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This dissertation examines efforts to integrate a “new” policy sector – forest and forestry – into the European Union (EU). There is currently no legal foundation for a common forest policy and some member states (not least Sweden), as well as parts of the forestry sector, have been strongly opposed to one. At the same time, administrative units and structures within the EU have been created and they and some member states have promoted a common policy. This raises the question how can we understand and explain this?

The purpose of this dissertation is to problematise, map and analyse mainly Swedish actors’ attitudes to efforts to create a common forest policy within the EU. The study is based on neofunctionalism, which is a classic theory of integration, but it uses newer theorising (from intergovernmentalism and modern versions of neofunctionalism) to address some of the weaknesses of the approach.

I investigate the role, preferences and strategies of the main actors. This includes EU institutions and member states. I also map European industry interests and other associations, interest groups and active networks and study their role in the process. In these multi-national settings, I pay particular (although not exclusive) attention to their Swedish members. Within Sweden, I examine how governmental and non-governmental forest actors behave vis-à-vis the EU.

The empirical investigation shows that some of Swedish actors, for example the private forest owners’ organisation and forest industries associations, have change their preferences and strate gies over time. They have come to believe that whether they like it or not, other policy areas affect forest and forestry both directly and indirectly. Because of this, they now take the position that it is better to promote a limited European forest policy rather than remaining aloof and risk the creation of a much more comprehensive and centralised policy. At the same time (and for now at least), the Swedish government and most party politicians remain opposed to any attempt to formalise a forest policy within the EU.

This study contributes new knowledge about how new policy areas become integrated within EU, including knowledge about the roles that different actors can have in such processes. The results are of interest to researchers, decision makers and the interested public. They can also influence thinking about Sweden’s influence in, and relation to, EU forest policy.

Based on the empirical results, my theoretical conclusion is that organised interests have an important role in the integration process. The integration process of forest and forestry is not driven by one actor, but by many different actors, who operate on different levels and who have different interests.

This study shows that forest and forestry-related questions have come to the EU, and they will remain there. The important question for the future is not if there will be some kind of European level policy on forest and forestry, but rather what form European policy will take.

Energiöverenskommelsen från 2016 slår fast att alla Sverigesvattenkraftverk ska förses med moderna miljövillkor. Idagsläget bedrivs många anläggningar med gamla tillståndmed lägre satta miljökrav än vad som behövs för att uppfyllanationella miljökvalitetsmål och EU:s vattendirektiv (Prop.2017/18:228; Prop. 2017/18:243). För att uppfylla dagensmiljökrav kan det i vissa fall komma att kräva att kraftverkenminskar sin produktion. Samtidigt har vattenkraften encentral roll i det svenska elsystemet – en roll som förstärksi och med samhällets elektrifiering och det ökade behovetav fossilfri el. Ambitionen är att moderna miljövillkor skasäkerställa både största möjliga nytta för vattenmiljön samtidigtsom en effektiv tillgång till vattenkraftsel bibehålls.Hela miljöomprövningen väntas ta omkring 20 år. För atteffektivisera och göra den komplexa processen mer legitim har kollaborativ styrning i form av samverkan mellan olikaintressenter introducerats.

The conflicts that are frequently manifested in the Swedish mountains often stem from the use and preservation of natural resources: resistance against protected area proposals, protests concerning the management of large carnivores, felling of old-growth forests, and disputes over who should be allowed to hunt or fish are commonplace. There are currently strong trends, both in national and international policy making, towards leaning on various forms of collaborative governance arrangements to deal with such policy failures. Consequently, various forms of partnerships have been initiated to promote more sustainable practices in mountain regions of Sweden. But to what extent does the creation of collaborative arrangements in natural resource management improve policy output and sustainability outcomes? To examine the issue, data was extracted from 47 semi-structured interviews with 39 project leaders and eight county officials, the sample being randomly selected from a database of 245 public-private collaborative projects in the Swedish mountains. The results indicate that partnerships do lead to improved sustainability – especially when it comes to social outcomes. There is, however, a need for more systematic follow-ups by practitioners, particularly on ecological outcomes where the country administrative boards should take a leading role and facilitate such evaluations in the future.

This paper analyzes the Swedish forest sector's approach to a formalized forest policy within the EU; utilizing a revisited neo-functional framework focusing on cultivated spillover and non-governmental forest stakeholders' preferences and strategies. The study is based on in-depth interviews with central non-governmental representatives divided into four categories: forest owners, forest industry, environmental representatives and other representatives. The paper shows that, in spite of lacking interest and engagement in this issue on the Swedish government's side, the Swedish forest owners and the forest industry have made a U-turn and now welcome some form of formalized forest policy in the EU, as it would benefit their interests. They also believe they can influence the content of the integration process. This confirms the theoretical premise that organized interests, in this case non-governmental forestry stakeholders in Sweden, can act as pressure groups for further coordination and integration. National and transnational elites and their work in transnational networks and associations seem particularly important in this context.

Public-private partnerships (PPPs) have become a popular tool for governing rural development in a European context. PPPs are often presented as significant solutions for increasing both the effectiveness (problem-solving capacity) and the legitimacy of sustainable rural governance in terms of participation and accountability. In Sweden, where PPPs have played a marginal role, due to the EU cohesion policy they are now gaining ground as a model for the governance and management of natural resources in rural areas. Previous research shows that the state remains crucial in governing the process of governance through partnerships, especially in a rural as opposed to an urban context, where the state plays an ongoing role in initiating, structuring, financing and regulating partnerships. Is this an example of the state trying to counterbalance the increased power of the private sector, or the opposite – that is, an attempt to reduce social exclusion and increase participation by promoting the interest of private actors in local development processes? Our study examines the critical role of the state in these partnerships. We focus on authorities in charge of natural resource management and rural development and assess the enabling role of the authorities in rural areas with a weak or dispersed private sector. Empirical data is collected via group interviews at a workshop in which key representatives from the authorities participated. We identify a number of potential challenges associated to PPPs in a rural context, and in light of this we clarify how the authorities engage in different types of partnership arrangements, as well as their capacity to facilitate these partnerships in attempt to enhance sustainable rural development.

