LAND: Angler and hunting tourism: potential conflicts and impacts on present practices of hunting and angling

The main objective of this project is to produce knowledge on perceptions and attitudes related to the commercialization of hunting and angling as elements in a broader trend toward expansion of nature-based tourism, and to describe and analyse manifest a nd potential conflicts that can result from it. The partial objectives are firstly to identify angling and hunting practices of local and visiting actors and the way in which these are inscribed with meanings that connects to a wider field of social relat ions and social change. Secondly, it is an aim to explore in what way particular and diverse modes of distributing rights of access to natural resources (e.g. allemannsretten) - and the manner in which they are practiced and conceived of - can be of relev ance in order to understand potential or actual conflicts over angling and hunting tourism. While many seem to welcome the economic potentials of this type of tourism, there is also a fear of increased prizes, pressure upon the resources and managerial r estriction of access will threaten local participation and control over nature resources and the landscape one identifies with. Whether or not such effects are observable in any meaningful way will most likely vary. In some cases, the problems may exist mostly at the level of perceptions that is not shared by everyone within a community. Axes of controversy are probably several, like e.g. like urban/rural, local/outsider, traditionalist/modernist. Some of these will probabaly be at play simultaneously, m aking conflicts into a complex matter. The project relates to questions of changes in participation in outdoor recreation. The question of how to achieve a balance between value creation in local communities and the upholding of common access rights will also be of central importance. Methodologically the research primarily be based on semi-structured interviews with a sample of actors from different categories, and in different chosen localities.