Balancing tourism development and nature protection across national park borders – a case study of a coastal protected area in Norway

Abstract

The study examines the relationship between nature management and land use planning in order to balance nature protection and tourism development within and outside national park borders. Applying theory about local networks and social learning, we highlight how responsible actors coordinate in order to strike a balance between protection and tourism. Based on this study of a Norwegian coastal national park, we state that competent key individuals are crucial preconditions for fulfilling the management and planning objectives in a wider regional context. In our case study, such personnel within the national park management and municipal land use planning system serve as bridge builders between nature protection and tourism. However, we argue that the existing management system is very vulnerable, and an important implication of our study is that the present local network should be more firmly institutionalized in order to become sufficiently robust and resistant to changes.

Keywords:

• coastal national park management
• municipal planning
• coordination
• tourism
• Norway

Acknowledgements

An earlier version of the paper has been presented at the PlanNord conference in Reykjavik on 17–21 August 2013. We thank the participants of the conference for valuable comments, which helped to improve the paper. We also want to thank Randi Syversen for transcribing the audiotaped interviews.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Research Council of Norway through the project 208048/I10 (Prospects for Managing Tourism Development in Protected Areas in a Period of Transition [PROTOUR]), under the programme NATUR OG NAERING, and the ongoing project 255772/ELI “Integrated Coastal Zone Planning and Management – Legal and Structural Challenges (PLANCOAST)” under the common program Challenges in the Coastal Zone.