“Win-Win” in sustainable development issues: theoretical insights and operational value

The reference to the “win-win” character of sustainable development policies is ubiquitous and gets back to the seminal Bruntland definition. It is particularly common in biodiversity protected areas management debate, frequently associated with poverty alleviation in Southern countries This contribution deals first with the theoretical backgrounds that can be summoned in economics to support the idea of a win-win process. It raised secondly the issue of the feasibility of win-win sustainable development policies and particularly biodiversity and management policies, stressing from a theoretical point of view the relationship between policy tools and objectives, initiated by Tinbergen, and from an empirical point of view the contrasted results of experiments described in the relevant literature. It reckons the relative fragility of the win-win character of these policies.