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Abstract |
As most countries, Norway has adopted the Yellowstone model for nature protection; limiting humans’ role to be guests in nature. The country established its first national park in 1962. In 2008, 14.3 % of the mainland is formally protected; including 29 national parks, many established newly. Recent decades’ growing concern of the insufficiency of this protection model includes the lack of seeing conservation as a social issue, not only a biological one, was confirmed by the Vth World Park Conference in 2003. The same year the Norwegian government advanced a new policy for increased use of national parks for commercial tourism, named the “Mountain Text”. The fact not addressed is that 18 of 29 parks are situated in Sámi reindeer pasture areas. The contemporary policy has revealed an unexpected conflict of objectives. Whereas the Mountain Text strengthen the goal of recreation, affected Sámi herders fear that parks instead of protection for them will mean increased disturbance of vulnerable animals and areas and accordingly have changed their basic attitudes from being positive to becoming ambiguous towards new parks and park extensions. This is a problem both in equity as well as efficiency perspective and also a source of new conflicts. Norway currently reforms its conservation legislation to reinforce biodiversity protection. Though indigenous interests have not so far become a core issue in this process; this process and the international process under the Convention on Biological Diversity together create a window of opportunities for reconciling conflicting objectives. One of the relevant instruments is the IUCN Category VI, available from 1994, which juxtaposes biodiversity protection and sustainable use. |
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