European Policy Lab

The EU policy lab is working to identify how private land conservation can contribute to biodiversity targets and how we can incentivise and compensate private landowners.

To conserve and restore biodiversity by 2030, the EU Biodiversity Strategy calls for at least 10% of publicly defined land to have strong protection measures and the remaining 20% to be complemented by other forms of legal protection. 

The EU policy lab studies how we can encourage private landowners to contribute to biodiversity.

Private Land Conservation is an umbrella term for the voluntary measures enacted by these private parties. These measures come in various forms:

• In a land stewardship, private landowners can pass land management to land stewards. In Catalonia, around 80 NGOs and other agencies took care of up to 62,000 hectares of private land.
   
• In privately protected areas, landowners set up a management plan for land conservation, often building on the expertise and financial support of public agencies or nature conservation organisations. In Flanders, private landowners can draw up a nature management plan which defines how and by whom their land will be managed. This includes financial compensation for their efforts.
   
• Conservation easements are voluntary agreements by private landowners to restrict the use of their land. In the Swedish Tullstorp stream project, farmers attributed the land along the local river to an association, while still owning the land.

In the EU Policy Lab, we will work with EU policymakers, policy advisors, landowners, nature conservation organisations and other stakeholders to explore how Private Land Conservation can contribute to biodiversity goals. 

The Policy Lab has held workshops with members of the European Landowners' Organization (ELO) and Eurosite in the Netherlands and France to share findings from a review of pioneering PLC initiatives. They have also used AI-assisted deductive coding to process 51 multilingual grey-literature documents, revealing cross-European patterns in landowner behaviour.

Drivers of Land Use Change 

Research shows that structural uncertainty from frequent rule changes and fragmented governmental responsibilities is a major barrier to voluntary conservation. Landowners’ biggest fear is a loss of autonomy over their property. Financial viability is another major driver; landowners view land as a natural asset and a financial instrument, and when the rate of return is negative, they are tempted to sell or develop the land rather than conserve it. The Policy Lab also found that motivation is often latent; landowners may require an "Aha-moment" to realise the biodiversity value of their property before they are ready to act.

Next steps

The Policy Lab also plans to develop online learning modules for the project's Digital Learning Environment to help practitioners share best practices across borders.