MAN AND NATURE OF THE WADDEN SEA
WHAT IS THE PERCEPTION OF NATURE AND THE RELATION
TO NATURE AMONG THE DANISH WADDEN SEA POPULATION?
BY: CHRISTINA
ANDERSKOV
NUMBER: 972777
YEAR: 2001
INSTITUTE: ETHNOGRAPHY
AND SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY, ÅRHUS UNIVERSITY
LECTOR: LARS KJÆRHOLM
Please mail
any comments or questions to chrisandetno@hotmail.com
- please note that she is currently away on fieldwork and may
not answer immediately.
Introduction
to man and nature of the Wadden Sea
Fragments of life with the Wadden Sea
The tourism sector and nature – the dilemma of
staying alive
Fishermen of the Wadden Sea and nature – a banned
living
Farmers and hunters of the Wadden Sea and nature –
a living under dismantling
Living with nature as a place of recreation and of
visual beauty
A last remark on doing fieldwork – making a study
reliable and valid
Making sense of
patterns in the sand
Findings in the circumference of the nature
user categories
Imagine yourself set down on a
foreign beach, with the dim sun in your eyes and the chilling wind in your
face, you look at the greyish sea and wonder where the beach stops and the sea
starts. While the bus, which brought you there slowly drives out of sight. You
look around and realize that you are not alone:
“ A group of ten Germans with
children were also pottering about in the sand like us looking for amber. An
old man drove slowly along the beach watching the sand carefully from his
moped, which had a small box attached on the carrier. Some had put up smart,
colourful kites, which were very discomforting as the kites dug towards the
beach with a dangerous speed. Others drove their cars on the beach and even the
bus and the mail van took this road.”
(Field note 29.10.00)
Then imagine yourself discovering
that these people may all have conflicting interests about the utility of just
this stretch of beach. Then you are no longer standing on a beach in the Danish
Wadden Sea area[1], you are now
standing in a highly explosive minefield!
I have been assigned by the WWF
(World Wide Fund For Nature) to conduct 150 interviews within three months in
the Danish Wadden Sea area, as WWF wishes to include the counties of Ribe and
Sønderjylland into their new nature conservation strategy ERBC[2]
(Ecoregion Based Conservation). Part of the collected interviews[3]
along with other kinds of data samples will be used to answer the objectives of
this paper[4]: “
What is the perception of nature and the relation to nature among the Danish
Wadden Sea population?” The
purpose is explanative and aims at
securing that the people of the Wadden Sea is heard loud and clear in the
process of forming the expected, future conservation project.
Since 1996 I have worked
theoretically, empirically and personally with issues concerning people and
their environment. I am aware that this small project is tied up in a worldwide context, which can be best
understood as field of force and never-ending struggle produced by
practitioners of rivalling ideologies of access to and utility of natural
resources. Still it has come as a surprise to me that conflicts, which I
naively believed only to exist in less developed countries, are alive and well
here in our own little and otherwise so peaceful Denmark.
In the following the reader will be taken
on a small excursion into the Danish Wadden Sea area and into the beauty and
hardship of doing fieldwork We will meet the ethnographer, get a glimpse of her
mind and be told how she conducts her
work - when it works and when it does not work. We will meet a few selected
people of the Wadden Sea, whom to the large extend represent the general
attitudes´ of different categories of
nature users. These categories of
nature users with different relations to nature and different perceptions
of nature will be made explicit in the subsequent analysis.
While conducting, discussing or
writing about fieldwork we constantly, as the word implies, talk about a
certain field. My field was the entire Danish Wadden Sea
area. It was divided into ten sites, selected to ensure that both urban and
rural populations would be represented
in the study: Fanø, Mandø, Rømø, Skærbæk, Højer, Ribe, Esbjerg, Tjæreborg, Vr. Vedsted
and Koldby. I conducted
interviews on ferries, in private homes, burger bars, cafes´, riding schools,
fishing boats, farms and libraries. In some places I stayed for only a day and
in others I used prolonged engagement
between two and four days[5].
There are at least two problems with using the word field in relation to the objects ethnographers study. First of all, a field is associated with a neatly
fenced-in area, which can be overlooked, mapped, accessed and left whenever it
pleases you. But my field was nothing like that. My informants had relationships, which exceeded the
field that I had cut out for them[6].
