Camilla Sandström

Umeå University | UMU · Department of Political Science

Human impacts on the planet degrade natural habitats, often restricting wildlife to protected areas. If connectivity between such areas is lost, wildlife populations may lose genetic diversity, thereby increasing extinction risk. For large carnivores, connecting populations separated by human‐occupied habitats requires dedicated effort to foster hu...

Understanding wildlife stakeholders is vital in mitigating the risk for inertia in the implementation of management and illegal activities, e.g., poaching. We used a unique set of questionnaire data of stakeholders in Sweden (n = 8728) comprising birdwatchers, hunters, farmers, and the general public, to analyze evaluations of geese, beliefs about...

Diminishing wild space and population fragmentation are key drivers of large carnivore declines worldwide. The persistence of large carnivores in fragmented landscapes often depends on the ability of individuals to move between separated subpopulations for genetic exchange and recovery from stochastic events. Where separated by anthropogenic landsc...

Conflicts over the management and governance of forests seem to be increasing. Previous media studies in this area have largely focused on analysing the portrayal of specific conflicts. This study aims to review how a broad range of forest conflicts are portrayed in the Swedish media, analysing their temporal, spatial, and relational dimensions. We...

The forest is attributed a key role in a green societal transition. Even though the climate benefits of the forest are already significant, the forest's contribution must further increase according to the Paris Agreement. In the interdisciplinary project Route to Paris, we investigate the potential of Swedish forests to contribute to a climate-neut...

La faune sauvage peut directement menacer la sécurité, les moyens de subsistance et le bien-être des gens. Des représailles contre l'espèce incriminée s'ensuivent souvent, entraînant un conflit entre les groupes de personnes concernées quant à ce qu'il convient de faire pour résoudre la situation. Les conflits entre les humains et la faune sauvage...

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 seve...

Rangelands face threats from climate and land-use change, including inappropriate climate change mitigation initiatives such as tree planting in grassy ecosystems. The marginalization and impoverishment of rangeland communities and their indigenous knowledge systems, and the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services, are additional major challeng...

Hur bör viltförvaltningen organiseras för att vi ska få en adaptiv och effektiv skötsel av våra viltpopulationer som även upplevs som legitim? Denna rapport svarar mot ett behov att syntetisera den senaste tidens forskning om hur viltförvaltningens styrning och organisering påverkar dess kapacitet att hantera olika ekologiska och sociala utmaningar...

The agricultural sector is one of the areas that has been highlighted as requiring a sustainability transition. For these kinds of transitions to succeed over the long-term, farmers need to be able to adapt to the required changes. Identifying which individual and institutional aspects are important for farmers' adaptive capacity and willingness to...

Essas Diretrizes estão centradas em Princípios fundamentais de compreensão e gerenciamento de conflitos entre humanos e animais selvagens: (1) Não causar danos, (2) Entender os problemas e o contexto, (3) Trabalhar em conjunto, (4) Integrar ciência e política e (5) Possibilitar caminhos sustentáveis. Esses se espelham em uma Lista de Verificação de...

Local actors are recognized as key drivers for climate action. Making climate change relevant and possible to act on in local contexts is thus a critical undertaking for both researchers and society at large. Connecting climate change to people’s known surroundings and experiences, and framing climate action in relation to everyday practices in the...

Adaptive flyway management of superabundant geese is emerging as a strategy to reduce damage to agricultural crops and other ecosystem disservices, while also ensuring sustainable use and conservation objectives. Given the calls for intensified hunting as part of flyway management in Europe, we need to increase the understanding of structural, situ...

An overview of the IUCN SSC guidelines on human-wildlife conflict and coexistence (First Ed.), covering the global scale of the challenge, thoughts on defining HWC and Coexistence, and some essential considerations for management.

As human-wildlife conflicts become more frequent, serious and widespread worldwide, they are notoriously challenging to resolve, and many efforts to address these conflicts struggle to make progress. These Guidelines provide an essential guide to understanding and resolving human-wildlife conflict. The Guidelines aim to provide foundations and prin...

