In the context of national park management, landscape conservation, and tourism development in a mountain region in Norway, the aim of the research is to analyse how tourists, residents, and local ...stakeholders experience and practise their participation in the landscapes. A mixed methods approach was used, which included focus group meetings, semi-structured interviews, an on-site survey, and two Internet surveys to gain in-depth knowledge of tourists' and locals' relations to and evaluations of the landscape in the studied national park region, which comprised the park itself and eight protected landscape areas. The results revealed that many of the tourists visiting the national park considered the area it covered was a wilderness, while locals considered the area's authenticity was closely connected to cultural traditions and a long-lasting interconnectedness between people and landscape. As both locals and tourists shared a desire to maintain the wildlife and landscape characteristics of the national park, authenticity may serve as a common denominator for emphasizing local development, outdoor activities, and meeting points outside the boundary of the park. The authors conclude that involving tourists in a knowledge process that provides insights into the past and present livelihoods of communities and the use of the natural resources could help to enhance tourists' experiences, but without compromising local understandings of authenticity.
•Identifying the value gap between locals and tourists by using a mixed methods approach.•Portrays the dichotomy of nature and society in a local context.•Describe the contextual and dynamic relation between people and nature.•Provides an example of empirical way to explore mountain environment complexity.•Managing landscape by an understanding of authenticity.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
This paper explores what happens when the ideal of sustainable development meets the real and pressing problems in coastal zone planning. Insights into how coastal zone planners understand ...environmental problems and navigate political visions, knowledge requirements, stakeholder involvement and local conditions, are key to understanding how to develop a holistic approach in line with sustainable development. The paper applies Q-methodology to identify the dominant discourses and explore planners' perceptions and practices for sustainable coastal zone management. The Q sorts were realized in 2018-2019 in Northern Norway with planners in 10 small municipalities and 8 county level representatives. It is argued that it provides new insights into the challenges that planners face in striking a balance between the overarching values and the practical tasks that planners face in everyday planning; and that the interpretation of factors using Q-methodology should focus on all statements to ensure holism and avoid overlooking important information.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
We investigate drivers of hybridization of local ecological knowledge (LEK) and scientific knowledge (SK) in small-scale Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) fisheries in western Norway through a case study ...from the Ørsta River. We find three primary drivers of knowledge hybridization in local fishing groups as part of wild Atlantic salmon cultivation activities: facilitating intergenerational knowledge exchange, coping with regulatory change, and improving the perceived validity of local knowledge sets. We also identify three challenges to knowledge hybridization, and discuss how both drivers and challenges relate to once complementary SK and LEK sets that have diverged as SK has become more technical and complex. We examine the processes by which LEK and SK develop, evolve, and are used to facilitate wild salmon conservation in these fisheries and discuss the role hatcheries can play adapting and utilizing large-scale SK and salmon policy to the local environment through hybridization processes. We conclude with recommendations as to how refraining managerial views on hatcheries as facilitators of knowledge production and transfer may improve both the accessibility of SK to local communities and the integration of LEK into Norwegian wild salmon management.
Everyday walking is a far-reaching activity with the potential to increase health and well-being in the general public. From a phenomenological perspective, walking can be seen as a function of ...being-in-the-world, where the landscape, a sense of place, and the moment are closely entwined with the walker's own lived experiences. Using interviews with 73 walkers in a medium-sized town in Norway, this article explores the phenomenon of everyday walking. The data illustrate the multiple ways in which people emphasise well-being and ascribe meaning to their walking experiences, and how these ways may vary significantly during a life course, from day to day, and even within a single walk. Insights from this study may prove useful to policy-makers and administrative bodies in acknowledging people's various needs and gains related to everyday walking, and hence for promoting a diversified management of walking within the field of health policy, as well as in urban planning for walkable cities.
