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Abstract |
Visitor management in Norway has primarily been focused inside protected areas. However, there is an urgent challenge to work in more integrated ways to create more connections with surrounding communities. After the Norwegian Environment Agency published its guide for visitor management in protected areas (2015), several of the Norwegian national parks have increased its focus on visitor management. Although many national parks have such plans, there is still a challenge in how the national parks respond to the needs and challenges of local communities outside its borders. In a recent study from 2021, Aasen Lundberg et al. pointed out that the national parks in Norway are weak at creating connections with communities outside the borders of the protected areas. Based on this, we would argue that there is a clear need in Norway for more integrated approaches for visitor management and park planning. New dynamic and more integrated park models have emerged in continental Europe during the last few decades (Mose et al. 2007). However, Norway has been slow in adopting these models. Europes Regional Nature Landscape Parks (NRL) (Europarc Federation 2020) exemplify the “integration approach” through more participatory park models present in 22 countries. The integrated park policies and the regional nature parks of Switzerland is a good example of a new park model promoting integrated and bottom-up approaches. They are legitimized through national laws and planning instruments, and perform well in facilitating sectoral interests by combining both vertical and horizontal integrations (Hammer and Siegrist 2016)Inspired by the French and Swiss regional nature parks, the Norwegian regional parks have developed from the bottom-up.In contrast to Switzerland, the Norwegian regional parksare not yet anchored in national legislation. However, they do act as effective platforms for different local and regional actors in integrated ways (Stokke et al. 2016). The regional parks work across sectors and at different levels. They work in the “in between areas” where sectoral authorities do not often reach. They establish broad partnerships with local authorities, community associations and commercial firms. In this study, we have focused on the experiences of two Norwegian regional parks that have worked with visitor management in recent year. They are one of the first non-protected areas working with visitor management in Norway. It is the Nærøyfjord World Heritage Park and the Okstindan nature and culture park. As regional parks they are not formally recognized as protected areas. |
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