Stakeholder involvement in wildlife management is important and requires knowledge about factors motivating such participation. With several goose populations increasing in Europe and goose management incorporating multiple objectives, involvement of stakeholder groups with diverse interests is needed. In this study, we examined how evaluations of...

There is consensus that we need sustainability transitions and increasing acknowledgement that such transitions should be conducted in a just manner. However, what exactly a ‘just transition’ means and how this should be brought about is less clear. Attempts to examine the justice of transitions to date primarily rely on normative interpretations o...

Recent global and regional assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) show that Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP) are under an alarming threat due to the continuing loss of biodiversity. These assessments call for increasing conservation efforts and a more sustainable use of biod...

Conservation translocation - the movement of species for conservation benefit - includes reintroducing species into the wild, reinforcing dwindling populations, helping species shift ranges in the face of environmental change, and moving species to enhance ecosystem function. Conservation translocation can lead to clear conservation benefits and ca...

Skogen tillskrivs en nyckelroll i den gröna samhällsomställningen. Även om skogens klimatnytta redan är stor, måste skogens bidrag öka ytterligare enligt Parisavtalet. I det tvärvetenskapliga projektet Route to Paris undersöker vi de svenska skogarnas potential att bidra till ett klimatneutralt samhälle. Forskningsprogrammet bygger på nära samverka...

Human Wildlife Conflicts

Collaborative governance regimes may be vulnerable because of dependency on stakeholders’ voluntary engagement and efforts. This study focuses on the Swedish moose management system, a multi-level collaborative governance regime inspired by the ecosystem approach. Self-determination theory is used to explore perceived prerequisites of basic needs f...

Forests are assumed to play a significant role in relation to climate change mitigation. However, previous studies show that actor groups' perspectives vary regarding how to best utilize forests. This paper focuses on exploring frames in recent Swedish forest- and climate politics and to what extent they may form the basis for conflict resolution o...

Adaptive management (AM) is one approach to manage migratory waterbirds, but obstacles to the implementation of AM require adaptive capacities in the management system (rules, institutions, action situations). This study aims to examine the adaptive capacity of participatory goose management in Sweden. Considering the biophysical and institutional...

Exploring how actors translate public policy content into practice provides new insight into policy processes. Because they are driven by contextual circumstances and values, that is, they are socially constructed, studying the interpretations and negotiations involved in the translation process advances our understanding of what shapes implementat...

Adaptive management (AM) is widely promoted to improve management of natural resources, yet its implementation is challenging. We show that obstacles to the implementation of AM are related not only to the AM process per se but also to external factors such as ecosystem properties and governance systems. To overcome obstacles, there is a need to bu...

Since this is a HP today contribution I understand that it should not have an abstract

Agriculture is facing increasing challenges as a result of climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental degradation, and demographic change. Yet, at the same time, currently dominant agricultural practices contribute to exacerbate these challenges. It is therefore widely recognized that there is a need for an agricultural sustainability transit...

Forest disturbances are expected to increase as a result of climate change. Thus, it is important to increase the resistance of forests by means of climate adaptation. To examine how effective a voluntary governance approach may be to encourage climate adaptation, this study investigates change in the level of adaptation among private forest owners...

In Europe, and many places throughout the world, the return, and preservation of large carnivores is escalating tensions between stakeholder groups, as well as between local actors and authorities. In Sweden, despite policies aimed at reducing conflict surrounding wildlife management, tensions seem to have intensified. This research investigates th...

Konflikter, meningsskiljaktigheter och motstånd. Ofta framträder debatten om skogen som en svårlöst kamp med skilda värderingar om vad som är ett långsiktigt hållbart skogsbruk, vem som har tolkningsföreträde över nyttjandet, samt vilken kunskapssyn som ligger till grund för skogspolitiska beslut och praxis. Ibland är debatten även ett uttryck för...