In recent decades, collaboration has become a common policy instrument in public administration, both internationally and in Sweden. Inspired by scholarly literature on collaborative governance, the aim of this study is to analyze the crucial role of public administration in the design and implementation of collaborative governance. Drawing on several years of research on Swedish forest policy and governance, our work is based on extensive empirical material, including 88 semi-structured interviews, observations, written comments from open public consultations and actors, enacted policy documents, open public hearings and a survey. Our results confirm that factors related to process design strongly affect the outputs and outcomes of collaboration in public administration. We assert that public officials should meticulously design and adapt the collaborative process during its initiation and progress, according to the policy problem and actors' incentives and motivations to participate. However, despite good intentions by public officials, the overarching priorities and contextual factors governing the policy area must be set by elected decision makers at an early stage to establish democratic accountability and high levels of policy legitimacy and acceptance. A major implication for public administration is that the increasing use of collaborative governance may be highly inefficient if it is difficult for participants to draft shared objectives and provide intended outputs because of low levels of trust, and different interpretations of knowledge and norms. Finally, in contentious policy areas, such as forest policy, political priorities must sometimes be set by elected decision makers rather than through collaborative processes.

Although forestry is not a regulated area in the European Union (EU), numerous decisions in other policy areas are related to forestry. However, its position outside of formal policy-making can result in the fact that actors, such as those within the forest industry, may have a larger role when compared to other policy sectors where the state system has an integrated role. This explorative study reviews the ways in which the forest industry in Sweden, one of the EU states with the most forest land, tries to protect and promote its interests on an EU-level. It concludes that a main way to influence  decision-making in the EU is through lobbying, through its own organisations and through the transnational trade association, The Confederation of European Paper Industries (CEPI). The study shows that collectively conducted lobbying is largely preferred which means that internal communication is important since lobbying at the EU-level is potentially limited by the diverging positions of trade association members as well as among the different trade associations themselves.

The sustainability paradigm of the European Landscape Convention calls for increased involvement of all affected parties in combination with active leadership to promote social values. As a result, the Swedish Forest Agency (SFA) has requested further development of methods for broad consultation and active participation in order to strengthen the social values of forests. This paper aims to identify in particular the private forest owners' perceived need for collaboration and dialog regarding the social values of forests. The study's primary empirical data was derived from interviews with 40 private forest owners. A framework developed by Emerson et al. (2012) was applied to facilitate analysis of the forest owners' perceptions of procedural and institutional arrangements, existing leadership, the current level of knowledge and access to different types of resources. The paper identifies a need for the SFA to become more proactive and assume more of a leading role. The level of knowledge regarding social values was found to be quite low among the majority of the private forest owners. They wanted more information; they asked for increased support and advice, and they wanted to see improved coordination rather than collaboration on social values.

Media content analysis was used with the aim of developing an understanding of how the debate on large-scale wind power has played out over time in Sweden, especially in relation to the enactment of national interest areas for wind power. Covering the period 1999 to 2019 and using NVivo for coding and analysis, we reviewed a total of 788 articles in both national and regional daily newspapers. To identify which actors are present in media and how they frame large-scale wind power, we conducted a frame analysis by applying three theoretical elements developed by previous media studies. The first is a diagnostic element used to pinpoint the cause to a problem, the second a prognostic element used to pinpoint the solution to a problem, and the third a motivating element used to identify the person(s) or object(s) suffering from the problem, that is, victim. Our results emphasize that wind power in recent years has been framed as a solution more often than a cause to a problem. One prevailing framing is the localization of large-scale wind power per se and conflicts with other land-uses and national interests. We also identify a tension between international and national policy objectives and local implementation of large-scale wind power. Governmental agencies are the most common framers over time, together with individuals (e.g. locals and second home owners) and wind entrepreneurs. Importantly, whereas politicians and wind entrepreneurs most often frame wind power as a solution, individuals frame it as a cause to a problem.

The Sami are recognized as an Indigenous people and a national minority in both Norway and Sweden, and their involvement in any planning concerning their traditional territories is required. The aim of this article is to examine how Sami interests are secured and institutionalized in municipal comprehensive planning (MCP). We use two case study areas: Sortland municipality in Norway and Vilhelmina municipality in Sweden. Analysis of various qualitative materials indicates that, despite contextual and institutional differences, the planning processes in the case study areas have similar outcomes. We conclude that formal rights of the Sami are not always acknowledged by the politicians who make the final decision. Rather, the Sami depend on the politicians’ willingness to consider their needs.

The concept of adaptive management (AM) is widely advocated as an alternative to traditional top-down management of natural resources around the world. In Sweden, however, AM has only recently been introduced to manage moose. Based on the analytical framework, developed by Pieter Glasbergen (2011), we study the AM of moose as a case of a partnership arrangement within the field of wildlife governance. We put particular attention on how adaptive moose management enables sustainable rural development, since hunting is considered to be an important source of recreation and livelihood in Swedish rural areas. We identify a number of challenges associated to the involved stakeholders’ abilities, willingness and understanding to implement the induced management system. We also emphasis the interactions between the different stakeholders on both vertical and horizontal levels, as well as the tradeoffs the new ecosystem based adaptive local management system generates for rural and urban areas.

Sweden is undergoing an extensive transformation from single species management towards ecosystem-based management. This study analyses the implementation of the new moose management system, focusing on the newly formed partnerships at ecosystem level (the moose management areas) and their potential to ease conflicts between participants and develop into sustainable collaborations that enable ecosystem-based management. Empirical evidence was obtained from semi-structured interviews with involved actors (hunters, landowners, wildlife managers and forest consultants) in five Swedish counties. Several challenges, based on the participants’ abilities, willingness and understanding needed to implement the new management system, were identified. Lack of funding, unclear roles and responsibilities appear to be the most serious issues. If these are not properly solved, then they have the potential to hamper and aggravate the implementation of the new management system, that is, the ecosystem-based management, as well as the partnership arrangement.

The term woodland key habitat (WKH) was launched in Sweden in 1990. Definitions for the concept have changed over the years, and today the WKH concept and its application are issues of debate in Sweden. Consequently, the Swedish Forestry Agency (SFA) initiated a collaborative process including forest stakeholders with the purpose to clarify the application and develop the inventory methodology of WKH. We have studied, by means of interviews and observations, participant perceptions of how endogenous and exogenous factors affect the collaborative process. During our research, we identified three game changers: the pause in WKH registration in northwestern Sweden that caused several participants to drop out of the process; budget allocations for new nationwide WKH inventories that put the process on hold; and formal instructions from the government that came nine months later and essentially re-initiated the collaborative process. Altogether, this not only affected the participants’ abilities, understanding and willingness to participate, but also the overall legitimacy of the process – indicating the difficulty of conducting policy development in collaborative form, especially when it is highly politicized since it impact on the participants’ anticipation of the process and its end results.

