Abstract
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 the achievement of social and ecological sustainability within Swedish moose (Alces alces) management. In 2012, a multi-level collaborative governance regime was implemented to decrease conflicts among stakeholders. We carried out semi-structured interviews with six ‘good examples’ (i.e., Moose Management Groups that showed positive social and ecological outcomes). We found that ‘good examples’ collectively identified existing knowledge gaps and management challenges and used their discretionary power to develop procedural arrangements that are adapted to the social-ecological context, their theory of change, and attributes of local actors. This contributed to the creation of bridging social capital and principled engagement across governance levels. Thus, our results indicate the existence of higher-order social learning as well as a positive feedback from within-level collaboration dynamics to between-level collaboration. Furthermore, our study illustrates the importance of institutional flexibility to utilize the existing knowledge across stakeholder groups and to allow for adaptations based on the social learning process.
Highlights
There have been major changes in Swedish wildlife populations and their management during the last century
The newly created Moose Management Areas have a central role in the collaborative governance regime (CGR) as they build a link between the formal and informal collaborative arenas, while they should allow for the adaptation of moose management to the context setting
In this study, we focused solely on the perceptions of MMG representatives, additional studies on the MMU level and synchronous studies of multiple governance levels are necessary to substantiate our findings on feedback links from within-level collaboration dynamics to between-level dynamics
Summary
There have been major changes in Swedish wildlife populations and their management during the last century. Its population has dramatically recovered from a few thousand individuals in the early 20th century to an estimated 400,000 in 1980 [1,4]. This rapid increase in population was accompanied by negative impacts on the forestry sector and conflicts between stakeholders [1,4], largely because Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) is both a commercially important tree species and a preferred forage resource for moose [6,7]. Forestry and hunting stakeholders have conflicting interests, which require collective resolution
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