CeSAM Seminar Series: Nature and politics

by Vigdis Vandvik. 7 Nov 2024. 

Watch the seminar here

In September 2024, the Norwegian government delivered Norway's new action plan for biodiversity. It is Norway's answer to the global nature deal, the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM GBF), and describes how the government's policy will contribute to the sustainable use and conservation of natural diversity.  

What does this new action plan actually contain? Will Norway’s plan make it possible for us to deliver on the ambitions of the KM GBF? Why (not)? What can we expect in the future, and what requires continued work and attention?   

The delivery came just in time for COP16 in Cali, Colombia, the first meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) after the global nature agreement was signed in 2022.    

In Cali, the countries were to present their action plans. But so far only 25 out of 190 countries have delivered.     

CeSAM welcomes you to our seminar series where we will explore the Norwegian action plan for biodiversity - Sustainable use and conservation of nature from our different disciplinary perspectives.    

In this first seminar, Vigdis Vandvik will give an overview of both the political and the 'natural' background for the nature agreement. We will then give an overview of the perspectives that will be presented later in the seminar series, and discuss the aims of the seminar series.

This seminar will be in English. 

with Inger Elisabeth Måren, Katja Malmborg, Ieva Rozite-Arina. 5 December 2024

CeSAM welcomes you to our seminar series where we explore the Norwegian action plan for biodiversity, “Sustainable use and conservation of nature” from our different disciplinary perspectives. In this seminar #2 we will focus on how social-ecological systems thinking can contribute to processes, actionable knowledge generation, and enhanced collaboration over sustainable use and the conservation of nature.

The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM GBF) points to a more holistic approach to human-nature relationships, in line with social-ecological systems thinking. We actively integrate this interrelationship in our research, teaching and wider dissemination.

In this seminar, Inger Måren, Katja Malmborg, Ieva Rozite-Arina, Jarrod Cusens and Alicia Barraclough will give an overview of research within social-ecological systems thinking, with examples from current NFR and EU projects that focus on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KM GBF). The examples from these projects span from large multisite global studies to local scale place-based research within the Norwegian context. The work also spans various disciplines often using mixed methods approaches to work towards solving global challenges at the local scale.

This seminar will be in English. 

with Ingunn Elise Myklebust, 9 Jan 2025

WATCH THE SEMINAR HERE

The first goal in the nature agreement is to give higher priority to nature conservation in all land management, something that is absolutely essential if we are to be able to stop the loss of nature by 2030. 'Bit-by-bit' reduction of land is the biggest threat to nature in Norway, as it is in the rest of the world. At this seminar, professor of jurisprudence, Ingunn Elise Myklebust will elaborate on how knowledge of the interpretation and use of the legislation, and in particular the planning and building act, is important for achieving the goals of the global biodiversity framework, but also how the current system; the rules, the administration and the distribution of roles between state and municipality can make it difficult to reach the goal.

Myklebust offers, among other things, question of whether clearer requirements should be introduced for land accounting, prohibition rules (such as a ban on building on bogs) and/or stronger government management with the municipality's planning through objections and or other forms of government control, in order to get on a safe path in the direction of its nature agreement goal.

Read the op-ed we wrote on the topic here. 

NB: This seminar will be held in Norwegian. 

with Marit Ruge Bjærke

Watch the seminar here

“For thousands of years, the sustainable use and conservation of nature has provided a basis for settlement and jobs…” This is how Norway’s new action plan for biodiversity begins. In seminar 4 on Norway and the Global Biodiversity Framework, Marit Ruge Bjærke, a researcher in cultural studies, will look at the action plan with a historical perspective.

Norway's action plan for bioldiversity refers to thousands of years of sustainable use, but in this seminar we are only going back about fifty years. When the Ministry of Climate and Environment presented the action plan in September 2024, it was 52 years since Norway had its own Ministry of Environmental Protection. At that time, we were the first in the world to have a ministry that was supposed to take care of the environment. But how have the ambitions fared along the way? Do you have the money and objectives that form the basis for environmental management to develop in a positive direction for nature? Or are we standing still? And what is the connection between Norwegian environmental policy and international agreements?

NB: This seminar will be held in Norwegian. 

with Håvard Haarstad, 13 March 2025

How to make nature count in political decisions?

Politicians often say that nature is invaluable – but when it comes to political decisionmaking it is often not accounted for. How can we make nature count in nature and climate-related political decisions? The budgeting approach to sustainability is one way to try to make nature and climate count in politics. Climate budgets has been developed over a number of years, particularly by the Oslo. Nature accounting is also emerging as an approach to achieve more sustainable land use, in Vestland County and elsewhere.

What is the potential of the budgeting approach for making more sustainable political decisions? In this talk, Haarstad will discuss these questions and approaches with reference to the new research project ECOBUDGETS, recently funded by the Research Council of Norway.

with Alicia Donnellan Barraclough, 3 April 2025

Diverse values of nature in decision making

Difficulties in addressing the nature crisis are partly explained by a mismatch between how nature is valued by different sectors of society and which values are prioritized (or not) in decision making. More often than not, powerful interests determine whose and which values are considered in decisions, reducing the space for a plurality of nature values.

Barraclough will present how the field of nature valuation has progressed since the first publications on valuing nature’s contribution’s to human wellbeing over 25 years ago, to the latest IPBES assessment on the “Diverse values and Valuation of nature” published in 2022. She will then provide an example of how the NFR project ACTIONABLE explores how these frameworks can be operationalized in planning and decision-making for a more just and equitable pathway to reaching the Global Biodiversity Framework targets.

