Devolving power from the state: local initiatives for nature protection and recreation in Sweden

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Eckerberg, K., Bjärstig, T., Miljand, M., Mancheva, I. (2020)

Devolving power from the state: local initiatives for nature protection and recreation in Sweden

Local Environment: the International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 25(6):

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Devolving power from the state: local initiatives for nature protection and recreation in Sweden

Katarina Eckerberg, Therese Bjärstig, Matilda Miljand & Irina Mancheva

To cite this article: Katarina Eckerberg, Therese Bjärstig, Matilda Miljand & Irina Mancheva (2020) Devolving power from the state: local initiatives for nature protection and recreation in Sweden, Local Environment, 25:6, 433-446, DOI: 10.1080/13549839.2020.1760226

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Devolving power from the state: local initiatives for nature protection and recreation in Sweden

Katarina Eckerberg , Therese Bjärstig , Matilda Miljand and Irina Mancheva Department of Political Science, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

ABSTRACT

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.

ARTICLE HISTORY Received 19 March 2019 Accepted 20 April 2020 KEYWORDS nature protection; local nature conservation;

recreation; knowledge sharing; networking;

participation; central-local relations

Introduction

Around the world, governments strive to involve a greater number of local actors in decision-making over the management of natural resources (Agrawal and Gibson1999; Larsen and Ribot2004; Bjärstig and Sandström2017). The quest for devolving more power to local actors for nature protection stems both from the European Union (i.e. the European Landscape Convention, the European Union Strat- egy for Biological Diversity), as well as from the United Nations (UN) Convention on Biological Diver- sity (2010). Furthermore, Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI) has adopted a Plan of Action on Sub-National Governments, Cities and Other Local Authorities for Biodiversity 2010, calling upon central-local co-operation to this end. Hence, there is growing recognition across Europe of the need for local governments to promote green infrastructure for citizens to recreate and learn about their environment (Aalbers and Eckerberg2013).

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

CONTACTKatarina Eckerberg katarina.eckerberg@umu.se Department of Political Science, Umeå University, 901 87 Umeå, Sweden

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

2020, VOL. 25, NO. 6, 433–446

https://doi.org/10.1080/13549839.2020.1760226

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Devolving powers to lower levels of government implies creating arenas for a variety of community actors to exercise more autonomy over the setting of goals and strategies in the local context.

Such broader involvement is expected to lead to increased efficiency, equity, and/or greater participation and responsiveness of the government to its citizens (Larsen and Ribot2004; Baker and Eck- erberg 2008). Devolving powers downwards from central to local authorities are also justified by more democratic solutions in decision-making, and the desire that local communities should have a say in issues that they themselves are most affected by (Baldersheim and Ståhlberg2002; Falleth and Hovik2009). Rescaling “downwards” within the state has occurred especially in environment and sustainable development policy (Gibbs and Jonas2000), protected area governance (Gambert 2010; Holmgren, Sandström, and Zachrisson2017) and urban parks management (Speller and Raven- scroft2005). Providing improved access for local citizens to enjoy green areas close to their neigh- bourhood is an example of such an issue.

At the same time, the desire to devolve decision-making power from the state to local actors involves at least two dilemmas. Thefirst concerns the relationship between central and local government. The capacity of local authorities to take on new responsibilities with accompanying demands for expert competencies, as well as budgetary consequences, is often limited. Central government therefore frequently contributes to local capacity building through directfinancing and the provision of expertise to sub-national authorities (Stoker2000; Baker and Eckerberg2007). In doing this, the state helps to initiate and co-ordinate policy networks while retaining substantial power over the nature and functioning of network forms of governance (Baker and Eckerberg2014; Bjärstig and Sandström 2017). As witnessed by local government partnerships in the U.K., this might either imply a“shadow hierarchy” where state actors remain in control, or that localising of state funding may provide for greater independence and capability (Fenwick, Miller, and McTavish2012). But as Wiseman (2006) denotes, community strengthening can only lead to significant improvement in local policy outcomes if the commitment to citizen engagement is genuine, and if there is a real investment in the social and physical infrastructure needed to address local concerns. Indeed, Evans, Sundback, and Theobald (2005) stress that the active engagement of local communities requires effective commitment, leadership and guidance of local and national governments and international authorities. This can, in turn, generate the local resources, support and energy needed to deliver outcomes. The question is, then, to what extent local empowerment can lead to protection of nature and recreational values that are democratically embedded in the local community rather than steered from above (Fauchald and Gulbrandsen2012).

