ABSTRACT
The mis-led assumption that new and newly organized knowledge will automatically feed to decision-making and improve ecosystem service governance can be corrected by taking an institutional perspective. An institutional perspective unravels the rules that generate and maintain regularities in the behavior of people, groups or organizations. Property rights are an important institution often identified in institutional analysis. Formal institutions are explicitly stated norms and rules about what can be done, what must be done and what must not be done. Institutional change alters rights and responsibilities. An attempt to purposely generate institutional change and reformulate institutional arrangements often takes place through policy design and changes to law. However, institutions also evolve outside the purposeful institutional design process, through informal rules becoming such strong norms that they condition people's behavior. Institutions contribute to the predictability of human behavior and therefore allow coordinating action. In this sense, institutions are a precondition for governing ecosystems sustainably.
