchment of direct state spending and the role of government in nature conservation policy – what could an alternative vision for the state look like?
The English government (environmental policy is largely devolved) has ambitious plans for nature recovery, but its proposed strategy positions the government as a relatively passive player whose job is to create compliance markets and de-risk private investments in nature to ensure they deliver appealing returns. However, there are whole host of risks and negative unintended ecological and social consequences that could arise (Chausson et al. 2023). There is a strong case for states to take a more proactive, mission-driven approach to guiding nature recovery (Mazzucato 2021; Kedward et al. 2022). We are running a workshop with senior figures from government, eNGOs, finance and academic to explore the public policy programme that would underpin a mission-driven approach to driving nature recovery.
PIs on this project:
Dr Sophus zu Ermgassen (Department of Biology, Oxford).
Katie Kedward (Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, UCL)
Professor Erik Gomez-Baggethun (Norwegian University of Life Sciences)
