This priority area will develop new knowledge about how people and communities conceptualize, manage and use nature, resources and landscapes. The area includes research on how nature and natural resources are defined and conceptualized in different ways and different contexts, and how this forms the basis for often contradictory and conflicting discourses and practices. 

The research approach is political, in that we seek to understand the consequences of such discourses and practices for equitable distribution and inequality, processes of social and economic change, and vulnerability and social protection. The priority area also includes courses on rights-holders’ roles and participation in both formal and informal decision-making processes related to the management and use of biodiversity, oil, and water, as well as nature as an arena for recreation. Research is carried out both in the Global South and the Global North.
 

Key research themes:

• Use, distribution and conceptualization of nature and natural resources 
• Management of particularly valuable natural resources 
• Nature and landscape as arenas for inclusion, participation and democracy

Projects:

• CostClim - Haakon Lein
• EPICC -Environmental policy instruments across commodity chains - Diana Raquel Vela Almeida
• Exploring culturally diverse perspectives on Norwegian environments - Gunhild Setten
• Advancing quality in education in the primary and lower secondary schools of Ethiopia and South Sudan - Charlotte Anne Nakakaawa-Jjunju,  Jørund Aasetre
• EPICC - Ståle Angen Rye

We also participate in:

• International Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES, The sustainable use of wild species assessment - Elizabeth Barron, Ritah Kigonya

Recent publications:

• Ritah Kigonya: Old wine in a new bottle’: conceptualization of biodiversity offsets among environmental practitioners in Uganda. Environmental Management, 2022
• Solomon Zena Walelign, Päivi Lujala: A place-based framework for assessing resettlement capacity in the context of displacement induced by climate change. World Development, volume 141, March 2022
• Michael Ogbe, Jan Ketil Rød & Thomas Halvorsen: Opinions of Ghanaians on the management of petroleum revenue in Ghana. African Geographical Review, 2021.
• Walelign, Solomon Zena; Luja, Päivi: Resettlement capacity assessments for climate induced displacements: Evidence from Ethiopia. Climate Risk Management Volume 33, 2021.
• Ogbe, Michael: Land Cover Changes in Ghana over the Past 24 Years. Sustainability, MDPI 2021.
• Ogbe, Michael; Lujala, Päivi: Spatial crowdsourcing in natural resource revenue management. Resources Policy, Volume 72, 2021
• Vela-Almeida, Diana; Gonzalez, Adrian; Gavilán, Iracema; Sánchez, Gabriela M.Fenner; Torres, Nataly; Ysunza, Valeria: The right to decide: A triad of participation in politicizing extractive governance in Latin America. Journal of Extractive Industries and Society, 2021.
• Walelign, Solomon Zena: Poverty Trap or Means to Escape Poverty? Empirical Evidence on the Role of Environmental Income in Rural Nepal. The Journal of Development Studies 2021.
• Vela-Almeida, Diana: Seeing like the people: a history of territory and resistance in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. Journal of Political Ecology, 2020.
• Barron, Elizabeth; Hartmann, Laura; Hagemann, Frederik: From Place to Emplacement: The Scalar Politics of Sustainability. Local Environment : the International Journal of Justice and Sustainability 2020 ;Volume 25.(6) p. 447-462.
• Barron, Elizabeth; Hess, Jaqueline: Non-human ‘labor’: the work of earth others. I: The Handbook of Diverse Economies. Edward Elgar Publishing 2020 ISBN 978 1 78811 995 5. p. 163-169.
• Cavanagh, Connor Joseph; Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot; Benjaminsen, Tor A.: Gentrifying the African Landscape: The Performance and Powers of for-Profit Conservation on Southern Kenya’s Conservancy Frontier. Annals of the American Association of Geographers 2020 ;Volume 110.(5) p. 1594-1612.
• Cretois, Benjamin; Linnell, John Durrus; Grainger, Matthew; Nilsen, Erlend Birkeland; Rød, Jan Ketil: Hunters as citizen scientists: Contributions to biodiversity monitoring in Europe. Global Ecology and Conservation 2020.
• Gugssa, Mulugeta Awayehu; Aasetre, Jørund; Debele, Meskerem Lechissa: Views of “nature”, the “environment” and the “human-nature” relationships in Ethiopian primary school textbooks. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education 2020 ;Volume 29.
• Linnell, John Durrus; Cretois, Benjamin; Nilsen, Erlend Birkeland; Rolandsen, Christer Moe; Solberg, Erling Johan; Veiberg, Vebjørn; Kaczensky, Petra; Van Moorter, Bram; Panzacchi, Manuela; Rauset, Geir Rune; Kaltenborn, Bjørn Petter: The challenges and opportunities of coexisting with wild ungulates in the human-dominated landscapes of Europe's Anthropocene. Biological Conservation 2020 ;Volume 244:108500. p. 1-12.
• Qvenild, Marte; Setten, Gunhild: Locating value in the Anthropocene: baselines and the contested nature of invasive plants. I: Locating Value. Theory, Application and Critique. Routledge 2020 ISBN 9781138852235. p. 118-128.
• Setten, Gunhild. (2020) Moral landscapes. International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, 2nd ed.
• Walelign, Solomon Zena; Jiao, Xi; Smith-Hall, Carsten: Environmental Reliance Traps and Pathways – Theory and Analysis of Empirical Data From Rural Nepal. Frontiers in Forests and Global Change 2020 ;Volume 3.
• Weldemichel, Teklehaymanot: Othering Pastoralists, State Violence, and the Remaking of Boundaries in Tanzania’s Militarised Wildlife Conservation Sector. Antipode 2020 ;Volume 52.(5) p. 1496-1518.