ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on how biodiversity policy and science emerged as mutually constituted fields of societal action. It documents the findings of empirical research carried out between 2008 and 2013. The book explores the reasons why biodiversity knowledge is a more complicated topic than expected at first glance and provides some examples. It links a Foucauldian understanding of the development of biology with the main characteristics of biodiversity politics and knowledge. The book focuses on the formal institutionalisation, including the dynamics, conflict lines and results of negotiations at the following international meetings: the three multi-stakeholder meetings under the auspices of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), two plenary sessions to determine the functions and role of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), and several Conferences of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) during the period of 2008-2012.