It is widely recognized that there is a global need for a transition towards more sustainable forms of agriculture. In order for such a transition to be socially sustainable, its input (problem and goal formulation), output (policy instruments), and throughput (processes) need to be perceived as legitimate. However, we currently know relatively lit...

The conservation field has evolved to include an understanding of human values and attitudes toward wildlife; however, there is still too little emphasis on, and prioritization of, building understanding of the complex and context-specific social conflicts among people and groups involved with or impacted by conservation actions, including transloc...

Transformation acquires its meaning within contexts and particular settings where transformative change is experienced, and where people engage in meaning-making. We used the forest–climate nexus in Sweden as an empirical case study, and the leverage-points perspective as an analytical lens. The aim was to investigate contextual leverage for transf...

The theoretical concept of “climate-smart forestry” aims to integrate climate change mitigation and adaptation to maintain and enhance forests’ contributions to people and global agendas. We carried out two local transdisciplinary collaboration processes with the aim of developing local articulations of climate-smart forestry and to identify barrie...

Agricultural damage by geese is a growing problem in Europe and farmers play a key role in the emerging multilevel adaptive management system. This study explored how characteristics associated with the farmer and the farm, along with experience of damage, cognitive appraisals, emotions, and management beliefs were associated with the perceived ada...

This report in Swedish summarizes recent (2018 - 2020) research on the interaction bewteen forestry and reindeer husbandry. We identify research gaps and ways forward to enable an exchange of knowldege between both forms of land use.

Innovations have the potential to help us address and overcome many of the challenges that agriculture is facing today. Yet, at the same time, they have the potential to create new, sometimes even more challenging, problems, especially when they are not governed in a sustainable way. Governing agricultural innovation sustainably requires understand...

Frontline bureaucrats are positioned at the interface between citizens and the state. They convert political resolution into action and in effect form the core of many public decisions through interaction and communication with both the recipients of those decisions and upper management levels that initiate them. However, dilemmas often arise when...

I rapporten presenteras allmänhetens attityder till de fem stora rovdjuren: björn (Ursus arctos), järv (Gulo gulo), lodjur (Lynx lynx), varg (Canis lupus) och kungsörn (Aquila chrysaetos) i Sverige.

I rapporten presenteras allmänhetens attityder till framför allt två policyområden; skyddet av natur och bevarandet av de stora rovdjuren. Vi sammanfattar specifikt resultaten för Västerbotten och analyserar om det har skett förändringar över tid. I vissa fall jämför vi svaren från Västerbotten med resultaten från ett nationellt representativt urva...

I rapporten presenteras allmänhetens attityder till framför allt två policyområden; skyddet av natur och bevarandet av de stora rovdjuren. Vi sammanfattar specifikt resultaten för Norrbotten och analyserar om det har skett förändringar över tid. I vissa fall jämför vi svaren från Norrbotten med resultaten från ett nationellt representativt urval fö...

I rapporten presenteras allmänhetens attityder till framför allt två policyområden; skyddet av natur och bevarandet av de stora rovdjuren. Vi sammanfattar specifikt resultaten för Jämtland och analyserar om det har skett förändringar över tid. I vissa fall jämför vi svaren från Jämtland med resultaten från ett nationellt representativt urval för at...

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 f...

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 mec...

Collaborative governance approaches have been suggested as strategies to handle wicked environmental problems. Evaluations have found promising examples of effective natural resource governance, but also highlighted the importance of social-ecological context and institutional design. The aim of this study was to identify factors that contribute to...

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 tha...

The acknowledgement of uncertainty and complexity in social-ecological systems has increased the implementation of collaborative governance regimes for environmental issues. The performance of these new regimes to deliver favourable social and ecological outcomes must therefore be evaluated. We focus on the case of Swedish wildlife governance, whic...

