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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Unjárga/Nesseby municipality is located in the inner part of the Varanger fjord in eastern Finnmark. Combining reindeer herding, agriculture, coastal fisheries, hunting and gathering has been of ...fundamental importance to the population in this coastal Sámi community for centuries. Although today this combination of activities no longer provides the same level of livelihood sustenance in the municipality, natural resource based activities and different kinds of harvesting remain of great significance for the residents, as economic activities, for recreation and in people’s sense of belonging. This chapter looks at the interlinkages between maintaining and developing the important nature based industries of sheep farming and reindeer herding in Unjárga/Nesseby, and the locally experienced outcomes of global climate change. Consistent with the CAVIAR framework, we assess exposure-sensitivities and local adaptation strategies to changing conditions influencing these livelihoods. We present a preliminary analysis of the linkages between future climate trends and the adaptive capacity of the local animal husbandries. Our main focus is on the four recent years of extensive moth larvae outbreaks larvae from autumnal moth (Epirrita autumnata) and winter moth (Operophtera brumata) that have resulted in widespread birch forest mortality in Unjárga/Nesseby municipality. The persistent moth larvae attacks are likely to be a result of a milder climate. As these alterations have radically changed the landscape, sheep farmers and reindeer herders in the community are introduced to new livelihood challenges, as well as opportunities.
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