The second dilemma concerns the in-built tension between the policy goals at the local level that might conflict with the long-term necessities of environmental governance. Gambert (2010) goes as far as to suggest that a political reason for devolving powers might have been to hide local governments’ own responsibility in environmental failure. Concerns have also been raised whether long- term strengthening of local institutions to ensure local implementation of sustainable development is possible given the short-term funding that has characterised most national programmes geared towards this end (Eckerberg and Dahlgren2007). When evaluating state funding towards ecological restoration projects in Sweden, parallel and uncoordinated initiatives in different sectors together with short-term funding were found to risk continuity as well as miss more holistic strategies and eco- system perspectives, thus leading to projectification and short-termism in their implementation (Borgström, Zachrisson, and Eckerberg 2016). A previous comparative study across five EU member states has shown that state-funded programmes to support long-term local capacity-building were most effective when the policy style, participatory opportunities and administrative culture promoted integration of the new programme into already existing initiatives (Baker and Eckerberg 2008). A case in point is the long-standing implementation of Local Agenda 21 from the early 1990s and onwards in Sweden is a case in point (Eckerberg and Dahlgren2007), where new large- scale state funding in the late 1990s helped to revitalise political interest in local sustainability initiatives that had somewhat waned. This led to enhanced institutional capacity at the local level (Baker and Eckerberg2007). Hence, the timing and design of state funding seems to be key to success in

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this respect. Therefore, we ask whether funding programmes can be designed in ways to enhance the capacity of local communities in a longer-term perspective, and if so, how?

This article sheds light on the two dilemmas by examining how the Swedish government supports local authorities’ initiatives to protect and develop nature and recreation values. The choice of Sweden is justified by two main reasons. First, Sweden is generally considered a pioneering state in implementing sustainable development (Lafferty and Meadowcroft2000; Lafferty2001), and its local authorities have since long become engaged in such efforts (Rowe and Fudge2003; Eckerberg and Dahlgren2007). Central government leadership and funding programmes have played a major role in such progress but also contributed to a high reliance on investments by state and municipal actors rather than mobilising the private sector and local citizens (Rowe and Fudge2003; Baker and Eckerberg2007). The second reason behind the choice of Sweden is the launch of the Swedish Local Nature Conservation Programme (LONA) established in 2004. This programme constitutes an excep- tion to the rule of central government formulating nature and recreation policy and forcing sub- national authorities to act. The approach is instead to support emerging local initiatives. The experiences from LONA can, therefore, shed light on how the protection of nature and recreation values can be realised locally.

Three research questions guide our analysis:

(1) To what extent and how has the LONA programme empowered diﬀerent actors at the local level in protecting nature and recreational values in line with local priorities?

(2) What methods for central-local co-ordination have been used to foster local initiatives and with what results?

(3) Which lasting eﬀects result from the LONA programme in the form of integration into local policy making?

We begin by brieﬂy reviewing the relevant literature on central-local relations in environmental policy-making as an analytical departure for the study, followed by the methods and materials used in our analysis. The result section starts with an overview of the Swedish policy context in which the LONA programme is situated, including information on its overall design, mandate and reach. Results in relation to the above three research questions are then presented and analysed.

Finally, we discuss and draw conclusions as to how the two dilemmas might be overcome.

Analytical departure

Worldwide, the need for decentralising power to local actors has increasingly been emphasised in environmental policy and natural resource management (e.g. Bergh2004; Larsen and Ribot2004).

Here, we use the concept of local empowerment to denote three different aspects: the influence of particular actors or networks in decision-making, their ascribed mandate, and their perceived impact on the policy outcome (Airaksinen and Åström2009). Decentralising power involves granting local actors/bodies both political and financial authority to assume, responsibilities that have tra- ditionally been carried out by central line agencies; (Blair 2000; cited in Johnson2001). Decentralisa- tion reforms are also being justified on the grounds that the increased efficiency, equity and inclusion that should arise would result in the better and more sustainable management of the environment and natural resources (Larsen and Ribot2004). The literature further lifts the tension between increasingly participatory systems of governance and the needs for effective and coherent policy (Johnson 2001), in line with thefirst dilemma of building local capacity and expertise. There is a simultaneous need for creating greater involvement of local actors while at the same time making sure that the central state maintains a certain degree of influence to ensure consistency and fair distribution of benefits and resources in policy implementation (cf. Bjärstig and Sandström2017).