Policy mixes (i.e. the total structure of policy processes, strategies, and instruments) are complex constructs that can quickly become incoherent, inconsistent, and incomprehensive. This is amplified when the policy mix strives to meet multiple objectives simultaneously, such as in the case of large carnivore policy mixes. Building on Rogge and Re...

Hunting, an activity conceptualized as part of wildlife management partnership between the state, landowners and hunting communities, is increasingly challenged by a decreasing hunter base. This has ecological, economic and socio-cultural consequences, and the issue of hunter recruitment deserves more scholarly and political attention. In Sweden, t...

Many traditional pastoralist systems are greatly impacted by cumulative encroachments of other land users and by climate change. Understanding land degradation and the adaptive capacity of people who are dependent on the rangelands is an urgent priority for many areas in the world. In this research we explore how changing environmental conditions a...

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 - effektiv...

Ensuring sustainable carnivore populations while simultaneously sustaining active and viable pastoral communities often creates conflicts that are difficult to resolve. This article examines how different knowledge systems meet and interact in large carnivore governance in Norway and Sweden. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including observatio...

Mångbruk av skog är ingen ny företeelse i Sverige. Skogen har under lång tid haft betydelse för människors försörjning, samtidigt som den till exempel kan vara en plats för rekreation. Enligt Nationella Skogsprogrammet betyder mångbruk "att skogen används för flera olika syften (t.ex. skogsbruk, naturturism, rennäring, naturvård, träförädling, jakt...

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 are...

Wild geese are increasing in agricultural and urban settings across Europe, leading to widespread human – geese interactions. This study examined how the public’s acceptance of geese (attitude and acceptance capacity) varied depending on place dimensions, interactions with geese in different settings (place-based experience), and psychological fact...

I den här rapporten belyses olika perspektiv på samverkan med utgångspunkt i befintlig kunskap om samverkansprocesser främst utifrån ett skogligt perspektiv. Forskning inom ramen for Future Forests, men även andra forskningsmiljöer, har visat att samverkansprocesser har en rad fördelar men att de också är förknippade med ett antal fallgropar. Rappo...

The future of forests is a controversial issue in Sweden and elsewhere. Different stakeholder groups differ in the importance they give to roles they envision forests should have in, for example, the national economy, the protection of biodiversity and sustainable use of ecosystem services, and in mitigating climate change. We used participatory ba...

This research note explores opportunities for spatial planning to enhance the consideration of biodiversity and ecosystem services (ES) in Europe and Central Asia. We refer to and build on the regional assessment of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). We find that a targeted and integrated a...

Trust in society, and in fellow human beings, is what keeps societies together. A society, including its various components, characterized by a high level of trust is believed to work better than if the level of trust is low. The purpose of our study is to evaluate the trust in the survey system for large carnivores among the authorities and intere...

In 2012 Sweden implemented a collaborative governance regime for managing moose (Alces alces). This was guided by the awareness that decentralization and stakeholder participation can help to reduce conflicts, foster systematic learning, and handle complexity. However, previous research has highlighted that there are no blueprint approaches to the...

The collaborative ecosystem-based management of moose (Alces alces) in Sweden puts a strain on the involved stakeholders. Representatives have to cope with environmental uncertainty and social stress associated with goal conflicts. This article advanced the understanding of representatives’ coping strategies in response to perceived challenges and...

Increasing populations of large carnivores are leading to tension and conflicts with livestock production, a situation that potentially might escalate. In Norway the objective of the large carnivore policy is two-folded: to ensure viable carnivore populations and to secure a sustainable grazing industry. The main instrument is zonation, with carniv...

We investigated the impact of Norway’s current zonal carnivore management system for four large carnivore species on sheep farming. Sheep losses increased when the large carnivores were reintroduced, but has declined again after the introduction of the zoning management system. The total number of sheep increased outside, but declined slightly insi...

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 app...

The European Union’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), being one of the strongest drivers of agricultural landuse practices, has a substantial impact on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Member States. The initial focus of the CAP to increase and intensify agricultural production affected water and land qualities and contributed to the deg...