When Sweden first implemented Natura 2000 in 1995, it was done in a hurry and not all the information from the European Commission was interpreted as it was intended. The fact is that it took a long time for the authorities in Sweden to really understand Natura 2000 and its potential. The big break came in 2000 when the Swedish environmental Code was changed to match the regulations of Natura 2000. This created problems for already planned projects in Sweden that now had to follow the new rules. The implementation also provided the environmentalist management to advance at the expense of the spatial planning in a struggle about the governance over the landscape. In this thesis the Natura 2000 network is described as an instrument and compared to other nature protections in Sweden. The thesis also gives a description on how Natura 2000 is built up and how it was and is implemented in Sweden. The Environmentalist paradigm and planning paradigm are described and presented in the case studies Tre Toppar and Botniabanan. The development of the two cases is also described to get a picture of how differently they were managed and how different they turned out in the end.