In the Nordic countries, local governments have considerable autonomy and long-standing tra- dition of exerting power over their own territory. Local elections to the municipal council as well

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as tax revenues secure political legitimacy as well as the availability of resources in local governments (Baldersheim and Ståhlberg2002). This implies that the main provision of public services is chan- nelled through the municipalities at the local level, even if some additional resources are provided by the central state. According to Baldersheim and Ståhlberg (2002), even if there are sometimes ten- sions concerning the balance between local autonomy and national policy objectives, the general picture in the Nordic context, including Sweden, is that of rather harmonious central-local relations.

In theﬁeld of environmental policy, the Swedish municipalities exert quite far-reaching powers within for instance environmental control of pollution in the local territory and urban land use planning (Bjärstig et al.2018). However, control over nature conservation has remained largely at the central and regional level, with the state setting priorities and implementing various protection forms (Sand- ström et al.2010). Experiments have been launched with devolving powers from the state to the local level of government within nature conservation policy across the Nordic countries (Sandström et al.

2010). This process is part of an international trend, spurred both by speciﬁc international environmental agreements and more general policy developments towards multi-level governance (Ecker- berg and Joas 2004). But devolving power also means that local actors have more inﬂuence on setting priorities on what nature to preserve and for whom. In Norway, for example, when power was devolved from the state to local governments, the latter tended to promote their locally derived interests targeting local prosperity and enterprise, along with economic and social needs of local communities, rather than remaining loyal to the state’s conservation policy (Falleth and Hovik2009).

Central government funding is a widely used policy instrument to spur the local level implementation of environmental policy and as a method for co-ordination between national and local decision-making. Given the right methods for co-ordination and control between the state and the local level, there is a possibility to not only finance short-term investments but also to promote longer-term awareness-raising and learning within the local setting (Baker and Eckerberg 2008). Such learning may also entail challenging established ideas within central authorities about what promoting local nature protection and recreation is all about. Our third research question, therefore, concerns not only the immediate implementation of LONA but also its more lasting effects on local policy-making in this field.

Method and material

The study takes departure in the previously commissioned studies by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) between 2006 and 2016. Diﬀerent aspects of how LONA has been implemented have been investigated: the ways in which the programme was initially designed and managed (Dahlgren and Eckerberg 2006); how it has contributed to learning processes in relation to environment, nature conservation and outdoor life in schools (Dahlgren, Eckerberg, and Swartling 2008); how it has promoted local participation and engagement (Dahlgren, Eckerberg, and Mineur2009); and the protection of local nature areas (SEPA2010; Nordenstam and Eckerberg 2011). The main results reported in this article emanate from the most recent study that draws from ten years of experience with LONA (Eckerberg et al.2017). It involved four diﬀerent methods and materials:

i data from the so-called LONA database, containing information of all LONA projects and measures, which is open access on SEPA’s Webpage and was made available to us as a separate dataﬁle to allow for further descriptive analysis;

ii an electronic survey sent out autumn 2016 to all 290 municipalities (191 or 66% responded) and 21 county administrations (20 or 95% responded). Some of the questions overlapped to allow for comparison across the groups;

iii altogether 20 in-depth interviews with key informants from county administrations, municipalities and local organisations engaged in LONA representing both small and large municipalities

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in diﬀerent parts of Sweden. All interviews were transcribed and validated by the respondents (list of interviewees in Appendix 1);

iv observation and study of protocols and recorded e-meetings between the responsible oﬃcer at SEPA and LONA contact persons at the County Administrations as well as recorded seminars and completed evaluation forms from participants in LONA meetings.

Our three research questions were answered through the above-mentioned complementary methods, which allowed both for verification through triangulation and for deepening the analysis on critical issues (Yin 2011). More specifically, the LONA database provided an overall picture of which types of activities had been implemented over time and by whom, while the survey and interviews, as well as studies of support mechanisms, contributed with multiple evidence on the research questions, allowing both for quantitative and qualitative analyses at multiple points in time. We address the empowerment of local actors by analysing the extent to which local actors perceive that they have had an influence on how LONA has been implemented, whether engagement has been become broadened and local networks have been used, as well as the ways in which LONA has supported the capacity for local initiatives. The methods for central-local co-ordination were studied through the observations and by asking questions about the communication across national-regional-local levels and what instruments are in place for exchange of knowledge and experiences. The lasting effects from LONA were similarly investigated through a combination of questions in the survey and interviews, using the opportunity of our longitudinal research. We asked, among other things, whether and how the work in LONA has become integrated into regular municipal planning and what effects can be discerned in raising interest and promoting learning about nature protection and recreation among different local actors and citizens.