Jämställdhetspolitiken har sedan mitten av 1970-talet haft en central ställning i den svenska offentliga debatten. Ett område där frågan om kvinnlig representation först på senare tid har uppmärksammats är inom jakt och viltförvaltning. Denna rapport bygger på följeforskning som genomförts 2019-2021 i anslutning till Svenska Jägareförbundets (SJF) projekt “Jämställd viltförvaltning”. Projektets planering, genomförande och utfall utvärderas, och synen på kön, sociala normer och mångfald bland deltagarna i projektets utbildning ”Älgförvaltning, ekologi och människa” undersöks. Det huvudsakliga empiriska materialet utgörs av skriftliga svar på tre frågor som deltagarna besvarat, en kurs- respektive processutvärdering, samt deltagande observationer. Centrala frågeställningar är om, och i så fall på vilket sätt, de kvinnliga och manliga deltagarnas synsätt skiljer sig åt och vilka implikationer detta ger för jämställdhetsarbetet och en ökad kvinnorepresentation. Vi diskuterar hur deltagarnas synsätt kan förstås och länkar detta till kön och genus; en möjlig förändring av könsroller och sociala normer; samt en ökad mångfald inom älgförvaltningen. Vad gäller deltagarna så råder en stor enighet att det finns kvinnliga respektive manliga egenskaper, men delade meningar om dessa främst är biologiska eller socialt konstruerade. En majoritet anser att det sker anpassning till en manlig norm och vi identifierar tre huvudsakliga normer: prestationsnormen, arbetsfördelningsnormen och hårdhetsnormen. Det är dock nästan uteslutande kvinnliga deltagare som ger mer specifika beskrivningar av normer och normanpassningar. När det gäller mångfald så anser en majoritet av deltagarna att arbetet i älgförvaltningsgrupperna påverkas i positiv riktning av en större mångfald. Rapporten lyfter vikten av fortsatt forskning om förändring av könsroller och normer, samt av mångfald inom viltförvaltningen. Fortsatta utbildningsinsatser inom SJF behövs för att nå uppsatt mål om ökad kvinnorepresentation. Utbildningen bör därför revideras och ges på nytt, men då rekommenderas att jämställdhet ges samma tyngd som övriga delar i utbildningen, och utgör ett examinerande inslag. Andra mer övergripande rekommendationer inför SJF:s fortsatta jämställdhetsarbete innefattar ett aktivt ledarskap inom organisationen vad gäller jämställdhetsfrågor, översyn av potentiellt exkluderande strukturer, att genom ett normkritiskt förhållningssätt arbeta för att synliggöra förgivettagna sanningar, ifrågasätta normer och könsroller etc. och på så sätt bättre förstå och även potentiellt kunna påverka rådande kultur och traditioner, etablering av kvinnliga mentorer och nätverk, samt en översyn av rekryteringsrutiner inför framtida nomineringsomgångar till landets älgförvaltningsgrupper.

This empirical study investigates how "gender is done" within Swedish wildlife management by identifying prevailing gender norms, and how gender norms can be challenged from a norm-critical perspective, in order to promote women's participation. The basis for the study is an ongoing evaluation of the Swedish Hunters' Association training initiative to increase women's participation in moose management groups. Three main norm categories are identified: performance; social interaction; and hunting as a lifestyle. Recommendations for continued gender equality work include active leadership in gender equality issues, a review of potentially excluding structures, promoting female mentors and networks, and the use of formal and transparent recruitment procedures. An understanding of norms affecting women's participation (or nonparticipation) in wildlife management is fundamental to design effective training, recruitment and nomination strategies in the future.

Forests are considered crucial assets for sustainable rural development, and contemporary forestry is an industry where production, environmental and social goals can – and should – be handled simultaneously. Swedish family forest owners (FFOs) are expected to both manage and conserve their forests for the benefit of the whole country, but there are contradictions between development and conservation and between traditional and alternative forms of utilization, representing dilemmas in rural areas. Tensions between urban and rural areas, between demands on what to produce and protect, are often linked to the FFOs’ views on opportunities for forest management. The aim of this study is to identify and analyse the extent to which FFOs perceive that social values have the ability to generate “new” goods and services as a supplement or alternative to traditional forestry, and to suggest how the forests might be managed to render high social values. Fifty-seven interviews were conducted with FFOs (both resident and non-resident). The results indicate that regardless of where they reside, FFOs have a multifunctional view of their forests and forest management, that the social values attached to forests can play an important role in the development of local recreation- and forest-based tourism activities, and in this respect they can enhance sustainable rural development. It is, however, not obvious who might start and develop these businesses, since there seems to be a lack of interest among the FFOs themselves.

Spatial planning using a landscape approach has been recognized as being essential for reconciling ecological, cultural and socioeconomic dimensions in sustainable development (SuD). Although embraced as a concept, there is a lack of planning tools capable of incorporating multi-level, multifunctional and multi-sectoral perspectives, especially in a rural context. The departure point in this paper is the legal requirements for municipal comprehensive planning (MCP) in Sweden and an e-mail survey about incentives, stakeholder involvement, policy integration and implementation in MCP in all 15 Swedish mountain municipalities. The purpose of this explorative study is to examine whether MCP could be a tool in planning for SuD. Results indicate a general lack of resources and a low status of MCP that affect, and even limit, stakeholder involvement, policy integration and implementation. However, legal requirements for MCP are targeted at SuD, and municipal personnel responsible for planning appreciate the potential of MCP. Therefore, there is potential to develop the MCP into an effective landscape planning tool. To accomplish this, the status of an active planning process has to be raised, the mandate of the local planning agency has to be secured, and residents and land users have to be involved throughout the planning process.

