Zoned, but not resolved: balancing environmental conservation and local development through comprehensive land use planning in Rondane, Norway

Abstract

In 2007, the Norwegian Ministry of Environment initiated an unprecedented project of environmental conservation through land use planning, introducing buffer zones as measures to integrate local development with conservation of wild reindeer. Through studies of national policy developments and a case study of a planning processes and spatial zoning, using institutional theory, the paper investigates how competing policies and understandings of appropriate activities in the edge areas are reflected in zoning regulations and planning practice, and whether the buffer zone contributes to resolving conflicts in the edge areas. Competing national policies for the edge areas, a legal development favoring ecological buffering and a history of top-down management and local socio-economic marginalization results in removal of large parts of an existing ecological buffer zone and the creation of a new development zone. The integrated conservation and development approach has no advocates and while bearing much promise amounts to little.

Keywords:

• buffer zones
• conservation
• environmental planning
• wild reindeer
• conservation – development conflict

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Anders Mossing and Ingrid Sønsterud Myren at the Norwegian Wild Reindeer Foundation, for help with the GIS analysis, calculations and map production.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Plan documents

(In chronological order)

Ministry of Environment (12 April 2007): Fylkesdelplaner for bruk og vern av prioriterte fjellområder – fastsetting av nasjonale villreinområder. Oslo

Oppland and Hedmark counties (16 June 2008): Utkast til planprogram for revisjon av fylkesdelplan Rondane. Lillehammer

Minstry of Environment (15 September 2008): Revisjon av fylkesdelplan Rondane, høringsuttalelse til planprogram. Lillehammer

Oppland and Hedmark County Governors (26 January 2011): Høring av regional plan for Rondane og Sølnkletten. Lillehammer

Oppland and Hedmark Counties (27 September 2011): Regional plan for Rondane-Sølnkletten. Felles grunnlagsdokument for Fylkesmannen i Oppland, Fylkesmannen i Hedmark og Villreinnemnda for Rondane-Sølnkletten. Lillehammer

Norwegian Environment Agency (07 February 2012): Totalfaglig vurdering av regional plan for Rondane og Sølnkletten. Trondheim

Norwegian Environment Agency (05 July 2012): Faglige råd knyttet til sluttbehandlingen av regional plan for Rondane og Sølnkletten. Trondheim

Ministry of Environment (13 May 2013): Regional plan for Rondane og Sølnkletten. Endringer i kartet. Hamar

Oppland and Hedmark Counties (2013): Regional plan for Rondane og Sølnkletten, godkjent av Miljødepartementet 17 September 2013. Oslo