| dc.description.abstract | Norwegian mountain landscapes haves changed during the last decades, mainly due to human impact. These changes may reflect different social needs, commercial interests and political priorities. Sheep grazing, both as farming operation and land use, haves crucial influences on the tree line in alpine and subalpine areas in southern Norway. Today 75% of all sheep grazing takes place within alpine and subalpine landscapes. Given that sheep grazing has a long history and is of great biological and aesthetic importance to the Norwegian mountain landscape, grazing as land-use is crucial for how this landscape will develop in the future.
Through different qualitative methods, including interviews, observation and document analysis, this study aims to be a qualitative contribution to social science investigations into the ecosystem services framework. This thesis draws on the category of 'social and cultural services' as it is presented in the Norwegian White paper titled Naturens goder – om verdier av økosystemtjenester [Nature goods – on the values of ecosystem services] (NOU 2013:10). This report concerns the importance of ecosystem services, including cultural services, within a Norwegian context. In addition to drawing on the framework, the concept of landscape will be used as a perspective on how a group of sheep farmers in Oppdal municipality assess values associated with the mountain scenery, and what kind of benefits sheep grazing produces in this alpine and subalpine landscape. The landscape approach can be a useful perspective for understanding how the different social and cultural services occur in the interaction between nature and culture. The relevance of this study is to increase an understanding about the relationship between humans and nature and what kind of values sheep farmers attribute to the landscape. | nb_NO |
