One of the most complex and acute challenges of contemporary land use planning concerns multiple and increasingly competing claims over land and natural resources. This project builds on ongoing interdisciplinary research efforts and close collaboration with public authorities and stakeholders. It addresses the methodological challenges in assessing the cumulative impacts of multiple pressures on landscape functionality. It also investigates the insufficiencies in the current governance institutions to generate a landscape perspective, navigate competing claims and reduce the conflict level between landscape users.
Reindeer herding in northern Sweden. Photo: Michiel van Nimwegen / Flickr.
The main research questions are:
- What are the most promising approaches to generate a landscape perspective and account for cumulative impacts?
- How can these approaches be embedded in the environmental planning and permit processes to aid civil servants and stakeholders reduce conflicts and build more trust for diverging forms of knowledge?
The project team is composed of colleagues from Vilhelmina norra and Sirges reindeer herding communities, the Swedish Sami Association, the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Stockholm University, and Dalarna University.
- Sami-state collaboration in the governance of cumulative effects assessment: a critical action research approach
- Impact assessment indigenous self-determination: a scalar framework of participation options
- Do voluntary corporate actions improve cumulative effects assessment? Mining companies’ performance on Sami lands
- Rennäringens skydd mot vattenkraftens markexploatering