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BFBNIB, NUK, PILJ, SAZU, UL, UM, UPUK
Northern coastal regions are facing multiple challenges from accelerating global environmental and socioeconomic changes, such as ecosystem degradation, climate change, intensified resource ...extraction, land use change and declining populations. Based on interviews with 13 farmers, fishers and aquaculture employees from coastal Nordland, northern Norway, this study demonstrates how the local stakeholders' perceptions of change and experiences of vulnerability are closely linked to their livelihood values and worldviews. What the informants consider a sustainable and meaningful way of coastal living does not coincide with national goals for sustainable, natural resource dependent development of the region. The article demonstrates the importance of attending to local values if policymakers and managers are to ensure successful local mobilisation, reduce vulnerability to ongoing and future processes of change, and ensure legitimacy and consistency in development goals of coastal zone management. Insights from this study are useful for local and regional decision makers with responsibility for natural resource policies and development efforts.
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BFBNIB, DOBA, IZUM, KILJ, NUK, PILJ, PNG, SAZU, SIK, UILJ, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK
Sammenlignet med samiske praksiser knyttet til reindrift og fjordfiske har sankingspraksiser i samiske områder blitt viet liten akademisk oppmerksomhet. Dette til tross for at multebærplukking har ...vært av sentral historisk betydning i disse områdene, hvor multer fortsatt står i en særstilling blant bær. Med utgangspunkt i kvalitative data fra intervjuer med samiske multebærplukkere i Divtasvuodna-Tysfjord, Porsáŋgu-Porsanger og Unjárga-Nesseby undersøker vi i denne artikkelen hvilken kunnskap og hvilke verdier dagens multeplukking rommer. Gjennom empiriske eksempler ønsker vi å bidra til økt forståelse for multeplukking som en måte å være i og samhandle med landskapet på, der også omsorg, ivaretakelse og regler for adferd gjør seg gjeldende. Videre argumenterer vi for at respekten, omtanken og de gjensidige relasjonene som inngår i artikkelens eksempler på samiske sankingsaktiviteter, kan betegnes som bærekraft i praksis og utgjøre et viktig bidrag i den pågående debatten om hva bærekraftig utvikling er eller bør være.
Northern Europe is often seen as having a specific relation to nature. In this manuscript, the policy and regulatory frameworks in Norway and Sweden are compared when it comes to the scope for local ...use that is provided by the regulatory frameworks relating to natural resources. The paper analyzes the legal framework for the use of nature and its resources, including hunting, fishing, and reindeer husbandry, with a focus on the Swedish natural resource legislation in relation to the (corresponding) Norwegian Finnmark Act. The study thereby compares the Finnmark Act and the protection it affords local resource users with that in northern Sweden under general Swedish and municipal regulatory systems.
Coastal environments are under pressure worldwide. The challenges of environmental degradation, increasing resource exploitation, and population growth are being exacerbated by climate change. ...Coastal zone management has emerged during the last few decades as an attempt to integrate different user interests and policy levels in order to reduce conflict levels and promote more sustainable development trends. However, coastal zone management requires understanding and consensus among stakeholders of the problems, the tasks to be solved and the drivers of change in order to be effective. We surveyed a sample of Norwegian coastal experts, i.e. professionals in management and research who work actively with different topics related to social, economic and environmental issues linked to the coastal zone in northern Norway. Based on 35 potential drivers of change covering biological and physical factors, science and technology, society and economy, and political and institutional aspects, the respondents were asked to assess 1) the impacts on society and the environment in northern coastal Norway, 2) the extent to which these factors were adequately recognized in policies and plans related to the coastal zone, and 3) at what geographic level this was most pertinent. This was followed by open-ended questions about the required management priorities in order to support future sustainable development. The broad picture is that coastal experts perceive most biological physical drivers as negative influences on society and the environment, while technology and knowledge are judged as positive drivers. A majority perceive that social and economic drivers of change have no or slightly negative effects on the developments in the coastal zone. We link our discussion to the key challenges in on-going coastal zone management processes in Norway; regional and inter-municipal plans, inadequate local participation, the need for a broader knowledge base, the fragmented nature of the planning system, and the lack of inter-sectorial coordination.
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