LANDPATHS researchers Tuija Hilding-Rydevik and Johanna Tangnäs (both from the SLU Centre for Biological Diversity and the sub-project on agricultural landscapes) presented their article ‘Problem representations of farming and biodiversity in the Swedish implementation of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) 2023-2027’ at the annual conference of the Political Science Association in Sweden, October 2-4, Umeå.
Johanna Tangnäs discusses the LANDPATHS paper with researcher Elsa Reimersson, chair of the thematic session on environmental politics
About 150 researchers participated in the conference with the aim of presenting and receiving feedback on both finished and early drafts of research articles and doctoral theses. The participants were primarily political scientists, and everyone followed a particular thematic session over the three days, with presentations followed by ample time for designated reviewers to present their questions and suggestions for improvements. Everything was done in a collegial and constructive spirit.
A discussion in the environmental politics thematic session
The LANDPATHS paper presented during the thematic session on environmental politics analyses Sweden’s strategic plan, which implements the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy in Sweden. The plan encompasses contributions and payments to Swedish farmers, totalling over 60 billion kronor. The analysis employs a theoretical framework that facilitates understanding how problems in a policy are realised. By this we mean that it is the proposals for action (in our case, the proposals for contributions and payments) that are seen as the problem definition, not what is stated to be the problem.
With this foundation, conclusions can then be drawn about the effects this has on:
how we talk about a political problem (which influences which solutions we see as possible;
the positions of different actors that are enabled (e.g., the role assigned to farmers); and
what the practical consequences are for efforts related to multifunctionality and biodiversity in the agricultural landscape.
Our preliminary conclusion is that we observe, as in previous research, that there are challenges in how farmers and their perspectives and circumstances are described and handled within the framework of the EU’s agricultural policy, in relation to both production and biodiversity.
The conference took place in the Humanities building at Umeå university
For more information, contact Tuija Hilding-Rydevik, leader of the agricultural landscapes sub-project.
Biodiversity — the variation of species, genes, and ecosystems—is crucial for all life on Earth, including humanity. Research shows that one million species are globally threatened by extinction due to human activity, a situation that also affects Sweden. This summer, several opinion pieces were published in Swedish newspapers about the relationship between development and the environment, with contributions from Tuija Hilding-Rydevik, a professor with the LANDPATHS program.
The corn bunting can be found in agricultural landscapes but is severely threatened in Sweden due to intensified farming and the use of pesticides. Picture credit: MandrillArt Pixabay
Nature protection and development as rivals
In May 2024, representatives from Sweden’s Moderate Party wrote an article in DN Debatt, arguing that the protection of “common species” is often prioritized over development, which they believe requires political change. According to the Moderate Party’s policy program, environmental policy should focus on human needs for natural resources and development, even if it involves compromises that negatively impact endangered species. They also proposed that landowners in forestry and agricultural landscapes who promote biodiversity should have greater freedom in how they use their land. The article also questioned the general decline in biodiversity.
Reactions
The article written by the Moderate Party sparked a wave of responses and articles in the Swedish press. Tuija Hilding-Rydevik, a professor emeritus in Environmental Assessment at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) and leader of LANDPATHS Agricultural Landscape subproject, co-authored two articles responding to the Moderates’ claims.
“My reaction was clear: how uninformed the authors must be about humanity’s dependence on biodiversity, and the threats that ultimately affect us and our societies. Preserving and promoting biodiversity means keeping human needs in mind—today and tomorrow. The second reaction was that it’s good to have their positions stated so clearly, so they can be countered.”
Tuija Hilding-Rydevik
Researchers warn of widening gap between humans and nature
The first response was published as an opinion piece in Altinget Miljö och Energi in June 2024, co-authored by over 20 researchers. They criticized the Moderates’ claim of a conflict between development and the environment. According to the researchers, this misconception creates a dangerous polarization between humans and nature. They stressed that biodiversity is essential for human survival and economies, and warned that the Red List Index shows an accelerating loss of species globally—a clear sign of ecosystem distress.
The researchers also emphasized that the full value of biodiversity is difficult to quantify in monetary terms. With a planet already dominated by human activity, this poses an urgent threat to ecosystem services such as food, clean water, protection from disease, and climate disasters.
Proposal for a nature policy framework
A follow-up to this opinion piece came in July 2024 in Göteborgsposten, where over 50 researchers and civil society representatives warned that the loss of biodiversity is a threat to humanity’s future, to the same extent as climate change.
The authors called for the introduction of a “nature policy framework,” similar to the existing climate policy framework, to stop and reverse the loss of species and habitats. They proposed a natural law, a nature policy goal, and a nature policy council.
The nature crisis requires societal transformation
The article criticized cuts to conservation budgets and decreasing support for making sectors like agriculture and forestry sustainable. Addressing the nature crisis requires a societal transformation, with all sectors contributing. The nature and climate crises are closely linked, and solutions to one must consider the other.
The authors suggested that by establishing a nature policy framework with concrete goals and resources, Sweden could take a leadership role in reversing the trend and ensuring a sustainable future. The government and parliament are urged to act immediately and implement this proposal to protect nature and thus humanity’s future.
