Abstract
The project shall identify how international issues have been addressed so far within the current management regimes, and how such issues will be handled when current reforms of the management regimes have been finalized. On this basis, the project will analyze whether there are gaps between the management regimes and Norwegian international commitments, explain why such gaps have occurred or are likely to occur, identify possible measures that can be taken to bring the management regimes into compliance with Norwegian international commitments, and, on the basis of Norwegian experiences and comparative studies, address questions concerning the need for reform of relevant international regimes. One part of the project will thus address the current status and future development of Norwegian management regimes for protected areas. Another part of the project will address internationalization of protected areas, ranging from the consequences of assigning formal international status to a protected area to the increasing international interest in and relevance of management of protected areas. While this part of the project will analyze management of protected areas from the perspective of international institutions and international law, it will focus on issues of particular interest to Norway. On the basis of the first two parts of the project, the third part of the project will analyze how the different elements of internationalization has been reflected in the existing Norwegian management regime, examine whether there are gaps within the existing regime, and identify options for the balancing of local and international interests through the management regime. We intend to carry out comparative studies (Sweden and Canada) in order to learn from experiences of other countries. Lessons learned from the national studies will be used as a basis for identifying lessons to be learned from the perspective of the international regimes.
Norway