Has the Devolution of Responsibility for Biodiversity Conservation to Regional Governments Presented Either a Boon or Barrier to the Further Implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity’s Ecosystem Approach in the United Kingdom

The Ecosystem Approach of the Convention on Biological Diversity, once thought to represent one of the most ambitious global attempts to integrate economic, social and ecological dimensions into a holistic environmental management strategy, has been consistently plagued by under-implementation at domestic scales around the world. This includes the UK who have as recently as 2007 sought to recast it in a simplified format to aid implementation by environmental managers. This paper explores how the devolution of responsibility for biodiversity conservation to the regional assemblies of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland has started to affect a reinvigorated wave of implementation manifesting in new and hitherto unseen iterations of the ecosystem approach. These new iterations challenge the fundamental concept of the ecosystem approach, they offer new insights into the optimal scale and form for promoting final implementation of environmental regimes, as well as suggesting new understandings about notions of regionalism and localism in the UK.