We use demographic and economic indicators to analyze spatial differences and temporal trends across 18 regions surrounding the Arctic Ocean. Multifactor and cluster analysis were used on 10 indicators reflecting income, employment and demography from 1995 to 2008. The main difference is between regions with high population densities, low natural growth rate, and low unemployment (Russia, Norway ...

Protected areas provide important ecosystem services globally but few studies have examined how cultural differences influence the distribution of cultural ecosystem values and management preferences. We used internet-based public participation GIS (PPGIS) in the countries of Norway and Poland to identify ecosystem values and management preferences in protected areas held by regional residents and ...

To ensure economic viability over time, any efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals need to reconcile conservation with development interventions. Particularly, in marginal and risk prone areas erosion of resilience could make production systems more susceptible to environmental risks that compromise the economic security. By longitudinal analyses of long-term data records we investigated the ...

Protected area (PA) coverage is used as an indicator of biodiversity protection worldwide. The effectiveness of using PAs as indicators has been questioned due to the diversity of categories encompassed by such designations, especially in PAs established for purposes other than biodiversity protection. Although international standards have been developed by the International Union for Conservation ...

Abstract Community-based management (CBM) has been implemented in socio-ecological systems (SES) worldwide. CBM has also been the prevailing policy in Sa´mi pastoral SES in Norway, but the outcomes tend to vary extensively among resource groups (‘‘siidas’’). We asked why do some siidas self-organize to manage common pool resources sustainably and others do not? To answer this question we used a ...

In northernmost Norway the right to own and manage the land in Finnmark, was transferred from the state to the the Finnmark Estate (FeFo) in 2005. The land tenure arrangement was a result of land claims made by the indigenous Sami people of Norway. The resources and the land that was previously managed to the best for all Norwegian citizens by the state, is now managed to the best for the ...

Prior research has examined the relationship between physical landscapes and ecosystem services, but the distribution of ecosystem services by land tenure and protected areas is less developed. We analyze the spatial distribution of participatory mapped ecosystem values, as indicators of ecosystem services, to determine their relationship with land tenure in southern Norway, a region characterized ...

Protected area management can be highly contentious. Information about the acceptability of conservation actions can help environmental authorities design policies that are accepted locally, and identify potential areas of conflict between land users and conservation objectives. In this study, we implemented a spatially-explicit method for eliciting public preferences for land use and conservation ...

The socioeconomic causes of land use change are complex. They are highly context dependent, but most often studied through case studies. Here, we use a quasi-experimental paired block design to investigate whether better access to wage income leads to more visible land use around 28 settlements in six regions of the circumpolar Arctic. We mapped visible land use on high-resolution satellite images ...