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

Abstract

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 user interests and the implementation of expert knowledge in the protection of areas and biodiversity. It also addresses how the administration utilizes the potential for combining national and local ambitions and perceptions of environmental policy. The overall research question is examined in three published articles, each answering one sub-question. Findings from these articles show that: 1) there are differing responses at the regional and national administrative levels to challenges of accountability and competence resulting from the decentralization of power; 2) the environmental administration struggles to address the inherent limitations in expert knowledge applied in environmental planning, particularly with respect to the complexities of environmental problems and how to handle scientific uncertainties; and 3) the contesters of environmental protection apply various power resources to challenge the comprehension of environmental problems upon which environmental policy rests.

This thesis clearly shows how the ideals embedded in deliberative environmental governance are quickly faced with political, juridical and scientific complexities in the administrative reality. A paradox evolves as diverging strategies at administrative levels, and the lack of strategies to cope with the limitations of science, may weaken their power and position. Instead of protecting their role and the mandate of environmental programs, a further marginalizing of environmental protection may be the consequence.

This thesis suggests that administrative strategies and guidelines also need to be amended in order to solve persistent environmental problems. Lessons learned from this thesis include the need to harmonize strategies across administrative levels and to develop guidelines to differentiate between users that are potential allies for nature protection (as embedded in international environmental conventions), versus the users that are capable of marginalizing the environmental administration and their legitimacy and efficiency. Environmental administration at both levels also needs to develop strategies to manage the limitations of scientific expertise (complexities and uncertainties) so that these are not used strategically to contest environmental programs. Finally, this thesis shows how the environmental administration not only deals with the protection of areas and nature, but also with the protection of discourses that regulate the administrative power, the boundaries between science and policy and the comprehension of coupled social-ecological systems.