Sharing Knowledge for Land Use Management: Decision-Making and Expertise in Europe's Northern Periphery

In Arctic and northern communities, livelihoods and land use depend heavily on natural resources. Decision-making processes around the use of natural resources are often contested and given their importance to these communities the participation of local stakeholders is vital. This timely book presents practices that have been developed with key stakeholders to improve the collection and utilization of locally relevant knowledge in land use planning.

Chapters illustrate how indigenous and local knowledge (ILK) can be made spatially explicit by using, for example, participatory GIS. Focusing on countries including Greenland, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Ireland, Finland, Norway and Sweden, this book pays particular attention to the recognized challenges of these regions, including the relationships between local and national actors and indigenous and other local populations.

Sharing Knowledge for Land Use Management will be a key resource for students and researchers of geography, planning, regional and tourism studies as well as planning authorities and consultants, offering new ideas and tools for the inclusion of local knowledge in decision making processes.

Edited by John McDonagh, School of Geography and Archaeology, National University of Ireland Galway, Ireland and Seija Tuulentie, Natural Resources Institute Finland, Finland