ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of existing literature on the biodiversity science-policy interface. It disentangles the conflicting standpoints and normative claims made by various authors in scientific publications and research projects investigating the interrelations between science and policy in the field of biodiversity politics. In recent years, the interaction between science and policy in the field of international environmental politics in general, and in international biodiversity politics in particular, have gained increasing attention. Vadrot et al. claim that the science-policy interface for biodiversity should not ultimately be regarded as a mediator between science and policy, or as a communication channel between two different communities. Instead, the authors take a Foucauldian perspective, assuming that power and knowledge are inseparably linked, both in institutional and discursive terms. The chapter also presents an analysis of the some dominant conceptions of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) that can be found within the academic biodiversity discourse.