The so-called field is not bound in
any way – the field is a global and complex village. Secondly, one cannot just leave the field, because the field is
not a physical place or a dot on a map. The field consists of: People,
sensations, moods, smells, tastes and non-erasable pictures. I have spent 27
days in the selected field sites but I have not been able to leave the field
for three months.
According to data samples containing: Tourist
brochures, juridical information, internet-sites, poetry, news paper clippings,
films and history books collected in the field or borrowed from my
informants; The area has a very rare and fragile biodiversity. Formed by the
ice age, the ever-changing tide and man, who cultivated the marsh by damming in
land. The area is visited by millions of migrating birds each year. Fishing,
farming, hunting and collection of foodstuff have long traditions in the area.
When asked to describe the area they live in, the first words that come to mind
of most of my informants are: Flat, water
and windy - That is exactly what this area is. Therefore it has been
subdued to floods and terrible storms causing death to thousands of people and
animals. Even to day with all our advanced technologies the people of the
Wadden Sea are still falling victims to the mood swings of nature. However, the
biggest impact and change the area has encountered over the last 100 years is
the introduction of tourism. Today it is one of the main occupations in the
area.
“ Even though all the little shops
look as though they are only intended for tourists it is very lively here. I
thought it would be desolated. But 9.30 a.m. in Nordby on Fanø there were
delivery vans, cyclists, dog walkers and people picking up bread at the bakery
and the paper at the tobacco store. Now the tourists have come out of their
hiding places and bounce about in their windbreakers and wellingtons. The shop
owners have proclaimed that they are very busy, apparently four customers in a
shoe store are considered stressful. One of the shopkeepers told me that the
tourism is turning into a problem, as it has become more and more an all year
round season. The dunes are being destroyed because the tourists do not know
that you do not walk in the dunes in the winter.”
(Field note 17.10.00)
Hundreds of thousands tourists come to the Wadden Sea each year. Mainly
Danes and Germans, who are fond of the long, wide beaches, the unique bird
life, landscapes and flora. The people of the Wadden Sea all agree that the
most important source of income is tourism and that many of the small island
societies simply could not exist without it. People who are not directly
employed in tourism still depend on it in order to, for example, send their
children to a local school or keep an all year-open grocer store:
“ It is only an
advantage with tourists for us, the island is nothing worth without them, they
would not even have a school for the children“
(51- year- old man,
Rømø, owner of grocer shop)
Many people also use tourism as a mean of gaining an extra income by:
Renting out bikes, selling home-made jam, snaps, paintings, poetry, woollen
sweaters or amber jewellery – all goods which have a relation to nature:
“ We take a pride in quality tourism here - not
so many tourists but the good ones. They come here for the peace and quiet. The
number of tourists we have now is adequate. We sell a little jam to the
tourists ourselves”
(76-year-old man,
Mandø, retired lector)
At the same time the population is torn concerning what they view as
proper tourism. Most of them are of the opinion that tourists are harmful to
the nature that they themselves depend. Either because tourists come in large
numbers or because they do not know how to interact with nature:
“ It’s boring on Rømø in the winter when there
are no tourists. But still in the summer they make a mess on the beach and they
don’t know how to interact the right way with nature”
(24-year-old man, Rømø, unemployed IT-worker)
If natural surroundings such as dunes, marsh or dikes are destroyed by
harmful interaction with nature, then so is the ability of human life in the
Wadden Sea area, as houses, towns and fields will be flooded. Some see
restrictions on access for tourists (not for themselves) as a solution. Others
view that option as both destructive to the industry of tourism and to nature
itself:
“ Individuals are stopping the
development here, Fanø has much more crowded tourism. Here there is air and
space. Tourists don’t destroy nature they keep to the tracks. It is the nature
guides from Tønnisgård who destroys nature by picking flowers on their way
doing guided tours they should just tell about the Wadden Sea instead. More
conservation would limit our possibilities and put even more pressure on the "free"
areas. The utility of the beach is limited because of the protection
restrictions - using the beach for open-air concerts; free access for cars and
a triathlon would harm no body. Surfing and buggy driving is allowed that is
good”
(58- year- old man, Rømø, director of Summerhouse Rental Company)
On the islands of Fanø and Rømø they
are concerned about the low quality of tourists they have experienced over the
last years. On Mandø they seem at ease with both the concept of tourism and the
amount of tourists that they receive each year. They explain themselves that
there is a: “Natural limit to tourism on Mandø”. There is no bridge, no
ferry and no dam to Mandø. Tourists have to: “Drive on the water” and
thereby come and go with the tide.