Biodiversity in agricultural landscapes
Fifty percent of the more than 4,700 red-listed species are found in agricultural landscapes. This environment is critical for about one-third of these species. Threats to plants mainly stem from changes in land use, leading to overgrowth, increased nutrient loads, reduced land management (e.g., less grazing and mowing), climate change, and reduced connectivity for the movement of plants and animals (fragmentation). Agriculture relies on ecosystem services provided by nature, such as pollination from insects, contributions to favourable soil structure for cultivation, and pest control by naturally occurring predators.
Therefore, it is important that the 64 billion SEK in subsidies and payments to Sweden’s farmers through the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy benefit both farmers’ production and biodiversity in the agricultural landscape. This issue is being studied in depth in the Agricultural Landscape subproject within LANDPATHS.
In June 2024, LANDPATHS researchers contributed to the NESS and POLLEN conferences through presentation of their research and by arranging workshops and panel discussions. We summarize here how these activities have encouraged discussion on multifunctional landscape governance in the Nordics.
LANDPATHS at the Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference
The 16th Nordic Environmental Social Science Conference (NESS) was held in Åbo, Finland early in June 2024. At this years edition of the biannual conference, environmental social science scholars as well as researchers from other disciplines discussed various aspects around the central topic “Co-creation for sustainability”. LANDPATHS researchers submitted manuscripts to two out of the 28 different workshops at NESS and co-organized a total of three workshops. The manuscripts submitted are listed below and will be sent to scientific journals for publication in the coming months.
Blicharska G et al.: Landscape multifunctionality as a pillar of biodiversity governance? Insights from Sweden.
Westerberg C, Tafon R, Gilek M: Navigating conflict and exclusion in conservation and sustainability governance of the Nämdö archipelago, Sweden
Tickle L, Hedblom, M: Doing Multifunctionality in Urban Woodlands: How Bottom-Up Initiatives are Negotiated and Resisted in Urban Governance
Lundberg-Felten J, Kristensson D, Karlsson M: Who cares about fungal diversity? Exploring the voice of mushrooms among individual private forest owners in Sweden
Besides LANDPATHS’ own NESS workshop on multifunctional governance (see below), Tim Daw and Fanny Möckel co-organized a workshop on the impacts of deliberative mini-publics on environmental governance and attitudes, and Sara Holmgren co-led a workshop entitled “Story telling as, and for, sustainable thinking”.
Åbo harbor to which the LANDPATHS researcher delegation attending the NESS conference arrived by overnight ferry from Stockholm.
Workshop on Multifunctional Governance for Biodiversity
LANDPATHS researchers Michael Gilek, Mikael Karlsson and Neil Powell organized a workshop at NESS on multifunctional governance for biodiversity. Articles were presented on envisioning nature futures for Europe and, more specifically, on transformative initiatives for biodiversity restoration in the relation to the flower bulb industry in rural areas of the Netherlands.
Other submissions to the workshop were concerned with exploring concepts in connection with multifunctional landscapes such as social learning in multi-use forestry, area neutrality in city planning, and the implementation process of protected areas in marine and coastal areas. The latter study was presented by Charles Westerberg, PhD student in subproject marine and coastal landscapes. Most of the articles presented were qualitative studies. Nevertheless, one quantitative study assessed the acceptance of conservation policies.
Frida Öhman, PhD student in LANDPATHS subproject transformative governance pathways, presented a new framework for policy coherence for multifunctional landscape governance. The LANDPATHS review paper on landscape multifunctionality, co-ordinated by LANDPATHS programme leader Malgorzata Blicharska and co-authored by numerous LANDPATHS colleagues was also presented. The participants of the workshop had fruitful discussions regarding landscape approaches, methods and institutional challenges for halting biodiversity loss.
Towards Just & Plural Futures
Just one week after the NESS conference, the Political Ecology Network Conference POLLEN 2024 took place in Lund under the theme ‘Towards Just and Plural Futures’. At the conference, LANDPATHS PhD student Fanny Möckel discussed our ongoing work in collaboration with different biosphere reserves in Sweden, in a panel consisting of transdisciplinary researchers working with biosphere reserves and political ecologists. Guided by the question “How can Biosphere Reserves be Places of Environmental Justice?”, the panel explored the potential of biosphere reserves as places that address issues of environmental justice. Participants in the panel shared both empirical and theoretical insights into their work. They addressed different ways in which biosphere reserves can be places that enable just transformations towards more sustainable futures, and what such processes could look like.
Within the LANDPATHS programme, studies are being carried out in Voxnadalen, an established biosphere, and Nämdö Skärgård, a biosphere under establishment. In autumn 2024, LANDPATHS researchers together with local biosphere reserves will organize deliberative mini-publics.
Mikael Karlsson, leader of LANDPATHS project Transformative Governance Pathways, recently wrote a column in Miljö & Utveckling (Environment and Development), a magazine for those working with environmental and sustainability issues within Swedish business and the public sector.
In the article, Mikael writes about how the concept of landscape is used in Swedish environmental monitoring and target-setting, and how ideas of landscape should focus on the various values of stakeholders.
Mikael raises concerns that Sweden is not living up to the obligations of the European Union’s Landscape Convention, and highlights some good examples of Swedish public authorities and others who are bucking that trend.
