Opportunities for collective action in Swedish wild boar management

Managing a Moving Resource: Opportunities for, and Obstacles to, Collective Action in Swedish Wild Boar Management

How can an effective and legitimate management of a moving resource be created, and how can the coordination between actors at different levels and with opposing interests increase? Collective action, i.e. cooperation and coordination among stakeholders on all levels and across administrative boundaries, are key to a well-functioning, effective and legitimate resource management system. In this project, we analyze the opportunities for and obstacles to developing collective action among actors in a management system that is previously unresearched from this perspective: Swedish management of wild boar. The rapid increase of the wild boar population, in combination with the mobility of wild boars across administrative and private boundaries, has given rise to the need for increased cooperation betwen actors that to some extent hold opposing interests. The overall objective of the project is to elucidate the prospects for strengthening cooperation and coordination among single stakeholders, local and regional agencies, and the state, and thus contribute to further developing the wild boar management-system in Sweden. The project combines interviewes with a wide set of actors - land owners, representatives for interest organizations and civil servants on both regional and national level - with a network analysis of current inter-actor collaboration and its' drivers, and an analysis of the institutional system. The results of this project will generate important input for creating a more effective and legitimate system for Swedish wild-boar management, but also constitute valuable food-for-thought for future research of crossregional resource management systems of moving resources, both in Sweden and elsewhere.

Charlotta Söderberg, Luleå University of Technology

1 975 000 SEK