Building scenarios as a tool for dialogue, business development and management in protected coastal areas(Samfin. FHF-prosj.nr. 193846/I10)

There is a rich knowledge both nationally and internationally on e.g. restructuring of primary industries, business development, conservation, and conflicts in coastal zone management. However, still development and conservation objectives are not met in many areas due to profound conflicts and mistrust between (and within) various groups of stakeholders. There is a gap in the knowledge available for stakeholders in terms of conflict resolution methodology, and this proposed project takes on the ambiti on to explore the potential of inter-disciplinary scenarios in creating an arena for conflict resolution in contested coastal areas. From this follows relevance for the international and national coastal management research field as well. Users willing t o co-finance research on these matters wanted to develop a KMB-proposal on how to entangle conflicts associated with business developments in and in conjunction with protected coastal areas. The following research question was formulated: "To what extent could scenarios, due to their potential to combine knowledge from multiple disciplines into a potential visually strong communication tool, help facilitate an arena for dialogue and conflict resolution between stakeholders in contested coastal areas"? 5 Work packages are developed: WP1, social studies work package, will develop scenarios, covering the social-economic, and cultural backdrops, development trends, as well as desired development paths in the area. WP2 is a terrestrial ecological work packag e producing landscape data for the scenarios, as well as assisting with the building of the scenarios. WP3 does the same, but for the marine ecosystem. WP4 is devoted to visualisation of, communicating and discussing potential futures with stakeholders. I n WP5 the scenario method's ability to create an arena for dialogue and conflict resolution in coastal areas is evaluated.