More Data, Less Decision? Why Biodiversity and Decision-making Fails Without Local Realities, Institutional Fit, and Plural Values

Across Europe, biodiversity decision-making increasingly relies on the assumption that more and better monitoring data will translate automatically into better land-use decisions. Yet in practice, local planning authorities and conservation actors operate within political, institutional, and social contexts that shape the use of data. In particular, scientific evidence is one variableiatic decision making, alongside legal mandates, diverse values, sectoral priorities, citizen needs and wants, and limited capacities. Drawing on insights from the ENABLElocal project (Biodiversa+), this contribution challenges the persistent “data deficit” narrative by showing that institutional fit, governance frictions, and mismatched value systems constrain planning outcomes more strongly than data gaps themselves.  

ENABLElocal implements parallel living labs in three contrasting European settings—Křivoklátsko (CZ), apple orchard meadows in Hesse (DE), and sandy-soil bee habitats in southern Sweden (SE). Through stakeholder workshops, in-depth interviews, and a cross-case survey, we examine how diverse planning actors attempt to integrate biodiversity data (in its broad definition) into local conservation and land-use decisions. Across all cases, a consistent pattern emerges: existing biodiversity data are often abundant, but not institutionally legible, politically relevant, or operationally feasible within real planning processes. Local authorities, NGOs, land managers, and regional agencies negotiate data within landscapes shaped by power asymmetries, contested mandates, legal ambiguity, and deeply embedded place-based identities. Participation and co-production—central to the ENABLElocal living lab approach—are simultaneously enabling and challenging: while they build legitimacy and mutual understanding, they also surface plural values, local knowledge, and divergent expectations that are poorly accommodated by dominant indicator frameworks and spatial planning tools. 

By comparing findings across three governance systems, we consider how planning can move beyond technocratic reliance on data provision toward transformative, justice-oriented, and context-sensitive biodiversity governance. We provide suggestions for integrating monitoring data, plural valuation approaches, and co-produced insights into land-use planning systems in ways that strengthen democratic legitimacy, reduce institutional friction, and improve biodiversity outcomes.