NB: This seminar will be held in English. 

with Joachim Töpper (NINA) and James Klauset Holtom (Vestland Fylkeskommune), 8 May 2025.

Maps are a central tool in area management and planning. Quite often real-world things that are not present on a map, simply don’t exist for planning processes and management mechanisms. How is information about nature available in maps? And what form of mapped information is useful in planning and management processes? In this seminar, we will talk about the issue of missing nature-related data on maps, how science can contribute in filling the gaps, and how public management bodies can improve on tools communicating mapped nature information.

with Hanne Åmli and Haakon Fossen, 5 June 2025
This seminar will be held in Norwegian. 

For Haakon Fossen, researcher in geosciences, it is a short leap to the world of the artist: 'I actively experience drawing, sketching, painting and creating figures and videos as essential for both curiosity-driven learning, research, analysis and communication. Furthermore, an artist's visual communication of geology is an enormous source of inspiration, joy and new ideas. We need bridges between science and art, and having contact with enthusiastic artists like Hanne is extremely rewarding and motivating, and adds a new dimension to a researcher's everyday life. In the lecture, I will try to show how art and the visual have an important place in my researcher's mind.'

This is followed by Hanne Åmli: The Sun Also Rises.

'The understanding of how the geosphere is connected to the human sphere can be explored through the senses. Art then becomes a powerful tool for understanding and empathy for the planet we live on. I work visually with exploration and communication of how the different earth systems affect each other. We as humans play a big role in these processes. To understand the connections, I study the small dots and long lines in nature. How do you draw lines from one fragment of information to the next fragment? Do different patterns and connections form? How do all these movements work together? There is much that needs to be investigated, seen and understood. How do different stones feel, or different leaves? Why do flowers have different colors, or the earth? Colors, shapes and texture say something about function. Movements on a micro and macro scale are inextricably linked. This is what I am working on in collaboration with researchers in several different fields. It started with Haakon Fossen, Henrik H Svensen, Gurli Meyer, Henriette Linge and geology, then I worked my way up to permafrost and climate research with Ketil Isaksen. Now I am collaborating with Vigdis Vandvik and have been in the field on two different projects here in Western Norway. SeedClim and RangeX which researches alpine ecosystems from a climate perspective.

My idea is that an interdisciplinary approach enables a multifaceted and better integrated understanding of how we humans are nature. We need to go out into nature and use ourselves and our senses to understand how to take care of ourselves, humanity and the planet we live on.

The Great Norwegian Encyclopedia states that empathy is

"...empathy, the ability to identify, understand and acknowledge the validity of others' emotional states and reactions".

I like to see the Earth as sensitive, alive and in flux. Where all the different spheres are closely connected and work with and against each other in an endless dance. There is an exchange of forces in the spaces and in the transitions where the spheres meet. A struggle or a collaboration arises for space, resources and energy.

I try to convey these processes through art and with different materials such as oil painting, ceramics, paper, biomaterials, installations, film and through dance. The exhibition "The Sun Also Rises" is aimed to be ready for viewing in the summer of 2027.

with Tom Skauge, HvL / Naturvernforbundet and Ragnhild Gya, UiB / Naturvernforbundet

With the election just around the corner, Naturvernforbundet (Friends of the Earth Norway) has been working hard to raise the voice of nature on the political agenda in Norway. Regional leader Tom Skauge and Ragnhild Gya will give us an insight in how Naturvernforbundet works and how they navigate between factual knowledge (science) and actions (activism). We will also discuss what we expect to happen after the elections.      

with Arne Matthiessen (Bergen Kommune)

What happens when we prioritize nature in our local area planning? Arne Matthiessen (Bergen municipality) will talk us through the currently ongoing process of protecting Haukåsvassdraget (the Haukås watercourse) in Åsane. This area is the last body of water in Bergen where river mussels still exist, and its connected nature and the cultural landscape in the area are also important for a wide range of other species. The condition of the watercourse has gradually and systematically deteriorated over many decades, and this species will most likely become extinct here within a few years if the environmental conditions in the watercourse are not improved. This municipal initiative to use the Planning and Building Act as a tool to improve the natural condition of an entire watercourse, as the municipality is doing in this case, is new in Bergen and will probably also be unique in a national context.

What goes into the planning and prioritization of implementing nature protection on a local governmental scale? What regulatory pathways can be used and what are obstacles in the process? How is knowledge of ecology and biodiversity put to use in the planning? Join us to learn more. 

with Kyrre Kverndokk (UiB)

The shadow of paradise: Domestic gardening and loss of nature

This seminar presents the documentary Paradisets bakside (Shadow of Paradise), which is part of the RCN-funded project Gardening the Globe: Historicizing the Anthropocene through the production of socio-nature in Scandinavia, 1750-2020 (external link). The seminar will place the documentary in a wider academic framing about rapidly changing landscapes, loss of nature, biodiversity loss, and the challenges of scaling between the Anthropocene as an planetary situation on aggregated level and the microlevel of suburban gardens and everyday life. 

Read more: CeSAM Seminar Series (11): Our Gardens and Nature | UiB

 

with Jakob Grandin (Bergen Kommune)

Sea-level rise and climate risk in Bergen: implications for sustainable land use

Sea-level rise and other climate hazards will significantly impact both existing buildings and infrastructure, as well as planned urban development in Bergen. Potential adaptation measures include land-use planning, climate-proofing buildings and infrastructure, and adjusting municipal services and emergency preparedness to account for climate risks. The presentation will draw on the City of Bergen’s ongoing work on urban climate risk assessment, along with COWI’s evaluation of measures to address sea-level rise in central Bergen.