Conclusion

Taking its examples from Fennoscandia as a coherent region with historical ties between areas – although today described in multiple and varying ways – this book has shown how shared histories and development of land uses continue to impact multiple practices today. The chapters illustrate the conflicts that arise in many cases, as land comes to be abstracted into uses that are not situated within an established understanding. The book thus both illustrates the possibilities for legislation and practice that to a higher degree emphasise not only humans in nature but also the need to continue to delimit use in context, particularly under increasing resource-use pressures and the disassociation of use from the context. The book highlights the need to recognise that social and human sciences are pivotal for us to understand not only nature but society: our problems in coping with environmental change are perhaps less based in a lack of understanding of the environment than in a limited understanding of how society can be reorganised to manage systems, beyond the binaries we typically use in describing nature areas.