Results

LONA in Swedish policy context

Sweden maintains a two-tier system of government within environmental policy with autonomous municipalities at the local level and state authorities– the County Administrations (CA) at the regional level. The municipalities carry out comprehensive planning of land use within their territory, and adopt local policies for the development of infrastructure, including green areas. The main funding for environmental administration at the municipal level comes from local taxes and revenues, but its share of the locally derived budget is generally small, making it rather dependent on additional funding by the state. Since 1991, the municipalities can create protected areas in order to facilitate citizens’ access to nature in the urban vicinity. Such areas, or nature reserves which are the legal concept, are decided upon by the municipality and normally co-ﬁnanced by a special grant from SEPA. In parallel, SEPA administers the LONA funding which is being dispersed to the CAs. All the CAs and a majority of municipalities have appointed a responsible LONA oﬃcer. The municipalities must apply for the funding to their respective CA, which channels and distributes the central funding allocations from SEPA according to their regional priority-setting. The methods for central-local co-ordination in this decision-making process are further analysed below in the results section.

To date, the LONA programme has been going on for well over ten years even if its mandate has changed somewhat, with the need to promote recreational values becoming increasingly emphasised. In 2002, the Swedish government adopted ten recreation policy goals that require improved planning, protection and management of recreational values– not least at the local level of government (Swedish Government Communication 2002). This implies that LONA should support local initiatives for nature protection and recreation, notably in urban and peri-urban areas, as a comp- lement to state-driven conservation policy in the form of protected areas and legal requirements for multiple use land use. In line with the above-mentioned policies, LONA funded projects

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should, therefore, build upon broad local engagement in order to facilitate citizens’ access to nature and promote recreational activities. This includes the protection of nature areas, creating pathways and nature information devices, and promoting the enjoyment of those areas among diﬀerent societal groups. The LONA funding from the state can be used for any activity towards this end, but requires the local community to provide matching funding, which can be both in the form of municipal budgetary allotments to the approved project as well as voluntary work. LONA projects can be initiated either by the municipality itself or by other local actors but the overall responsibility rests with the municipality. As one municipal oﬃcer states: LONA is really important to spur engagement and resources among local organisations. Since it is rather easy to apply, there is no obstacle to get money which is key for the voluntary sector (Interview municipality). Indeed, the simplicity of applying is emphasised in many of our interviews.

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– quite surprisingly, the share of measures towards nature conservation values has increased. Measures to protect cultural values are only a small share. More than half of the LONA projects are located in the urban fringe, in line with government ambitions, but even smaller municipalities in rural areas have acquired substantial LONA funding. Most of the speciﬁc measures are relatively minor, with a typical median budget of about 56.000 SEK (about 5600€) including the 50 per cent locally derived contribution. About one- third of the projects involve local organisations, which has been made possible since voluntary work is accounted for in the budget as matching contribution. The size of the LONA projects as well as the share of local organisations involved has been rather stable over the years (see Eckerberg et al. [2017] for more facts andﬁgures).

Empowerment of local actors

We queried about local actors’ perceived influence on how LONA has been implemented, how local networks were used and whether engagement has broadened, as well as whether and how LONA has supported building capacity for local initiatives. Already in thefirst process evaluation of LONA, we found that the design of the programme spurred increased and widened participation by local actors in the LONA projects. The funding requirements where voluntary work is counted as matching budget contribution was greatly appreciated in this respect (Dahlgren and Eckerberg 2006). Our second evaluation of participation in LONA also showed strengthened support for and engagement for nature protection locally. The LONA support made it possible to combine nature protection and outdoor recreation in positive ways that were beneficial to promoting public health and improved knowledge about the local environment (Dahlgren, Eckerberg, and Swartling 2008). This wider engagement has continued over time. In total, according to our survey, 54 per cent of the municipalities have involved external actors in the LONA projects to a“complete” or “great extent”, 37 per cent to“some extent” and 3 per cent “not at all” (6 per cent answered that they “do not know”). Moreover, local networking has increased substantially albeit more so for nature protection than for recreation issues (seeTable 1). According to the respondents, there are already established networks within the

Table 1.Survey question to municipalities and CAs: to what extent have contacts with diﬀerent local networks increased?