Critical appraisals have stressed the need for participation and social learning in spatial planning, and planning is now seen as a process of innovative collaboration by multiple actors. During such ‘collaborative planning’, various parties try to develop new inclusive strategies through dialog. Collaborative planning is a major strand of current planning theory and highlights the need for new methods that involve citizen participation. In Sweden, the realization of collaborative planning in practice remains elusive, and research on the subject is limited, so further studies are needed. Thus, in the project “Green planning: Vilhelmina as a testbed for innovative land use planning in the mountain region”, we tested and implemented methods for involving citizens and other land-use stakeholders in the process of developing Vilhelmina municipality’s comprehensive plan (MCP). This paper presents lessons learned from that process and data obtained from a set of focus groups, a workshop, surveys, and personal communication. From these activities in the Swedish mountain region, we learned that collaborative practices have both pros and cons that must be addressed for practical realization of the widely embraced ideal of collaborative planning.

Översiktsplaneringen i fjällkommunerna skulle kunna vara det självklara verktyget i arbetet med att uppnå miljökvalitetsmålet "Storslagen fjällmiljö". Kommunen har som lokal myndighet en central roll i hållbar utveckling och översiktsplaneringen ska, per definition, hantera markanvändningsfrågor i ett landskapsperspektiv. Detta sker dock inte i någon större utsträckning idag och därför finns ett stort behov av att utveckla bättre metoder och processer för att göra det kommunala planeringsverktyget mer nytänkande, kunskapsbaserat och förutseende.

I Vilhelmina kommun har forskarna tillsammans med myndigheter, lokala aktörer och kommunmedborgare utvecklat metoder för att ta fram en grön översiktsplan. Översiktsplanen baseras på uthållig markanvändning och omfattar faktiska natur- och kulturvärden, såväl som nuvarande och framtida förutsättningar för strategisk planering för hur olika intressen kan samsas i fjällandskapet. I projektet analyseras möjligheter och hinder en process av detta slag möter, metoder för att uppnå ett ökat engagemang och en större lokal medverkan i planprocessen.

Arbetet med den gröna översiktsplanen har resulterat i ett samrådsdokument som antagits av politikerna i Vilhelmina kommun. Rapporten redovisar en stegvis modell av planeringsprocessen som ska kunna ligga till grund för liknande processer även i andra fjällkommuner och/eller landsbygdskommuner med stora landskaps- och naturtillgångar. Exempel på lärdomar är att tidigt och kontinuerligt förankra det deltagande planeringsarbetet gentemot den lokala politiken och att deltagandeprocesser måste få ta tid.

Det har den siste tiden vært en del innlegg om lakseforvaltninga i Tanavassdraget i Ságat, og klima- og miljøminister Bjelland Eriksen har også kommentert bruken av tradisjonskunnskap i forvaltningen av Tanavassdraget i spørretimen på Stortinget.

På spørsmål fra Lars Haltbrekken (SV) om statsråden vil ta initiativ til å opprette et råd for Tanaelva for tradisjonell kunnskap, var svaret at «spørsmålet om å opprette et eget råd for tradisjonell kunnskap om Tanavassdraget har tidligere vært diskutert med lokale rettighetshavere og Sametinget. Dette er noe jeg og departementet vil vurdere videre. Det pågår også forskning på nettopp hvordan tradisjonell kunnskap kan bedre integreres i forvaltningen av Tanavassdraget, gjennom det norsk-finsk-svenske Recosal-prosjektet. Det vil være naturlig å avvente hvilke resultater og anbefalinger som kommer fra dette prosjektet og hvordan disse eventuelt kan bidra til å styrke forvaltningen av Tanavassdraget».

Recosal-prosjektet ledes av det finske naturressursforskningsinstituttet (LUKE), og de norske partnerne i prosjektet er Norsk institutt for naturforskning (NINA) og UiT – Norges arktiske universitet. Umeå Universitet i Sverige er også partner i prosjektet. Prosjektets mål er å bidra til gjenoppbygging av laksebestandene i Tanavassdraget basert på både vitenskapelige metoder og lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap.

En del av motivasjonen for dette forskningsprosjektet er den mangeårige kritikken av mangelen på inkludering av tradisjonell kunnskap om laks i forvaltningen, og da særlig i Tanavassdraget. I denne konteksten er alle gode forslag om hvordan lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap bedre kan integreres i kunnskapsgrunnlaget for forvaltning svært velkomne. At det foregår en demokratisk prosess (at det har vært «diskutert» tidligere) om oppretting av et råd for tradisjonell kunnskap, som Bjelland skriver, er derfor positivt. Spørsmålet fra Haltbrekken, som har vært stilt mangfoldige ganger i ulike varianter og fra ulike hold, er derfor både betimelig og presserende.

Vi deltar i flere forskningsprosjekter som berører lakseforvaltning og tradisjonskunnskap om laks generelt, og i Tanavassdraget spesielt. Forskere i NINA deltar også i Vitenskapelig råd for lakseforvaltning, og i forsknings- og overvåkingsgruppa for Tanavassdraget, noe som blant annet innebærer jevnlig innhenting av lokal kunnskap om status for ulike fiskebestander i sidevassdragene og i hovedelva i Tanavassdraget. Forskningsprosjektet Recosal er et uavhengig prosjekt finansiert av det europeiske forskningsprogrammet Biodiversa+, som betyr at mandatet for forskningen ikke kommer fra myndighetene, til forskjell fra mandatet til forsknings- og overvåkingsgruppa.

Som forskere som er på leting etter legitime prosedyrer og måter å inkludere denne kunnskapen både i egen forskning og i forvaltningssystemet, vil eksistensen av et formelt råd for tradisjonell kunnskap være positivt for forskning, overvåking og forvaltning av vassdraget. Hvordan dette rådet skal se ut, hvem det skal bestå av, hvilken rolle det skal ha i forskning og i beslutningsprosesser osv., er også relevant å undersøke videre. Det finnes flere modeller for dette som tidligere forskningsprosjekter på samme tema har undersøkt, og som Recosal-prosjektet også er i gang med å undersøke.

Det har allerede kommet forslag til hvordan departementet kan få til en bedre inkludering av lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap fra flere hold, og vi ser liten grunn til at ytterligere anbefalinger fra akkurat vårt forskningsprosjekt Recosal kommer til å gjøre en stor forskjell.

En god grunn måtte da være at rådet vil komme fra en gruppe forskere hvor medlemmer av forsknings- og overvåkingsgruppa for Tanavassdraget er aktive medlemmer i prosjektet. I så tilfelle er det interessant at departementet venter på råd fra akkurat denne gruppa, og ikke agerer på funn fra annen forskning som har påpekt behovet for oppretting av klare og legitime prosedyrer for inkludering av lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap i forsknings- og forvaltningsprosessene.