“I’m looking for fishermen and the
harbourmaster drives pass me in his car. He shouts at two fishermen in a boat,
tells them that a nice girl wants to talk to them. On Torben´s boat we drink
beer and they put up at bottom trawl so that I can be taught how it works. I
have to pee on the deck. They call Svend because he knows a lot.”
(Field
note 6.11.00)
After a fearful climb across two boats I find myself in the small, cosy
cabin of Torben´s boat. The skipper Torben and the fisherman Kurt open a couple
of beers they look a bit disinterested and puzzled at me. I do not really like
boats and my stomach turns over by the very thought of drinking a beer at 10.00
a.m. Then I tell them whom I am working for and what I want. All the
disinterest vanish and more information than I can cope with starts pouring
out: They draw maps, but up the bottom trawl, make me write everything down and
to take pictures of their nets.
I use informed consent while conducting fieldwork. ( Fluehr-Loban 1994).
I have been afraid that my association with the WWF would make people, who
depend on nature for a living deny, me access, as the have every reason to
despise conservation organizations. But my association to the WWF has had the
exact opposite affect - it opens doors to a universe that might otherwise have
been closed off to me. Peoples´[7] anger towards or love of
conservation make them eager to tell about their attitude towards nature; Explain,
draw and show what is wrong and what should be done in their opinion. For many
it is their one chance to let it all out and be heard and they use it to the
full extend. I try to further informants eager to teach me by using role-
playing. ( Otto 1997). In the field I am a well-spoken and engaged university
student, but I play on having a naive and girlish knowledge of real life
experience. Even when I am fully aware of what the informants are trying to
explain to me, I pretend to be rather ignorant of the subject that makes them
go into tiny details, thus having the benefit of producing new knowledge.
The fishers and skippers are in distress. Due to nature conservation
they are not allowed to fish in the Wadden Sea any more, and they are not
allowed to scrape the bottom for common mussels or even to cultivate them on
banks (kulturbanker). The fishermen find that a complete waste of resources. All
they can do is shrimp fishing in the North Sea. Shrimp fishing is doing well
and there is a large shrimp industry at Havneby, Rømø. There are still no
quotas on that, but they are afraid that that will be the next move from the
authorities, so they have formed a trilateral shrimp organisation with shrimp
fishers from Holland, Denmark and Germany. They arrange their own restrictions
to show the outside world that they do not need controlling and moreover, to
keep up the price on shrimp.
There are also extra-income fishers ( deltidsfiskere/fritidsfiskere) and
sports fishers (lystfiskere) in the Wadden Sea area. Sports fishers and
extra-income fishers argue over the utility of streams and lakes. The sports
fisher associations do a lot to conserve the original fish species, put out
fish fry, mark fish and only use fishing rods. They claim that the extra-income
fishers exploit the fishing population by using various traps. Thereby catching
everything that swims by and not selected species. According to informants in
Højer, Mandø, Rømø and Ribe, a few people still make an extra-income from
fishing, but it has been made very difficult after the ban on fishing in the
Wadden Sea and the building of the advanced dike[8] in 1981:
“ The social life dies, the old people used to
set out traps and just use the catch for their own cooking pots. They were old
sailors who had returned home, fishing gave them a social life, now it is
banned and they just sit at home and do nothing”
( 51- year- old man, Rømø, museum inspector).
“ Fisheries are on decline. I have inherited a
fishing lot from my dad, and I wanted to do a little fishing just for my own
needs and friends´ and family’s´, but there is not much fish only a little eel
and plaice....”
( 41- year- old woman, Højer, adult teacher)
Informants blame the large protected seal population on Korresand for
having rid the Wadden Sea of fish – rarely the exploitation from the fishing
industry or waste- water discharge from farms.
“ I want to go home! I’m so fed up with these
people. Only three interviews in one day. The snotty farmers wouldn’t talk to
me. I have walked 8 kilometres in crap
weather, my back aches and my feet are cold and wet. I have knocked on least 20
farm doors and been welcomed by suppressed wives, who think that it is a better
idea to ask the neighbour 2 kilometres down the road or come back when their
husband returns”
(Field note 7.11.00)
I was supposed to talk to everybody; men and woman aged 18 to 70, farmers,
students and millionaires. Sometimes it did not work out the way I planned.
