Defining, analyzing and improving the governance of agroecosystem services

The present article suggests a holistic framework for defining, evaluating and improving the governance of agroecosystem services in Bulgaria. The interdisciplinary Theory of Ecosystem Services and the New Institutional Economy are adapted, and an attempt made to define the governance of agroecosystem services, to identify its agents, forms and mechanisms, to formulate an adequate criterion for evaluating its efficiency, and to characterize the stages for its analysis and improvement. The proposed new approach is based on the building up of a hierarchy of agroecosystems and services related to its different levels, as well as an assessment of the system of governance that corresponds to each level of provision of agroecosystem services.