Recosal-prosjektet er i et stadium av sitt prosjekt hvor vi arbeider med å innhente godkjenning (såkalt Free, Prior and Informed Consent) fra Sametingene i Finland og Norge til å gjøre forskning langs Tanavassdraget.

Denne godkjenningen krever en prosess for å innhente kollektivt samtykke fra sentrale fiskefellesskap, Tanavassdragets fiskeforvaltning og andre aktører langs vassdraget til forskning på lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap.

Så langt har denne prosessen vært lærerik, og tidkrevende. Vi tror at en institusjonalisering av slike samtykke-prosedyrer ville gjort forskningsprosjekter på Tanavassdraget langt mer legitime og berikende enn i dag.

Et råd for tradisjonell kunnskap som kunne håndtert slike prosesser for kollektivt samtykke kan være en god måte å løse dette på. Som forskere stoppes vi imidlertid av at det er ulike og motstridende prosedyrer for å innhente disse samtykkene, og for å etablere gode og kollaborative forskningssamarbeid.

I prosjektet Recosal prøver vi oss frem med ulike tilnærminger, men det er ikke vår rolle å etablere strukturer og prosedyrer for forskningssamarbeid omkring lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap, eller å bestemme hvem som er de legitime partnerne langs vassdraget. Derfor vil også vi spørre statsråden om han vil ta initiativ til å opprette et råd for tradisjonell kunnskap, som vil gi innhenting av lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap langs vassdraget gode og forutsigbare rammer for fremtida.

La oss med en gang slå fast at det ikke er vår rolle som forskere å stå i veien for demokratiske prosesser om prosedyrer for inkludering av lokal og tradisjonell kunnskap i forvaltningsprosesser. Om departementene i Norge og Finland, Sametingene og Tanavassdragets fiskeforvaltning og de finske fiskefellesskapene er i gang med å lande beslutninger om et råd for tradisjonell kunnskap støtter vi dette helhjertet og ser frem til å etablere gode samarbeidsrelasjoner mellom våre forskningsmiljøer og et slikt råd i fremtiden.

Skogens många värden behöver samplaneras och sättas i sitt sammanhang utifrån ett landskapsperspektiv. Vi intervjuade skogsägare och skogliga intressenter om hur de ser på skogens värden, äganderätten och skogspolitiska förutsättningar, samt synen på att samarbeta och ta hänsyn till varandras intressen. Vi utgår från behov identifierade i planeringsprocesser som inkluderar många deltagare och intressen, när det gäller att förbättrakommunikation, information och mötesplatser. Vi ser tre möjliga verktyg för att skapa förutsättningar för ett landskapsperspektiv i planeringen av skogens värden: en landskapslots, en samverkansarena, samt utformningen och användandet av skogsbruksplanen.

As an integrated social and ecological system, the forest landscape includes multiple values. The need for a landscape approach in land use planning is being increasingly advocated in research, policy and practice. This paper explores how institutional conditions in the forest policy and management sector can be developed to meet demands for a multifunctional landscape perspective. Departing from obstacles recognised in collaborative planning literature, we build an analytical framework which is operationalised in a Swedish context at municipal level. Our case illustrating this is Vilhelmina Model Forest, where actual barriers and opportunities for a multiple-value landscape approach are identified through 32 semi-structured interviews displaying stakeholders’ views on forest values, ownership rights and willingness to consider multiple values, forest policy and management premises, and collaboration. As an opportunity to overcome the barriers, we suggest and discuss three key components by which an integrated landscape planning approach could be realized in forest management planning: the need for a landscape coordinator (broker), the need for a collaborative forum (arena), and the development of the existing forest management plan into an advanced multifunctional landscape plan (tool).

Sweden is not on track to meet its own national 2020 environmental goals for sustainable forests. Due to the deliberate design of Swedish forest policy, private forest owners’ voluntary forest and biodiversity protection efforts are required to help close the policy gap. Using survey data from Swedish family forest owners, this paper outlines how forest owner attitudes reveal challenges and opportunities for two general strategies to increasing forest and biodiversity protection. The first strategy is attempting to institute changes within status quo Swedish forest policy by relying on family forest owners to make such changes voluntarily. The second strategy is encouraging management changes by using policy reforms. Our qualitative results suggest that Swedish forest policy is close to the limit of what can be accomplished with volunteerism alone and likely requires policy reforms to close its forest and biodiversity protection gap on family-owned forests.

The challenges of environmental and sustainability governance such as dealing with competing goals, multiple interest perspectives and inherent wicked problems increasingly call for collaborative approaches in planning, policy-making, and public management. The collaboration of a diverse mix of public and private organizations is expected to bring resources, knowledge, and perspectives that may reconcile conflicts and improve policy effectiveness. As such, collaborative environmental governance contains considerable promises, seeking to restore trust in government. In this chapter, we will depict how collaborative environmental governance has emerged in current environmental and natural resource policy practice, and discuss the underlying premises for fruitful collaboration. The concept brings in ideas from a range of literatures on planning and policy studies, and overlaps considerably with the concept of network governance. We portray some of the most prominent analytical approaches to collaboration in environmental governance, and end with a section on practical implications and future research challenges.

I landsbygdsprogrammet går det att få stöd för att skapa innovationer inomjordbruks-, trädgårds- och rennäringen. Innovationsstödet kallas EIP-Agri (European Innovation Partnership for Agricultural Productivity and Sustainability) och genomförs i många av EU:s medlemsländer. Målet med EIP-Agri-stödet är att skapa innovationer som bidrar till att öka konkurrenskraften på den svenska landsbygden och uppfylla nationella miljö- och klimatmål. Stödet handläggsav Jordbruksverket och kan sökas i två steg: som ett gruppstöd för att bilda en innovationsgrupp som förberedelse för en påtänkt innovation och som ett genomförandestöd för ett planerat innovationsprojekt. Totalt har EIP-Agristödet hittills omfattat 440 miljoner kronor i Sverige.