Completely To great extent To some extent Not at all Do not know Municipality

Nature protection 3% 41% 38% 8% 10%

Recreation 2% 30% 37% 7% 25%

County Administration Nature protection 0% 25% 35% 0% 40%

Recreation 0% 15% 15% 0% 70%

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ﬁeld of nature protection, while in recreation new networks for the initiation and implementation of LONA projects are starting to evolve.

Municipal employed ecologists, particularly in large municipalities, provide the most leadership in the LONA work, followed by other municipal oﬃcers and environment- and recreation-oriented non- governmental organisations. The local municipal ecologists are particularly active in initiating projects: those municipalities that develop their own nature protection programme also have their own ecologists who take the lead (Interview CA). Non-governmental organisations tend to initiate and engage in the work to greater extent in small municipalities. 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.

At the same time, the nature of such empowerment of local actors differs depending on the municipality population size. Small municipalities with fewer resources more often tend to include and/or depend on local organisations in the planning and implementation of LONA projects, while large municipalities can mobilise the necessary resources themselves. Some of the latter municipalities, therefore, choose not to involve local organisations. Our results further suggest that the involvement of local actors 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.

The funding that LONA provides constitutes an important ingredient of the empowerment, con- tributing to strengthening the local capacity to act. Eight out of ten municipalities claim that the LONA aims are fully in line with the local needs for nature conservation, and seven out of ten claims that this is the case for recreational needs. The CAs verify this picture. Many of the large municipalities think that while LONA is a welcome contribution, it is still not a necessity for the municipality’s work for nature conservation and recreation. In contrast, many small municipalities see LONA funding as essential. These municipalities are particularly supported by the CAs: this inequality is to certain extent levelled out by the CA by their positive attitude towards applications from small municipalities (Interview municipality). The allocation of funding from LONA is also larger per inhabitant in small compared to large municipalities, 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. LONA funding allows the same project to beneﬁt from other funding as well, such as EU Life and the Rural Development Pro- gramme, as long as speciﬁc measures are funded separately. This possibility creates an added value for the LONA programme. This brings us to investigate further the design of the methods for co-ordination and what these imply for empowering local actors in the implementation of LONA.

Methods for central-local co-ordination

State support to local budgets can be designed either to primarily implement top-down defined policies from the national level or to chiefly enable local actors to act according to their own priorities – even if there are generally some limits to such local discretion in the use of funding. In the case of LONA, the definition of the local problems and opportunities to enact upon lies largely with the local actors who apply for the funding, and as mentioned, the LONA projects that materialise are perceived to be in line with regional and/or local priorities to a very high degree according to our survey

“especially since recreation was added [as a LONA goal]” (Interview CA). There is a high degree of compliance with the overall goals that have been set for LONA, which suggests that the state – through SEPA and the CAs– is successful in its dialogue with municipalities and other local actors.

There are several methods for co-ordination within the LONA process that contribute to this outcome, as summarised below (Table 2).

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The many diﬀerent forms of information and dialogue show that the SEPA has put a strong emphasis on communication and networking activities compared to other similar funding programmes. For example, in the much larger Local Investment Programme for Ecological Sustainability the power over funding decisions largely remained at national level and there were few mechanisms for networking and empowerment at local and regional level (Baker and Eckerberg2007). The useful- ness of the various mechanisms in LONA was evaluated in our survey and interviews. The e-meetings with LONA contact persons in the CAs led by SEPA have been held yearly, and since 2016 several times per year. There is opportunity for all to raise questions and demand answers from SEPA or to ask for further enquiry. The meetings are recorded and documented so that those who cannot par- ticipate can be informed afterwards. The responding CAs have taken advantage of this form of guidance“to great extent” (85 per cent) or “some extent” (15 per cent), and 85 per cent deem that the meetings have been useful“to great extent”. It is much appreciated that the guidance from SEPA in these meetings has been constantly developed over time, and that perceived constraints in the

Table 2.The mechanisms and the target groups for guidance from the SEPA.

Mechanisms Description Target groups

E-meetings The meetings are held 6–8 times per year and are led by SEPA’s national coordinator. In those meeting diﬀerent types of current issues are discussed and all participants have the opportunity to comment and pose questions.