First of all, using random sampling,
as I did in most cases, one does not know the age of the person living behind
the door one knocks on. I learned to look for signs of age: What car they
drive, the way the garden is made out, flowerpots and curtains, but even that
cheated sometimes. I have been interviewing people aged 17 to 85. Secondly, certain age groups are difficult
to find. On the islands the age average is high and in the towns people aged 25
– 40 years do not have time for an interview, as they are working. Further
more, women are a big problem: Young women do not have as much free time as men[9] and older married women do not talk
to strangers. I had more success with lonely widows. Snowball sampling was also used especially on Rømø, where the
island was torn over, and in itself crystallized, the whole question of utility
of nature, - what one informant referred to as a ” civil war”. Here I
experienced getting lists[10]
from my informants and being told whom to talk to and whom not to talk to. That
was of course a nice and easy way to find the next informant but it caused some
distress, as the promised anonymity of
the informants could not be upheld. (Fluehr-Loban 1994). However, I do not
consider this an ethical dilemma,
because the entire island already knew who their opponents were, otherwise they
would not have been able to give me detailed lists.
“I disturb a young farmer wife, her three
children and her mother in the middle of their afternoon coffee. The young wife
and her husband are about to wind up their farm. They have ecological farming
with 50 diary cows and a lot of sheep. They can’t cope with it no longer and
will move to a detached house. There are too many restrictions and protection
rules on their land and they can’t make it go around. The husband now works at
the mussel factory at Havneby and a Dutch farmer is buying the farm. He will
have 100 cows and no sheep. The brother in law steps in the door. He is going
duck hunting with his younger brother later. He hates conservation it ruins
everything. When he was a child the Wadden Sea was a big playground, now
everything is protected. He blames the authorities in Copenhagen and the
islands´ “south team”, which constitute new comers who want to conserve the
whole island - both nature and houses”
(Field note 6.11.00)
Jens Aage from Mandø and Henning from Højer are both farmers and
hunters. They support the idea of conservation if it is: Reasonable, that is, having the benefit of keeping the small
societies alive or hinder access for the people who destroy nature, namely
tourists.
Jens Aage Christian has 40 breeding cows and a hundred sheep. His local
hunting association on Mandø is taking the Danish Agency for Forestry and
Energy to court for wanting to make more restrictions on the utility of natural
resources. According to the islanders, they have bought all the rights to
utilise the natural resources in the area from a Danish king[11] – nobody not even the nation state,
can take that away from them. Jens Aage is frustrated because; The islanders
have to use expensive otter stops in
their eel traps although their are no otter on Mandø, they are not allowed to
plant new trees on the island, though this could reduce sand flight and create
shelter for wildlife and cattle, but the authorities say that trees look unnatural, they have to buy a 250
kr. fishing card in order to fish in their own dike graves (digegrave), which
they themselves have dug out and they are not allowed to make a put and take
lake on the island as biologists have discovered the rare brown frog there.
Henning has a big diary farm in Højer and seems like a wealthy farmer. His
living room is impressive. It is his wife´s pride and joy and it looks like
something straight out of the American soap, Dallas. Half of the living room
has a glass facade, which turns towards the marsh and dikes. Henning and his
wife drag me out to the see the view and they talk with great enthusiasm about
all the geese they heard last evening – thousands of them, making patterns in
the sky and grassing in the marsh. Henning is the dike master of Højer (
digegreve). The security of the dikes is his responsibility. It is he who has
to know every inch of the dike and strike alarm in case of penetration of the
dike. He is also a member of the “ Council of 21” ( 21 mands udvalget ), which
advises the municipality in nature and protection questions. He fights
conservation projects in the area with his life and soul, as he is afraid that
the farmers and hunters will be driven out of the area completely. A
development that he already sees happening due to the conservation of a kog[12]. He finds it outrageous that the
farmers who made and protected the land are driven out, while busses full of
visitor are driven in to come and watch the birds and walk around in the
area.
