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Quests for devolving more power to local actors for nature protection stem from both international and national policies. Also, there is a growing recognition of the need for local governments to promote green infrastructure for citizens to recreate and learn about their environment. Starting in 2004, the Swedish government has allocated special funding towards these goals through the Local Nature Conservation Programme (LONA). Virtually all Swedish municipalities have received such funding in pursuit of facilitating wide access to nature and promoting recreational activities, including the protection of nature areas, creating pathways, information devices, and promoting these areas among new societal groups to enjoy. This study presents the results of ten years of experience with LONA. A survey with respondents from 191 municipalities and 20 county administrations, together with 20 key informant interviews, show that the programme has been a success in several respects. Not only have most municipalities created a wealth of new ways to engage local organisations and citizens in nature conservation and recreation, but they have also broadened the ways they think about how nature is important to their constituencies. Due to innovative ways to count voluntary work as local matching of funding, smaller and less resourceful municipalities have also become engaged. Still, the local needs for further initiatives are deemed considerable. State support coupled with knowledge sharing is important to show policy priority to such bottom-up initiatives.

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There is a demand for scientific knowledge to make informed decisions in environmental policy. This study examines expectations of knowledge use, and how knowledge stemming from systematic reviews (SR) is being used through an analytical framework that distinguishes between instrumental, conceptual and legitimising evaluation use, as well as between process and product use. Empirically, we investigate knowledge generated from six SRs conducted through the Mistra Council for Evidence-based Environmental Management from the perspectives of those carrying out the SR and their targeted stakeholders. Our study reveals ways in which SRs are used and some characteristics that improve and some that hamper their usefulness. While the systematic method and the comprehensiveness of the SRs contribute positively to the usefulness, we found that the SRs produced were simultaneously too focused (lacking multiple perspectives), and too general (providing evidence on the effects of an intervention only at the general level) thereby restricting their usefulness. The time and resources it takes to produce an SR can also affect its usefulness compared to a traditional review.