Land use change is considered necessary for human welfare and the achievement of several of the Sustainable Development Goals. But land use change is also the main cause of the nature crisis, in addition to being amajor contributor to the climate crisis. Furthermore, land use change often results in land use conflict, due to conflicting views and competitive demands for the use of land of different groups of the population. In this sense, land use is ridden with conflicts between competing goals of sustainable development. Enabling sustainable and just land use warrants a fundamental shift in how diverse and competing values are accounted for in decision-making over land use.
The purpose of ‘Enabling land use justice’ is to develop a framework to aid land use planning processes by establishing just principles for weighting and balancing conflicting interests between socio-economic-, environmental-, and justice concerns. The framework will incorporate principles for pluralistic valuations with theories of justice to help capture the dilemmas involved in public planning and trade-offs between different values and interests. By centering on values and justice, the framework will address some of the challenges inherent in land use change processes, including conflicting interests and goals, and help ensure that land use decisions carefully consider both their environmental and social impacts.
We will apply the framework to five Norwegian cases of energy infrastructure development, road construction, and cabin development. We will analyse the knowledge base used in the planning process in each of the cases and evaluate the extent to which justice and value recognition have been considered. The framework will be made practically applicable for use in future land use change processes, thus holding the potential to support achieving society’s ambitious goal of simultaneously reducing biodiversity loss, mitigating climate change and ensuring a just and equitable life for all.
The work involves developing a theoretical framework to analyse the six cases in the project. The framework will emphasize justice related to the environment, climate, and energy and combine it with the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Biodiversity (IPBES) framework for pluralistic valuation.
Karen Richardsen Moberg at Vestlandsforsking is responsible for the work package.
This part of the project is based on natural science and emphasises ecology and life cycle analysis (LCA). Impact assessments (i.e. "konsekvensutgreiingar", KU) involve a risk of bias. In this work package, researchers review what has been done in assessing species, habitat types, and landscape features in planning processes, including impact assessments.
This involves using an NEA framework (Norwegian Environment Agency 2023) for impact assessment and valuation. Furthermore, the researchers will use LCA methods to supplement the work on greenhouse gas emissions. The results of the work package include valuation of nature, which is included in work package 3 of the project. Comparison of biodiversity assessments and LCA analyses will be used to suggest improvements in the implementation of the NEA framework and the NiN valuation system.
The work is led by Ross Wetherbee at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL).
The aim of the work package is to identify relational and utilitarian values that different actors place on the landscapes in the case areas undergoing land use change. The researchers will look at how different interests and values are emphasised and balanced against each other in the planning processes.
The work is led by Ragnhild Freng Dale, senior researcher at Western Norway Research Institute.
The work package will tie together the results from the various work packages, revise the framework for just land use change and develop a proposal for a policy for cross-sectoral fair land use, with the aim of changing the template for impact assessment and the sectoral legislation in the area.
In collaboration with the user partners, we will use the insights from the planning processes at different levels, for example in municipal plans in the case municipalities.
The work is led by project leader Halvor Dannevig.
Oppstartmøtet i Sogndal fann stad i Sogndalsfjøra og i utfartsområdet Hodlekve frå 21. til 22. januar 2025. Dei fleste av caseområda og partnarane var representerte med deltakarar. Prosjektleiar Halvor Dannevig leidde møtet.