Following quotations are what informants replied to the question:“
What is the Waddensea to you?” or “
What is the meaning of nature to you?”. The selected informants represent the general answers gained from
people, who do not depend directly on nature for a living. They mainly come
from the cities and larger towns:
“ To me it is the fields by the Wadden Sea that
means the most to me. I think of it as a place where the sky opens and you can
scream your heart out...I wouldn’t be able to live in the city. I need to be
able to go out in the garden or take a long walk in the fields”
(19-year-old woman,
Tjæreborg, student at Esbjerg Statsskole)
“ I come from Esbjerg. The smell of the water
has different varieties they give a calming feeling it gives a calming
atmosphere so that I can think and relax”
( 49-year-old woman,
Skærbæk, unemployed)
To many informants nature is a place for recreation, a place to “ stress
off” as they call it. It is a place –
a place that one goes out into, in many cases in order to get away from
something else such as: The city, noise, daily life, school or work.
“ I always return to the beautiful landscape. I
depend on it physically and psychologically, it makes me feel at ease. I enjoy
the walks, birds, air and the sound of silence”
( 59-year-old man, Esbjerg, audiologopæd)
They seek out nature on their holidays as well; Go to national parks all
over the world and other places of natural beauty. They have great interest in
looking at animal life especially species considered exotic, such as seals.
“ The Wadden Sea means a lot to me in the
summer, lots of new people come to Rømø. I go there to swim and meet new people
at the discos”
( 19- year- old man, Gånsager, apprentice
machine maker)
“ I’ve been there with my school, but mostly we
use the beach for the horses we drive them to Rømø and then ride them in the
water it’s very healthy for their hoofs and it trains their mussels. All horse
owners here do that”
( 20-year-old woman, Skærbæk, stable girl)
Nature is also a place of gaining new experiences. It is an exiting
place or a place for practising a certain hobby. Half of these informants
oppose nature conservation. Some out of sympathy with the primary users of
natural resources – but primarily because they want access to nature themselves.
As an ethical consideration I had
chosen honesty as the path through
the minefield of conflicting interests. But I found it hard to cope with this
particular attitude. Although I myself enjoy a good walk and a nice view, I
could not find any understanding for, or energy to argue with people, who
placed a stroll on the beach and a bunch of snoring seals, higher than a
fisherman’s opportunity to make a living.
As described in the above I have used various methods to secure the
reliability and validity of this project. The following, and finally the
analysis, will concern itself with other aspects of securing trustworthiness to
a study.
The 150 interviews have been conducted by using a WWF pre-made
questionnaire[13] with 42 mainly qualitative
questions as an interview guide,
where the interviewer “fills out” the
questions by using semi structured
interview techniques. ( Bernard 1994 p. 208:220). From the very beginning of the study I felt uncomftable with using
questionnaires as the main data for my fieldwork. Because the hermeneutic circle of inquiry could not
be used to its´ full extend, in the sense that the primary research questions
could not be changed during the process of the study. (Marshall and Rossman
1999 p. 26). But to my surprise it has been a positive experience working with
questionnaires: I did not forget questions which furthers consistency in the responses, it was easy to lead the informant
back on track, it was easy to ask “in” to certain topics as the primary
questions were very general and people take you serious when you have a
professional questionnaire at hand. I will use questionnaires as interview guides for field works to come
and I will advice others to try it as well.
However, I would not use it with out actually being in the field, meeting people face to face: Being shown their
homes, gardens, farms, boats, horses and fields, measuring my own and
informants moods continually and trying to participate
in whatever actions they are engaged in[14] is essential to a study. (Otto
1997). Otherwise the context disappears
and the interviews turn into hollow, fragmented words. My diary of field notes consisting of context descriptions, personal
and theoretical thoughts and information not fit for the questionnaire is
therefore just as important to the study as the actual interviews. My diary
made the interviews comprehensible and meaningful. (Sanjek 1990 p. 109-110).
The problem was therefore not the data
quality - but the data quantity:
I have done 150 interviews in 27 days which equals 5,5 interviews a day.
That is just the people I have interviewed. I will not even try to count the
people I asked for and interviews, chatted with, watched, or in any other way
gained information from. My employers had told me that the average interview
was expected to last 15 minutes. That was what I was being paid for. I have
however conducted interviews lasting from anything between 10 minutes to 3
hours with an average of about 35 minutes, which I find to be the minimum for a
proper interview.
