This article explores the relationships between the individual actor's way of thinking and local development work. The thesis advanced is that an individual actor's view of nature influences the orientation of local development strategies. Case studies of the significant actors and the development work in two Swedish municipalities with similar structures and economies based mainly on forest resources, form the empirical base. It is shown that differences in the strategies in the form of action patterns, can be traced back to different views of nature and different figures of thought. In order to reveal the actors' conceptions we have used a new method for analysing and synthesizing naturally produced text.