I den här slutrapporten presenterar vi vår utvärdering av EIP-Agri-stödet i Sverige. Utvärderingen har pågått 2016–2021 och varit löpande lärande, vilket innebär att vi följt och analyserat arbetet med stödet och fört en dialog med berörda tjänstepersoner. I utvärderingens första fas fokuserade vi på själva ansöknings- och beslutsprocessen genom att intervjua involverade tjänstepersoner inom EIP-Agri och samla in uppgifter från de som sökt stöden genom en enkät. Vi intervjuade även personer på landets innovationskontor. I den andra fasen gjorde vi enbredare utvärdering av EIP-Agri-stödets möjliga och upplevda effekter baserat på litteraturstudier, intervjuer med ytterligare nyckelpersoner och fallstudier avgenomförda grupp- och genomförandestöd. Rapporten redogör också för hur EIP-Agri hanteras och hur kunskapsutbyte sker i en europeisk kontext. Slutligen diskuterar vi våra erfarenheter av löpande lärande som utvärderingsform och lämnar våra rekommendationer för framtida arbete.

Blandade erfarenheter av handläggningsprocessenhos de som sökt stödet

Analysen av ansöknings- och beslutsprocessen visar bland annat att

1. rollfördelningen mellan handläggare och berörda beslutsfattare på Jordbruksverket samt innovationssupporten på Landsbygdsnätverket varotydliga till en början men har formaliserats allteftersom, och tolkningen avbegreppet innovation bland dessa aktörer är föremål för fortsatt diskussioninom EIP-Agri

2. majoriteten av de som sökt stödet är missnöjda med ansökningsprocesseneftersom handläggningstiderna varit långa och det funnits många krav påkompletteringar

3. möjligheten att söka gruppstöd är en styrka som kan utökas ytterligare,medan kraven på genomförandestödet bör ses över

4. EIP-Agri-stödets koppling till andra innovationssatsningar har varit mycketbegränsad, men det finns stora möjligheter till samverkan.

Svårt att mäta stödets effekter i samhället

Analysen av EIP-Agri-stödets effekter försvåras av att det finns en stor mängd mål formulerade på olika nivåer som inte går att utvärdera och mäta effekterna av med den information som finns i EIP-Agris databas. Utvärderingen visar att många av de enskilda innovationsprojekten anser sig ha uppnått sina mål, men de vidare effekterna i samhället vad gäller ökad konkurrenskraft och nationella miljö- och klimatmål har inte gått att utvärdera.

Samverkan och breda nätverk framhålls som viktigaframgångsfaktorer

Utvärderingen visar att breda kompetenser inom innovationsgruppen är en viktig förutsättning för framgång. Det är alltså viktigt att både forskare och praktiker ingår och samverkar i innovationsgruppen, något som ofta – men kanske inte alltid – är fallet. Det saknas dock idag en strategisk koppling mellan EIP-Agri och relevanta forskningssatsningar. Likaså bör gruppernas kompetenser längre ut i marknadskedjan stärkas ytterligare.

En annan faktor är vikten av nationella och internationella nätverk. Vissa sådana nätverk har använts, och interna EIP-projektträffar har varit uppskattade. Men nätverken behöver utvecklas och kopplas samman i större utsträckning för att stödja nytänkande, något som brister i dagens kunskaps- och innovationssystem.

Slutligen är det viktigt att en ny innovation når marknaden för att få effekt isamhället. Men marknadstillträde kan EIP-Agri-stödet inte finansiera, vilket gör att man måste söka flera olika stöd. Det behöver därför skapas möjligheter tillsynergier mellan olika myndigheters innovationsstöd.

This article critically examines the state's steering capacity of ‘green innovation’ programs using Sweden's implementation of the agricultural European Innovation Partnership (EIP-AGRI) as a case representing part of the EU's Green Deal. The innovations should promote the competitiveness of rural areas and contribute to national environmental protection and climate goals.

We found that despite expectations, implementation rests on compartmentalized networking within the agricultural sector, prioritizing increased ‘competitiveness’ before ‘green’ development, and interpreting ‘innovation’ mainly in the technical sense. The results indicate that the state´s steering capacity of ‘green innovation’ programs meets several obstacles: the overall goals from the top tend to be both too many and too vague, leaving it to the administration to interpret what kinds of features should be prioritized from below. The state's steering in the case of EIP-AGRI relies mostly on internal agricultural expertise contrary to previous research that suggests a recent ‘de-compartmentalisation’ of European agricultural policymaking.

Quests for devolving more power to local actors for nature protection stem from both international and national policies. Also, there is a growing recognition of the need for local governments to promote green infrastructure for citizens to recreate and learn about their environment. Starting in 2004, the Swedish government has allocated special funding towards these goals through the Local Nature Conservation Programme (LONA). Virtually all Swedish municipalities have received such funding in pursuit of facilitating wide access to nature and promoting recreational activities, including the protection of nature areas, creating pathways, information devices, and promoting these areas among new societal groups to enjoy. This study presents the results of ten years of experience with LONA. A survey with respondents from 191 municipalities and 20 county administrations, together with 20 key informant interviews, show that the programme has been a success in several respects. Not only have most municipalities created a wealth of new ways to engage local organisations and citizens in nature conservation and recreation, but they have also broadened the ways they think about how nature is important to their constituencies. Due to innovative ways to count voluntary work as local matching of funding, smaller and less resourceful municipalities have also become engaged. Still, the local needs for further initiatives are deemed considerable. State support coupled with knowledge sharing is important to show policy priority to such bottom-up initiatives.

The Local Nature Conservation Programme (LONA) was initiated by the Swedish government in 2004 and has now been ongoing more than ten years. The great majority of Swedish municipalities have applied for and received funding for LONA projects. A total of 300 MSEK was allocated to 1 530 projects in 260 municipalities plus at least as much in local funding. After a short break, LONA was taken up again in 2010-2016 with 237 MSEK national funding to 1 524 projects (4 505 measures) in 260 municipalities.

LONA is the largest national investment to achieve greater participation and increased local engagement with nature conservation and recreation, and fulfils the intention of international agreements such as the Convention of Biological Diversity and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability 2010. LONA’s main objective, to involve a greater range of local actors in conservation efforts, is fulfilled since more than half of the municipalities have done so in their LONA projects. The overall aim with this study is to evaluate more specifically in what ways and how LONA has contributed to local responsibility for nature conservation and recreation measures. The study takes departure in previous commissioned studies by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (reports 5923, 6392, 5605, 6397 and 5811, see references). The results below build on a survey sent out in autumn 2016 to all 290 municipalities (191 responded) and 21 county administrations (20 responded), plus in-depth interviews with key informants from three county administrations, six municipalities and two nongovernmental organisations engaged in LONA. Some interviews were also made in mountain municipalities.