While interviewing the ethnographer is in the lime light on centre stage the entire time; Smiling, open, willing
to listen to life stories and heart aches, taste dry homemade buns, drink beer
and coffee at all hours or go into arguments about the topic at hand. Some days
I went with the flow and made great quality interviews. Other days I shut down
and concentrate on getting as many interviews as possible, which surely lowered
the quality and thereby both the validity and credibility. Doing quick and
dirty ethnography has never been my style. But I saw myself doing it out of
time pressure and anger of not being paid to spend the time it takes to make a
proper interview. It put me in an ethical
dilemma in regard to representing my informants correctly. (Fluehr-Loban
1994). How could I claim to know anything about their way of life from a 15
minutes interview? I could not! Therefore I chose the hard way most of the
time, trying to meet the magic number of 150 and at the same time doing long,
engaged interviews.
I did not make it: My fieldwork ended on Saturday the 9th of
December at interview number 142. After having conducted 7 interviews in one
day on Fanø, I collapsed three times on the train home. Experienced a major
memory gap of the event and was set of the train as I was considered a
“security risk”. I was hospitalised and given oxygen in order to stabilise my
pulse, before being sent home on the train as a shaking nerve wrack
I will not advice anybody to do 150 interviews and at the same time try
doing proper ethnography, unless they of course have “superhuman powers” at
hand.
In general I have used the hermeneutic cycle of inquiry (Marshall and
Rossman 1999 p. 26) as an approach to the analysis and more specifically
Michael Agar’s Strip Analysis Theory. (Agar 1986). However, instead of starting
over each time I have found a heterogeneity in the data samples and ending up
with a holistic fallacy, which I find Agar doing ( Agar 1986 p.27:30), I have
incorporated the heterogeneities in the final categories of nature users.
I regard it as the biggest dilemma for our scholarly field that we
produce revolutionary discoveries in sometimes well known fields, but cannot
make ourselves appear trustworthy in the eyes of others as we lack a straight
forward, comprehensible, and less subjective analysis method. (Lincoln and Guba
1985 p. 289). I have tried to overcome that dilemma by processing my interviews
in a home- made Access Database. By doing that the reader can see examples of
how the concrete analysis is done[15]. Moreover, had I had the space for
it, take the reader through the analysis step by step. Let me give a clarifying
example:
To measure “ relation to nature”
I started by choosing four different questions from the questionnaire, which I
believed to say something about this issue: Support of conservation, opinion of
conservation, opinion of fisheries and farming. I then divided the responses
into gender, age, occupation, parents´ occupation and residence. The whole time
cross-checking for homogeneities, heterogeneities in the data and triangulating
the samples. Trying out many logical possibilities and sometime illogical
possibilities, just to see what would turn up.
It can all be done within split
seconds and it is possible to crosscheck as many factors at once as one wishes.
However, there is a limit if one wishes to keep the well-structured overview
that this analysis procedure provides. This approach makes it easy to quantify
qualitative data and qualify quantative data, which if not avoids, then at
least hinders premature closure and fixation on one set of responses. (Tashakkori
and Teddlie 1998). Furthermore this approach has the advantage of keeping the
categories emic compared to other qualitative data programmes such as Nud.ist,
where the analyser makes up the categories.[16] Thereby the categories are
made etic instead of emic, which has the danger of representing the
ethnographer’s and not the informants´ point of view. Theoretical triangulation
of the relevant literature has been used, as one theoretical direction could
not answer all the questions turning up during the analysis. ( Hammersley and
Atkinson 1997 p. 214).
I was advised to select a single site for my analysis, and for some time
it seemed as a reasonable option to use Rømø[17]. The idea of singling out Rømø for
the analysis was distorted as knowledge of heterogeneities in the population
appeared in the different sites. Knowledge that in my opinion had to be
included in the analysis, if I was to answer the objectives of this paper with
regard to the “truth” and not to finding the easiest and most comprehensible
explanations.
I wanted to transfer Højrup and Rahbek´s categories of lifestyles[18] on to my data. I was convinced that
informants relation to nature was dependent on their choice of occupation and
in turn that their perception of nature was dependent on their relation to
nature. Informants’ relations to nature and perception of nature could in most
cases be explained by their occupation and the related personal ideology
inscribed in that particular occupation. But heterogeneities came up, which
could not be explained that easily: Was a doctor also a hunter, that hobby gave
him the same relation to nature as a farmer or a full-time fisherman and
thereby the same perception of nature. According to Højrup and Rahbek that
should not be possible – but it was, practise did not “ live up” to the theory.
