Bureaucrats and Boundaries. The changing intersection between experts, local communities and environmental administration in nature protection

• Main Author: Bay-Larsen, Ingrid Agathe
• Format: Dissertation
• Language: English
• Subjects: samfunnsvitenskap; Samfunnsvitenskap: 200; Social science: 200; VDP

Loss of biodiversity and fragmentation of habitats are two of the world’s persistent environmental problems. This is due to the emerging complexities, uncertainties and questions of societal scale in both defining and resolving the problems. One of the challenges connected to resolving these problems pertains to the divide between the local level, which carries the costs of restrictions and regulations of use and resource extraction, and the national and global levels, where benefits are realized in terms of multiple ecosystem services (also for future generations). Another salient challenge pertains to the divide between the aggregate level of scientific expertise about the environment and the concepts and capacities of stakeholders and their resource use. These are well-known divides that typically emerge in analyses of coupled social-ecological systems. Resolving environmental problems therefore takes place in the intersection between multiple scales, actors, agencies and competencies. The local and national/international levels are likely to differ in their perceptions of environmental problems and in their perceived needs and strategies for environmental protection. Deliberative environmental governance is increasingly a focus of the international environmental agenda, and a wide range of political programs and efforts have been launched to implement and increase the efficacy and legitimacy of environmental protection. The shift from environmental governing to governance is placing more emphasis on sectors, stakeholders and knowledge across multiple scales in environmental and other policy areas. This has added the dimension of vertical divides to persistent environmental problems in addition to the horizontal ones described above. The integration of actors, agencies and competencies across both the horizontal and vertical divides influences decision-making processes and the role and position of the environmental administration. Compared with environmental governing, deliberative environmental governance places less importance on legal instruments and formal rules, new roles for civil society, as well as trust in other institutions' expert knowledge. These shifts have implications for how the environmental administration maintains power and legitimacy for their decisions and programs. This thesis asks how Norwegian environmental administration responds to such a shift from governing to governance, in particular with respect to the empowerment of local