Browsing by Author "Fedreheim, Gunn Elin"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4

Designing New Natural Resource Management Institutions: An Approach to Devolution of the Rights to Manage Protected Area Resources
(2011) Fedreheim, Gunn Elin; Sandberg, Audun
"Protecting areas as national parks is one tool to secure biodiversity. Establishment of such areas, as well as managing and supervising them, is often characterized by reluctance and protests from landowners, local people, and resource users. Thus, numerous measures are implemented in order to increase the legitimacy of protecting these areas' to provide other sources of income for those who are negatively affected by the conservation decision, and to apply the international 'new conservation paradigm'. The latter focuses on increasing the benefits to local people to alleviate poverty, on re-engineering the organization of the professionals working with protected areas and an increased emphasis on the interaction between humans and nature. In Norway, two such important measures have recently been implemented: one is to remove the ban on commercial tourism, another is the devolution of the right to manage these areas. The former will make it easier to establish tourism in protected areas, while the latter will lead to a decentralization of governance of protected areas. These developments are too recent to evaluate fully, but studying the empirical background for these changes can give valuable insights in relation to how institutional design is attempted in different social-ecological settings. This paper will focus on the process leading up to the devolution of PA governance, and will show which kinds of interests that have been prioritized when the new board has been designed. Studies over several years contribute to the data for this paper. These involve content analysis of public documents, interviews with interest groups as well as authorities, surveys, and observation. Altogether this has provided us with an understanding of the processes going on in relation to devolution of the right to manage protected areas. The authors are continuously following the work of Norway´s first national park board, and still serve as observers of meetings. Thus, the paper will not only analyze the background for the establishment of the national park board, but will also discuss the boards' initial work focusing on the degree to which interest groups still can fight for their views. We also discuss some of the challenges the new boards have when managing complex social-ecological systems, such as protected areas. These are closely related to more general challenges for protected areas, while they at the same time represent a major decentralization of the power to decide on central issues related to securing biodiversity and provide crucial ecosystem services. Studying complex systems is a task that requires the use of multiple methods, and we believe that our approach also contributed to a better understanding of the challenges involved in institutional design in a highly complex system. This will be reflected upon at the end of the paper."
Does Pastoralists' Participation in the Management of National Parks in Northern Norway Contribute to Adaptive Governance?
(2014) Risvoll, Camilla; Fedreheim, Gunn Elin; Sandberg, Audun; Burnsilver, Shauna
"Norwegian protected areas have historically been managed by central, expertise bureaucracy; however, a governance change in 2010 decentralized and delegated the right to manage protected areas to locally elected politicians and elected Sámi representatives in newly established National Park Boards. We explore how this new governance change affects adaptive capacity within the reindeer industry, as the reindeer herders are now participating with other users in decision-making processes related to large tracts of protected areas in which they have pasture access. Aspects within adaptive capacity and resilience thinking are useful as complementary dimensions to a social-ecological system framework (Ostrom 2007) in exploring the dynamics of complex adaptive social-ecological systems. The National Park Board provides a novel example of adaptive governance that can foster resilient livelihoods for various groups of actors that depend on protected areas. Data for this paper were gathered primarily through observation in National Park Board meetings, focus groups, and qualitative interviews with reindeer herders and other key stakeholders. We have identified certain aspects of the national park governance that may serve as sources of resilience and adaptive capacity for the natural system and pastoral people that rely on using these areas. The regional National Park Board is as such a critical mechanism that provides an action arena for participation and conflict resolution. However, desired outcomes such as coproduction of knowledge, social learning, and increased adaptive capacity within reindeer husbandry have not been actualized at this time. The challenge with limited scope of action in the National Park Board and a mismatch between what is important for the herders and what is addressed in the National Park Board become important for the success of this management model."
National Parks: From Public Playgrounds to Regional Commons
(2009) Fedreheim, Gunn Elin; Sandberg, Audun
"National parks and protected areas in the northern areas of the planet have for a long period been the prerogative of central governments. With the devolution of responsibilities, powers and property rights to regional authorities and indigenous peoples of the North, the quest for local participation in the governing of protected areas have mounted. At the same time the methods for adaptive ecosystem management have improved considerably and frameworks for analysis of complex Socio-Ecological systems are actively being developed. The paper thus have a diagnostic approach of analysing the evolution of new forms of governing protected areas in Northern Europe at these crossroads of institutional and scientific developments. Of particular interest is a 'commons-formation' process on public and protected land and water areas that moves quite slowly in these northern regions. This paper will focus on the changes in the governance of national parks in the Norwegian and Russian parts of the 'Barents region'. The region consists of many large, untouched areas with intact original ecosystems. Many of these are transboundary ecosystems, but until recently little efforts have been taken to investigate implications of lack of transboundary governance of larger Socio-ecological systems in these areas. Russian national parks ('Zapovedniks') have stricter conservation measures than Norwegian national parks. Here no human activity is allowed, except for scientific studies and border protection. In Norway a national strategy has recently opened up for more nature based tourism (ecotourism) in National Parks, also in a 'joint' park with Russia and Finland. The slow, but gradual changes in property rights are also an important element in the analysis; in Norway ownership of land is gradually moving from the state to regional land holding authorities. In Russia there are also movements between 'federal' and provincial (oblast) ownership and management authority. The type of goods that these national parks provide is used as examples of how this evolution takes place in practice, i.e. how the details in regulations and use practices influence the character of the protected areas as common-pool resources. In a comparative perspective, it is also interesting to see what role these protected areas play in their adjacent rural areas: To what extent are these areas reckoned as crucial in securing rural livelihoods and ecosystem services and to what extent are they perceived as serious obstacles to modernisation, and how are these conflicting views reflected in current legislation and operative rules on the ground?"
Trade-Offs in Pastoral Governance in Norway: Challenges for Biodiversity and Adaptation
(2016) Risvoll, Camilla; Fedreheim, Gunn Elin; Galafassi, Diego
"Norway is committed to the two-fold policy objective of preserving biodiversity and maintaining traditional local livelihoods. This creates management dilemmas with the potential to undermine the legitimacy of both national and international policies. In this article, we take a social-ecological perspective to highlight how these two policy objectives are linked and interdependent and, therefore, subjected to complex dynamics between institutions and ecosystems. We use a case study in northern Norway to discuss trade-offs in the implementation of the two-fold conservation objectives. Based on interviews, a focus group meeting with 16 reindeer herders and stakeholders and participant observations during a grazing committee meeting, we identified that ecological dynamics between carnivores, sheep and grassland patterns are central to this trade-off. We demonstrate how current governance instruments in carnivore management do not address the spatial dynamics of carnivores leading to a perceived conflict between environmentalist groups and farmers around questions of carnivore protection and sheep killings by carnivores. Fragmentation in the multi-layered governance system prevents ongoing dialogue among various actors, thereby enhancing antagonisms while reducing the likelihood of the emergence and implementation of adaptation measures and practices."