The meetings are recorded and are uploaded, together with the Power Point presentations and protocols, to the Collaboration Forum (see below).

LONA contact oﬃcers at respective CAs.

Collaboration Forum

A forum for all CA LONA oﬃcers where they can pose or respond to questions, receive answers and guidance from oﬃcers from SEPA, as well as make use of templates for decision-making and policy documents.

Best practice working groups

The aim of these working groups is not only to identify and prepare Best Practice Cases in the LONA register, but also to function as support for the CAs LONA oﬃcers in their work with LONA in general.

LONA-meetings These meetings can be both national and regional. Each meeting has a diﬀerent theme and is organised in collaboration with one CA and one municipality which present Best Practice examples of LONA projects. The aim is to increase participation, as well as, with the national meetings, to broaden the municipalities’ perspectives with examples from the work of other municipalities and CAs.

The municipalities’ LONA oﬃcers, NGOs, local politicians.

LONA-days The LONA days are organised primarily by the CAs and municipalities, who invite media, politicians and local organisations and citizens. The aim is to present LONA and underscore examples of Best Practice.

Local organisations and citizens, media, politicians.

LONA-database An open-access register where anyone could read about diﬀerent LONA projects, how they are distributed in policy areas or environmental goals, as well asﬁnd contact details of municipality or representatives from local organisations who were involved in the projects.

An ample number of nature protection and recreation plans, as well as inventories of projects are also available here. It is in the LONA database that applications for and reports from LONA projects are made.

LONA contact oﬃcers at respective CAs, The municipalities’ LONA oﬃcers, local organisations and citizens.

Best practice This part of the LONA register consists of a exposition of successful LONA projects. These projects are identiﬁed as successful by CAs but municipalities have to also approve them as such.

LONA contact oﬃcers at respective CAs, The municipalities’ LONA oﬃcers, local organisations and citizens.

SEPA’s webpage SEPA has uploadedﬁlms and documents which oﬀer guidance on applying for LONA funding.

The community, LONA contact oﬃcers at respective CAs, The municipalities’ LONA oﬃcers

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application procedure have been promptly dealt with. Not only do LONA contact persons at municipal level appreciate the knowledge exchanges across levels but so do the CAs: One often works quite alone with LONA at the CA and it is great to discuss ideas and problems with others (Interview CA).

A so-called Collaboration Forum complements the e-meetings. This online forum is used for various kinds of information exchange between SEPA and the CAs as well as among the CAs. Ques- tions are answered on a continuous basis, and the replies stored for later reference. Three fourths of the CAs have used the Collaboration Forum“to great extent”.

Best Practice– or “good examples” – in LONA projects have been developed by the LONA contact persons in the CAs and are registered in the LONA database for public access. They can be examples of innovative, and/or of high importance and/or cost-eﬀective projects or measures. SEPA has the ﬁnal say about which Best Practice examples are communicated in the LONA database to ensure nationwide representation. These cases of Best Practice are discussed in working groups that allow for further exchange across CAs, enabling learning from other regions and municipalities. The working groups also function as support groups for individual contact persons who are new on their posts, helping to ensure continuity.

The purpose ofﬁnding and communicating Best Practice is to inspire others and show how LONA can contribute, which is important as a source for ideas for the presumptive applicants for LONA projects at local level. The LONA database functions both as a way to create statistics about the LONA projects and to display what is going on in particular issue areas or locations. The SEPA webpage also provides additional information such as guidelines for applications and practical advice for local LONA contact persons and other local actors who want to know more. The knowledge support from the LONA database, including Best Practice examples, are appreciated by respondents:

almost half of them claimed that the database and one-fourth that Best Practice had been used“to great extent” while only one-fourth said that they had “not at all” used it or that they “did not know”.

The LONA contact persons in the CAs are critical to the communication of experience between the local and national level. Their personal engagement is important in this respect, and many of them refer to the national LONA coordinator who is seen as a very inspiring person whom they can turn to if they have any questions. The LONA contact persons in the CAs act as facilitators by supporting the development of local ideas into successful applications through dialogue with the municipalities in their county, but the CAs also makeﬁnal decisions which projects to ﬁnance within the allocated budget from SEPA. The legitimacy of these decisions seems to be high, since only 8 per cent of the municipalities thought that the allocation of funding had been skewed. Some survey respondents mentioned that smaller municipalities have less capacity to make successful applications and to implement LONA projects due to lack of personnel. Still, the LONA database statistics showed no apparent bias in the allocation of funding across all municipalities.

