Johanna Alkan Olsson
Universitetslektor
The Swedish green infrastructure policy as a policy assemblage : What does it do for biodiversity conservation?
Författare
Summary, in English
Green infrastructure (GI) is increasingly used in policymaking to promote biodiversity and enhance ecosystem services through the protection, creation, restoration and connection of natural and man-made green areas. The EU Commission adopted in 2013, the concept as a strategy. When member states apply the policy, it is translated into specific bureaucratic and political systems, creating different ‘policy assemblages’ of ideas and institutional features. We analyse the Swedish GI policy to draw conclusions about how it has been assembled in one particular member state and what that particular assemblage will imply for biodiversity conservation. In combination with understanding policies as assemblages, we use the ‘What's the problem represented to be’-approach as method. We show that the Swedish GI policy assemblage consists of a mix of policy ideas developed in Sweden and the EU. Despite the current strong focus on biodiversity conservation, the notion of land's multifunctionality, characterizing the EU strategy and the possibility to conserve biodiversity on land used for purposes other than conservation increasingly influence the Swedish policy as it is formed. Although the policy has the potential to mainstream biodiversity conservation measures across different sectors, based on our analysis of current discourse, its implementation will likely promote GI measures less disruptive to existing land use activities, making its capacity to halt biodiversity loss marginal. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Avdelning/ar
- Centrum för miljö- och klimatvetenskap (CEC)
- Biodiversitet
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
- Statsvetenskapliga institutionen
- Biodiversitet och bevarandevetenskap
Publiceringsår
2023
Språk
Engelska
Sidor
839-851
Publikation/Tidskrift/Serie
People and Nature
Volym
5
Issue
2
Dokumenttyp
Artikel i tidskrift
Förlag
Wiley-Blackwell
Ämne
- Political Science
- Ecology
Nyckelord
- biodiversity conservation
- ecosystem services
- environmental governance
- EU
- multifunctional landscapes
- policy assemblage
Status
Published
Forskningsgrupp
- Biodiversity and Conservation Science
ISBN/ISSN/Övrigt
- ISSN: 2575-8314