The specific measures carried in the LONA projects connect to most of the Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives, dominated by ‘A Rich Diversity of Plant and Animal Life’ and ‘A Good Built Environment’. Most measures are relatively minor, with a typical median budget of about 56.000 SEK including the 50% own contribution. About one third of the projects involve non-governmental organisations, which has been made possible since voluntary work is accounted for in the budget as own contribution. The size of the LONA projects as well as the share of voluntary organizations involved has been rather stable over the years.

The majority of LONA projects concern various types of inventories, information dissemination and knowledge production, while about one third are about ecological restoration, conservation and management. During the 2010-2016 period, which this study focuses on – and despite the growing policy attention to social, cultural and recreational values – the share of measures geared towards nature conservation values has increased. Measures to protect cultural values and set aside nature areas are only a small share. More than half of the LONA projects are located in the urban fringe, which is in line with the government’s ambitions, but even smaller municipalities in rural areas have acquired substantial LONA funding. The majority of LONA projects are led by a municipality, while the remainder are led in cooperation between a municipality and a local organisation and fewer by such an organisation alone. There is very little variation in the nature of LONA projects depending on leadership. Even if all counties have municipalities with LONA projects, three of them are the most active: Skåne in the south, Västra Götaland in the south-west, and Stockholm County.

The funding LONA provides is very much appreciated among the municipalities. Eight out of ten municipalities say that the LONA aims are fully in line with the local needs for nature conservation, and seven out of ten claim that this is the case for recreation needs. Many of the large municipalities think that while LONA is a welcome contribution, it is still not a requirement for the municipality’s work for nature conservation and recreation. However, in many small-size municipalities the LONA funding is essential. The allocation of funding from LONA is also larger per inhabitant in small-size municipalities compared to large-size, which reflects such needs.

In the majority of municipalities, LONA funding makes up an important share of the local budget for nature protection, while it is somewhat lower for recreational purposes. Interestingly, LONA has particularly supported measures for nature protection and recreation in those municipalities with an assigned municipal ecologist, suggesting that when they exist, they have a facilitating role. The LONA funding allows for the same project to benefit from other funding as well, such as EU Life and the Rural Development Programme, as long as specific measures are funded separately. This possibility creates an added value of the LONA programme. The simplicity of the application procedure in LONA compared to EU funding is stressed as an advantage by the majority of municipalities.

The results show that LONA has led to increased and widened participation by local actors in nature protection and recreation. At the same time, the nature of such participation differs depending on the municipality size. Small-size municipalities with less resources tend to more often include external actors in the LONA projects, while large-size municipalities can mobilise the necessary resources themselves. Some of the latter municipalities therefore choose not to involve external actors. Our results further suggest that the involvement of non-governmental organisations seems to depend rather on different modes of working than on the requirements of the LONA regulation. Still, the regulation has restricted the involvement of private companies due to remaining question marks over how profit-making companies may lead and implement LONA projects.

Municipally employed ecologists, particularly in large-size municipalities, provide the most leadership in the LONA work, followed by other municipal officers and environment- and recreation-oriented non-governmental organisations. Nongovernmental organisations tend to initiate and engage in the work to a greater extent in small-size municipalities. There are already established networks within the field of nature conservancy, while, according to the respondents, new networks for the initiation and implementation of LONA projects are created in the field of recreation. The importance of coordination between municipalities through the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions is emphasised by several municipalities in this respect. A general trend is that such coordination and exchange of experiences has increased over time. The municipalities’ contacts with various local networks have also amplified.

The perceived need for protecting more areas in urban environments continues to be high, and LONA is seen as an important tool for long-term investment in the protection of nature and recreation values. LONA is regarded as especially important for recreation since there are alternative forms of support in nature conservation at the national level. The small-size municipalities are particularly dependent on LONA in their attempts to safeguard nature protection and recreation values. Many new areas have become accessible for local citizens thanks to LONA, some of which have become popular sites for nature studies, recreation and leisure. Media attention has helped increase their popularity, and assisted in giving high priority to these issues on the municipal political agenda.

LONA has led to learning among local actors, particularly with regard to nature conservation issues. Information gathered through LONA has spurred the development of plans for nature conservation and recreation in many municipalities, which on its part supports long-term thinking. Further, LONA has contributed to the initiation of Nature Schools and pedagogic tools for learning about nature in many pre-schools, which helps children in their understanding of and respect for nature. The effects of LONA in a long-term perspective is still, however, somewhat complex. For example, it appears that the local interest in establishing new protected areas has not generally increased, and only one-third of the municipalities claim that accessibility in existing protected areas has increased as a result of LONA. Likewise, in particularly small-size municipalities with limited resources, there is a risk that continued long-term management of nature protection and recreation does not materialize. One should keep in mind that most LONA projects are rather modest in size and that support from the LONA programme cannot solve all issues of municipal priority-setting.

At the same time, the results both from the survey and interviews suggest that LONA has generally had a positive effect on the interest for nature protection and recreation among local politicians and, even more so, among local citizens. This has in turn led to increased local resources for nature protection, albeit somewhat less so for recreation values. The growing attention given to these values has also led to better integration of nature protection and recreation in the municipalities’ spatial planning. In addition, the use of nature areas in the urban vicinity has increased due to more local investments in projects connected to learning. Finally, LONA has stimulated projects and measures targeting ‘new Swedes’ – and even if still only a minority of municipalities have used LONA for this purpose, there is great likelihood that more municipalities will do so in the near future.

The policy statements in LONA highly emphasize learning, knowledge development and knowledge exchange. The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the county administrations have contributed to those goals by various information gathering and communication efforts, including mentoring and networking. Our evaluation of how those methods have worked in practice shows that the respondents greatly appreciate the support given, and that the municipalities have been able to access a wealth of information about previous LONA projects, best cases, relevant expertise and arenas for knowledge exchange. The different methods for mentoring are complementary, with different target groups. On the whole, both the county administration officers responsible for LONA and the municipal LONA officers are satisfied with the ways in which the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency has implemented these different methods. They also believe that the methods have been supportive in creating increased participation, local understanding and knowledge for what LONA can and should achieve, and hence that LONA should be considered a success.