Municipal level LONA contact persons and other relevant local actors take part in annual national- level physical meetings arranged by SEPA in diﬀerent parts of the country where local experiences are being shared and documented for later reference. Sometimes regional-level LONA-meetings are held on particular themes. Two thirds of the municipality respondents in our survey said that these meetings have been useful either to“great” or “some” extent.

Information to the general public is also an important part of awareness-raising about local nature and recreation values. For example, the LONA-day in 2007– arranged at multiple sites – was attended by around 70 municipalities and reached about 2000 individuals, particularly targeting local politicians and interested citizens at local level. Below we discuss other eﬀorts to spur wider local engagement for nature protection and recreation.

Integration into local policy making and long-term eﬀects

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

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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’ comprehensive planning.

This is well expressed by one municipality: LONA is really important for local nature protection, which is beyond the actual support to our budget. This about initiating projects– gets positive response, support from politicians and other municipal oﬃcers – which leads to the institutionalisation of many projects. It becomes a catalyst for further local nature protection (Interview municipality).

About one-third of the respondents from both CAs and municipalities claim that such integration has been improved“to great extent” and “some extent” even if only about ﬁve per cent of the municipalities say that it has been“fully” achieved. Learning within the municipalities has also occurred, especially in relation to nature protection with 38 percent of the municipalities claiming “great extent” and two per cent “fully”. Within recreation, the equivalent ﬁgures are 16 and two per cent. Like- wise, the CAs have positive claims about aspects of learning although many more respond they“do not know”. The CAs respondents are also positive when asked to give their general picture on how LONA has supported long-term local work towards nature protection and recreation (Figure 1).

Our survey shows that information gathered through LONA projects has spurred the development of plans for nature conservation and recreation in many municipalities, which on their part supports long-term thinking. Also, according to the survey both the CAs and municipalities claim that the amount of accessible nature areas in the urban vicinity has increased considerably along with projects connected to nature guiding and learning. For example, 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. One of the interviews illustrates this:

more than half of the municipalities in our county have started Nature Schools that now are permanent.

Many new nature areas have become popular destinations and more accessible (Interview CA).

The perceived need for protecting more areas in urban environments continues to be high according to both the CAs and municipalities in our survey, and LONA is seen as an important tool for long- term investment in the protection of nature and recreation values. The eﬀects of LONA in a long-term perspective are still, however, somewhat complex. For example, it appears that the local interest in establishing new protected areas has generally not increased, and only one-third of the municipalities claim that accessibility in existing protected areas has increased“to great extent” as a result of LONA (even if half of the CAs say so). Particularly in small municipalities with limited resources, there is a risk that continued long-term management of nature conservation and recreation does not materialise. 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. As one of the CAs emphasises: There is great variation across diﬀerent municipalities in how LONA can

Figure 1.The CAs’ view on the extent to which LONA has supported long-term nature protection and recreation work.

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support them. Some have really used this opportunity and speeded up their own work and achieved broad engagement among local politicians and integration within their daily work /… / In other municipalities individual enthusiasts have initiated LONA projects, and this has yet to“spill over” on other municipal work (Interview CA).

Discussion and conclusion

Before LONA, nature conservation initiatives stemming from the local level were scarce and mainly found in large urban municipalities that felt a growing pressure from their citizens and could afford to pay for it. Even if parks and green areas for recreation have existed for quite some time, the great majority of protected areas are still located at distance from urban settlements. These initiatives were, however, largely expert-driven from the top and down (cf. Gambert2010; Holmgren, Sandström, and Zachrisson2017). LONA is the Swedish government’s largest investment so far to achieve increased local engagement with nature conservation and recreation, in line with international environmental agreements. LONA’s main objective to involve a broader range of local actors in conservation efforts is fulfilled since more than half of the municipalities have done so in their LONA projects. We found that LONA has led to increased knowledge and interest about nature protection both among local politicians and municipal officers and the general public. In terms of ourfirst research question on devolving power, LONA is considered to be very much in line with regional and local priorities and the municipal LONA contact persons report that LONA has strengthened their capacity, especially in less-resourced rural municipalities (cf. Speller and Ravenscroft 2005; Bjärstig and Sandström 2017). Local networking has increased as a result of LONA, and local engagement has widened considerably with many local organisations being involved in the planning and implementation of LONA projects. In line with Wiseman’s findings from Victoria, Australia (2006), the role of the municipalities as co-ordinators of local initiatives, as responsible for project applications, and for co-funding the projects, has helped to voice and mobilise local interest both from politicians, municipal officers beyond the LONA contact persons, and various local organisations. Extensive networking has also assisted to this end. Thereby, the local actors whom we asked were generally very content with the policy outcome of LONA. Thefinancial contribution, albeit rather small, along with the wide-ranging knowledge support from other municipalities and the CAs was found to be pivotal especially for empowering small less resourced rural municipalities (cf. Stoker2000; Baker and Eckerberg2007; Bjärstig and Sandström2017).

