We studied how regional, road and forestry planning sectors work to implement policies about biodiversity conservation and public participation. Evaluations were based on a normative model for planning derived from the existing international policies and relevant literature. Key planning actors were then interviewed with regard to their understanding of biodiversity and participation policies as well as ability to act and willingness to implement them. The results indicate several gaps in planning processes, for example, insufficient knowledge about biodiversity conservation and participation, limited resources and tools for planning of functional habitat networks and collaboration, poor connections between local and regional planning, and weakly developed public participation. The main problem for effective policy implementation seems to be related to planners' ability to act, which indicates that relatively low priority was given to provide resources for biodiversity conservation and public participation by the relevant units. We discuss our findings in relation to the implementation of environmental policies in the new EU countries of Eastern and Central Europe.

The outcomes of frameworks and practices for stakeholder involvement in environmental impact assessment (EIA) for road planning, under the umbrella of a common EU legal framework, are investigated here in specific national contexts. Data for the two empirical cases examined - Poland and Sweden - are related to the recent ongoing discussion on context dependency for Environmental Assessments (EA). The analysis, informed by practitioner interviews and documentary review, comprises a historical review of the evolution of EIA and stakeholder involvement, and examines more closely the legal frameworks, formal and informal arenas for stakeholder involvement, and norms of stakeholder involvement held by professionals involved in the planning process in the two countries. The results challenge existing assumptions about the relative depth of institutionalisation of stakeholder involvement and environmental concern in a Scandinavian and Central-Eastern European context, and highlight the decisive role of practitioners in the application of EA frameworks in planning practice.

Engaging civil society in conservation activities is an important complementary strategy to counteract ongoing biodiversity decline and loss of ecosystem services. Since 2011, the Swedish Anglers Association (SAA) has cooperated with landowners to restore wetlands nationwide. We investigated factors that enabled or hindered civil society-led wetland restoration in Sweden through interviews and surveys with the SAA's project leaders and landowners. Principal internal and external factors contributing to the project's implementation included: flexibility and adaptive management of its leadership; support from authorities and policies; the good reputation of the SAA team; and landowners' willingness to cooperate. The latter was linked to their feelings of environmental responsibility, the low investment required by them, and expectations of some benefits. We discuss the need to enable adaptive management in environmental management projects, adjust existing policies to their needs, and re-think funding strategies to consider the long-term nature of such projects.

This paper empirically evaluates a Swedish government subsidy to environmental sustainability, the Local Investment Programme ( LIP). During the programme period, 1998 2002, more than (sic)670 million was granted to 1814 different municipal projects, making it the largest Swedish subsidization to ecological sustainability to date. For the 682 projects evaluated here, it was found that the projects were rewarded smaller subsidies than granted. To explain the gap between granted and rewarded subsidies, the gap was decomposed into a quantity effect, depending on the quantified environmental and employment outcomes of the projects, and a price effect, depending on the government's valuation of these outcomes. Whereas no statistically significant quantity effect was found, there was a large statistically significant price effect, indicating that the government paid the municipalities less than promised in the granting decision.