Governance collaborations between public and private partners are increasingly used to promote sustainable mountain development, yet information is limited on their nature and precise extent. This article analyzes collaboration on environment and natural resource management in Swedish mountain communities to critically assess the kinds of issues these efforts address, how they evolve, who leads them, and what functional patterns they exhibit based on Margerum's (2008) typology of action, organizational, and policy collaboration. Based on official documents, interviews, and the records of 245 collaborative projects, we explore the role of the state, how perceptions of policy failure may inspire collaboration, and the opportunities that European Union funds have created. Bottom-up collaborations, most of which are relatively recent, usually have an action and sometimes an organizational function. Top-down collaborations, however, are usually organizational or policy oriented. Our findings suggest that top-down and bottom-up collaborations are complementary in situations with considerable conflict over time and where public policies have partly failed, such as for nature protection and reindeer grazing. In less contested areas, such as rural development, improving tracks and access, recreation, and fishing, there is more bottom-up, action-oriented collaboration. State support, especially in the form of funding, is central to explaining the emergence of bottom-up action collaboration. Our findings show that the state both initiates and coordinates policy networks and retains a great deal of power over the nature and functioning of collaborative governance. A practical consequence is that there is great overlap—aggravated by sectorized approaches—that creates a heavy workload for some regional partners.

The concept of woodland key habitats is well-established in northern Europe, denoting sites in the forest landscape with particularly high biodiversity. In Sweden, woodland key habitats have been inventoried on individual forest owner’s land by the Swedish Forest Agency since 1993. Recently, various actors have questioned the woodland key habitat concept and its policy implications. To investigate how framing of the concept has changed over time we conducted a media analysis based on theories of collective action frames. The analysis covered the period 1991–2018 and a total of 293 articles in daily newspapers. Our results showed that, over time, woodland key habitats have mostly been framed by government agencies, journalists and environmental organizations as suffering as a result of forestry practices and that nature conservation is the solution to this problem. Actors presenting other or conflicting frames are not as common and they occur mostly when the frequency of articles is high. However, it is noteworthy that individual forest owners sometimes framed themselves as suffering economically from the woodland key habitats, which contrasts with the dominant framing. There were no large differences between national and regional newspapers in the framing of woodland key habitats.

Policy formulation refers to how problems identified in the agenda-setting phase transform into government programs. As the process of designing policy alternatives expresses and allocates power among different interests, policy formulation affects both implementation and outcomes. This paper examines the Swedish moose policy of 2010, revealing that the policy portrays the issue of moose as an ecological problem, while motivations for adopting policy measures are largely described in economic terms. Because of this incongruity, the policy may not achieve its goals. Furthermore, implementation principles stemming from different design strategies clash in the attempt to incorporate both local and ecosystem-based levels of management into a single system, leaving the policy implementation with many uncertainties and tensions. To deliver the policy’s goal, the government could consider clarifying the operationalization of the ecosystem-based management approach and identifying the prerequisites necessary for building capacity, dealing with strong stakeholders, and ensuring fair representation of key actors.  Future research should further explore the consequences of policy imbalances in relation to intended goals, the importance of understanding the rationales and design strategies underpinning implementation principles, and the need to discuss operationalization of EBM in relation to different types of objects of management and to issues of scale.

Samverkan som styrmedel kan leda till högre tillit mellan medborgare och myndigheter, ökad legitimitet för politiska beslut samt bättre förutsättningar för att nå gemensamma mål i förvaltningen. Men det finns flera fallgropar som bör undvikas om processerna ska bli effektiva. Läs mer i Future Forests policy brief Att samsas om samma skog - effektiva samverkansprocesser.

I den här rapporten belyses olika perspektiv på samverkan med utgångspunkt i befintlig kunskap om samverkansprocesser främst utifrån ett skogligt perspektiv.

Forskning inom ramen för Future Forests, men även andra forskningsmiljöer, har visat att samverkansprocesser har en rad fördelar men att de också är förknippade med ett antal fallgropar. Rapporten pekar på såväl bakgrunden till varför samverkan blir allt vanligare inom politik och förvaltning, vad som egentligen avses med samverkan samt hur man skapar så goda förutsättningar som möjligt för samverkansprocesser.

Although hunting served traditionally to supply game meat, and that is still important in Sweden, recreation is the most common reason for hunting moose (Alces alces) today. Hunting also serves an important management purpose in regulating moose populations to control crop and forest damage. This study used semi-structured interviews with key stakeholders and officials involved in the recently implemented ecosystem-based, adaptive local moose management system where hunters and landowners become environmental stewards responsible for managing moose in context with forest damage, vehicular collisions, large carnivores, and biodiversity. Our study found that participation and collaboration in reaching management objectives was perceived as positive by stakeholders, although their stewardship is jeopardized if specific management responsibilities are not clarified regarding monitoring. Further, it is important to find long-term funding solutions for monitoring activities that are critical for adequate data collection and to support the stakeholder role as steward. The importance of monitoring must be communicated to individual hunters and landowners to achieve an ecosystem-based moose management system that effectively incorporates both social and ecological values.

There is increasing political interest in the use of voluntary agreements (VA) as a policy instrument. The attraction has grown also in environmental policy, VAs are expected to be less costly, more effective and more cost-efficient than regulation. Using a realist review methodology, our analysis focuses on the effect of contextual factors and mechanisms on private forest owners' willingness to enter into formal voluntary nature conservation agreements. The framework we use to analyse the effects includes: forest owner characteristics, forest attributes, institutional context and process, advisors and other forest owners, and contract design, for contextual factors – and economic attitudes, environmental attitudes, sense of autonomy, sense of justice and fairness, trust as well as knowledge, for mechanisms. The analysis allowed merging findings from different types of VAs in varying contexts in a systematized way, and consolidating evidence of how the mechanisms influence the programme implementation process, and its outcome. 43 reviewed articles, from an originally retrieved set of 2231 papers, provide evidence for environmental attitudes supporting willingness to enter into an agreement. Environmental attitudes are strengthened by forest owners' wishes to protect a heritage, suggesting considerable influence through personal, emotional attachment to the forest. This finding shows the central role played by sense of autonomy, with economic compensation also importantly affecting the willingness to enter a VA. Along with these results, the developed comprehensive analytical framework shows how VAs can become more effective if tailored for different contexts and types of forest owners.