Abstract
Keywords: large carnivore management1, pastoral communities2, decentralization3, knowledge spheres4, conflicts5. Ensuring sustainable carnivore populations while simultaneously sustaining active and viable pastoral communities creates conflicts that are difficult to resolve. This article examines how different knowledge systems meet and interact in large carnivore governance in Norway and Sweden. Drawing on a broad range of sources, including observations in meetings, public documents, reports and interviews, in addition to local and national newspaper clippings and Internet sites, we study two processes of regional carnivore management (Nordland, Norway and Jämtland, Sweden). We explore how different forms of knowledge have been mobilized, reproduced, transferred and legitimized in policies and regulations in these two processes. Further, we examine the interplay between scientific and experience-based knowledge at different levels and scales in both of the countries. In Norway, ‘clear zoning’ has been established as a basic management instrument to achieve national ‘population goals’ for carnivores. We show how the locally situated knowledge – in our account represented through the Regional Large Carnivore Committee, which includes political parties’ and Sami Parliament representatives – experiences real barriers by being overrun by the national Ministry of Climate and Environment, in their process of revising the carnivore management plan. In Sweden where the management of large carnivores is devolved to regional authorities and stakeholder-based Wildlife Management Delegations, attempts to regionally solve conflicts are often overthrown by the national environmental protection agency or through court cases initiated by the environmental movement. Hence, compromises that potentially could solve conflicts are undermined. The analysis shows that while carnivore governance in both countries are founded on decentralized management authority at the regional level, local actors struggle for their views, experiences and knowledge to be acknowledged and counted as valid in the management process. While the decentralized management model opens for inclusion of different knowledge systems, this system has yet to acknowledge the challenges of knowledge being dismissed or marginalized across governance levels and scales.
Highlights
Various international conventions recognize democratic decentralization of natural resource management as a desirable, or even essential, measure for ensuring sustainability when states address environmental challenges (Agrawal and Chatre, 2006; Hayes and Persha, 2010)
The convention is implemented through measures such as the Norwegian Nature Diversity Act (2009) and the framework of the 16 Environmental Quality Objectives that have been approved by the Swedish Parliament and constitute the backbone of Swedish environmental policy (Swedish Government Bill, 2009/10:155). In their respective Sixth National Report (6NR) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), and post-2010 National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP), both Norway and Sweden highlight the progress toward the protection of species a number of measures remain to be achieved
By comparing two cases in two countries, we have analyzed how international norms have been incorporated into the respective large carnivore polices, and how these policies laid the foundation for strategies aimed at decentralizing management and decision-making
Summary
Various international conventions recognize democratic decentralization of natural resource management as a desirable, or even essential, measure for ensuring sustainability when states address environmental challenges (Agrawal and Chatre, 2006; Hayes and Persha, 2010). The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development followed this line by promoting efforts to raise awareness of the importance of engaging local actors in decision-making processes related to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. As parties to these conventions and agreements, nation states have made various attempts to decentralize management of natural resources to regional and local governance levels. Each country has chosen its own trajectory and specific mix of modalities and powers, ranging from some form of administrative decentralization to more comprehensive forms of democratic decentralization or devolution (Manor, 1999; Sandström et al, 2009; Hongslo et al, 2016; Hansson-Forman et al, 2018)
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