Experimenting for sustainable land use: free exploration or limited view?

Experimenting is hot! And that is promising for environmental problems, because experimentation is an ideal governance approach for testing and scaling up radically alternative ideas. But is that actually happening? In other words: how transformative is experimentation as a governance approach? This is the subject of a new paper published in Environmental Policy & Governance, for which ten land subsidence experiments in the Dutch Green Heart were investigated.

If we want to address environmental problems in the Netherlands in an integrated way, we must focus on unsustainable land use and the structures which uphold that.

Looking beyond technological innovation

Authors Mandy van den Ende, Heleen Mees, Peter Driessen and Dries Hegger do not deny that a technological measure can reduce peat oxidation and address land subsidence and greenhouse-gas emissions, but technology does not address the root of the problem. This results in other problems such as deteriorated water quality, increased risk of flooding and loss of biodiversity remaining unaddressed. “If we want to address environmental problems in the Netherlands in an integrated way, we must focus on unsustainable land use and the social, economic, governance and institutional structures which uphold that,” the authors state.

Routes to transformation

A possible route to transformation is to top-down impose new policy, such as by including responsibilities for sustainable land use in laws and regulations. “This is a process that brings about relatively quick changes,” Van den Ende says, “but it also leads to much societal resistance and requires politicians to be very decisive, involved and courageous.”

By considering existing land-use function, they are playing it safe.

An alternative, more step-by-step route such as experimentation “can initiate small-scale transformative changes towards sustainable land use.” Experimentation provides administrators with the possibility to put new ideas into practice without the fear of political consequences if the results are disappointing, and citizens can slowly get used to it.

Limited solution space

There is no lack of experiments in the Dutch Green Heart. However, most subsidence experiments are focused on technological innovation, with the starting point that current land-use (mostly intensive dairy farming) needs to be continued. “By considering the current land-use function, they are playing it safe,” Van den Ende says. The authors are especially worried about the dominance of technological experiments. “Further development, access to additional funds and upscaling perpetuate a technological pathway and cuts off alternative, more transformative pathways.”

Transformative experimenting

So increasing the solution space – being able to walk various paths for the future – is essential. Only if a broad range of alternative measures are considered, the most logical option can be chosen based on the needs of the landscape. This does require a different form of experimentation. “More equal representation of various interested parties such as agriculture pioneers, young generations and non-human actors, but also more co-creation and less technocracy,” Van den Ende says. All in all, experimenting as a governance approach will have to undergo its own transformation before it can contribute to a transformation towards sustainable land-use.

Publication

Van Den Ende, M. A., Hegger, D. L. T., Mees, H. L. P., & Driessen, P. P. J. (2024). The transformative potential of experimentation as an environmental governance approach: The case of the Dutch peatlands. Environmental Policy and Governance, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.2098