Närnaturguiderna (Local Nature Guides), Sweden

Since 2004 the project has given people interested in nature the chance to be trained as guides to show other people round the Swedish countryside. Furthermore, since 2007, the project has also had the goal of involving an element of integration, which has come to expression through the opportunity the nature guides give people with foreign backgrounds to use the countryside as a forum for learning about Swedish culture. Specifically, the project has 50 education courses and has worked up a network of more than 500 guides, who co-operate with eight guide centres from Lund in the south to Dalarna in the north. The themes for this year are the agricultural landscape: "Our world will become what we eat” and the climate: "The effect of climate change on the countryside”.