Regarding the second research question on methods for and results from central-local co-ordination, we found that the LONA implementation has become a continuous dialogue between the central agency SEPA, the regional CAs and the municipalities, with a considerable amount and diversity of methods for interaction. Alike what Speller and Ravenscroft (2005) show, our results also indicate the importance of commitment and willingness of the local authority to recognise public involvement as an educative process. The policy statements in LONA highly emphasise learning, knowledge development and knowledge exchange. The SEPA and the CAs have contributed to those goals by various information gathering and communication efforts, including men- toring and networking. Our evaluation of how those methods have worked in practice shows that the respondents greatly appreciate the support given, and that the different methods for mentor- ing are complementary, with different target groups. On the whole, both the CA officers responsible for LONA and the municipal LONA contact persons are satisfied with the ways in which the SEPA 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. We can con- clude that the design and implementation of LONA has therefore worked to overcome the first dilemma, namely that it has promoted sustainable solutions to locally perceived problems as founded in the local community.

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As for the third research question on lasting effects, our study shows that LONA has become well integrated into local policy-making, for example in regular municipal comprehensive planning where nature protection and recreation values have been strengthened as result of LONA. Consequently, the second dilemma of projectification and short-termism might be overcome if learning occurs and nature protection and recreation policy becomes well integrated into“normal” implementation of local government policy (cf. Baker and Eckerberg2008). Integration seems to have happened in several ways:first, LONA has helped put nature protection and recreation on the political agenda by raising awareness and increasing knowledge among local politicians, but also among local citizens which puts political pressure to act. Second, LONA has been instrumental in promoting various learning activities in schools and preschools, which has the potential to reach not only children and young people but also indirectly their parents. This means that knowledge about nature, and experiencing nature has expanded within the local community. The risk that the intent of LONA would cease if state funding would diminish therefore seems minor in light of the greater awareness and integration of nature protection and recreation values in local policy-making and implementation, even if we should not underestimate the problems that smaller, and less resourced rural municipalities encoun- ter in this respect. There is a clear difference in how important LONA has been to strengthen the capacity in small compared to large municipalities, with the smaller municipalities being largely dependent on the support from central government funding. Nevertheless, the small municipalities seem to have benefitted even more from the support given by LONA, suggesting that enhancing knowledge and mobilising local interest for nature protection and recreation might not be solely dependent on available funding, but also on integrating those aspects into the local policy- making at large (see also Rowe and Fudge2003).

The positive results from the LONA programme as evidenced above might be an eﬀect of the legacy of strong local government, as well as bottom-up environmental policy making that charac- terises, in particular, the Nordic countries (Baldersheim and Ståhlberg 2002). However, there are several lessons to be learned that should be generalisable to a larger number of countries. First, central governmentﬁnancial support designed to build upon bottom-up initiatives could catalyse considerable mobilisation of local resources at reasonably low cost. Making the application process as simple as possible helps to great extent. The request for co-funding, where voluntary work counts, can be key in getting local organisations with limited resources other than devoted people on board (cf. Baker and Eckerberg2007; Bjärstig and Sandström2017). Second, such government support should be accompanied by extensive and purposeful knowledge-sharing methods.

Indeed, the combination of horizontal and vertical networking and knowledge support showed to be an essential success factor (see also Speller and Ravenscroft 2005). The political and public pressure for securing funding for local nature conservation and recreation values is likely to continue, with the design and outcomes from LONA as potential inspiration in other contexts.

Disclosure statement

No potential conﬂict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

The research wasﬁnanced by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency as ﬁve commissioned evaluations over the years 2006–2016.

ORCID

Katarina Eckerberg http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6546-5210.

Therese Bjärstig http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6845-5525.

Matilda Miljand http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6902-6415.

Irina Mancheva http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5582-9877.

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