I could not completely rule out occupation as the independent factor,
but at the same time it surely was far from being the concomitant factor I had
believed it to be. The analysis became very complex as other factors were just
as important to measure informants´perception
of nature and relation to nature: Physical or mental closeness to nature,
closeness to nature as a life threat[19], parents´ occupation, hobbies,
attitude towards authorities, extra-income gaining activities, years lived in
the area, direct dependency on tourism, indirect dependency on tourism and age.
Furthermore, it was not possible to conclude that relation to nature comes
before perception of nature, only that they are connected – because does a
man suddenly wake up one morning and decides to become: A hunter, a member of
the Danish Society for the Conservation of nature or an amber collector? The
closest I have come to an answer to that is: Peoples relation to nature and
perception of nature is dialectic. Peoples´ perception of nature depends on
their relation to nature and their relation to nature depends on the perception
of nature. Therefore the
following nature user categories
derived from the analysis, could just as well have been based on perception of
nature instead of relation to nature, as the two are inseparable. However, I
have chosen to base them on relation to nature, as I believe that most readers
are more familiar with the different relations to nature than different
perceptions of nature.
Secondary nature users
Consist of: The tourism sector, people
making an extra-income from tourism, collectors of foodstuff and other
materials in nature, garden enthusiasts. Relation
to nature: Relative interaction. Use nature as, an
indirect way of making a living, an extra- income and hobby, a food supply of
“clean foods”. Collectors pick berries, herbs, mushrooms and amber and use secrecy and teasing as a means of respectful utility of nature. Gardeners try
to attract sudden animal species to their gardens by planting special bushes
and trees, thereby creating hiding and nesting places. The tourism sector
promotes the unique nature and all its´ utilities and show environmental
concern by making bottle disposal sites and renovation. Perception of nature: Nature is a place with many opportunities to be
utilised, it is wasteful not to do so. For some nature is cyclic and ever
changing and for others it something to be controlled and kept in a sudden
manner. Nature gives experiences, clean food, the opportunity to exchange
goods with friends and family and peace of mind. Attitude towards conservation:
Divided: Depends on what they think the tourist comes for, whether they
perceive mans interaction with nature as destructive or not and in what way
people depend on tourism. Other significants: Closeness to nature,
threat of life from nature and family background is significant to their
relation, perception and attitude |
|
Primary nature users Consist
of: Hunters, farmers, full-time fishermen,
extra-income fishermen. Relation
to nature: High interaction. Make a
living on nature and maintain nature. Nature is a resource to be utilised not
doing so is considered waste full. It is natural and a tradition to use
nature, not to do so is unnatural and ruins tradition. Hunters believe to
keep a balance in nature by killing injured game, overpopulation of foxes and
the appropriate number of birds. Farmers let their sheep grass on the dikes
to maintain them as the sheep trot down holes made by mice, rats and water
voles. Fishermen use special selective nets and make their own quotas and
“non fishing days”. All in all they receive a harvest from nature and give
something back by maintaining and keeping a balance, there is a clear
reciprocity. Perception
of nature: Nature is a big food chamber to be utilised.
Nature has to do with tradition, personal rights and freedoms, well-being,
exchanging goods with friends and family and making a living in a natural
way. Nature is circular, varied, always changing and to some extend
unpredictable and will call for revenge if utilised the wrong way. Attitude
towards conservation: Oppose conservation.
Conservation is unnatural, ruins traditions, and the opportunity to make a
living. It is considered waste full and a threat to personal rights and
freedoms and well-being. Conservation “changes” nature as conservation calls
on nature to look in a particular
way, which is considered unnatural. Other
significants: Some support conservation either because they
have nature very dear and want to protect it from tourism, or because the
place they live depend on tourists and they see conservation, as a mean of
keeping the small societies alive. That said they still consider most
conservation and restriction rules as stupid and irrelevant – what they would
like to support is “reasonable”
conservation that gives meaning to
people and nature |
Tertiary nature users Consist
of: People conducting a hobby in nature, people using
nature as a leisure-time activity Relation
to nature: Moderate interaction. Nature is a
place for conducting hobbies, spending leisure time, looking at beautiful
scenery or exotic species. Depend on nature mentally. One has to be very
careful in nature not throw things, destroy things or pick flowers and
plants. Nature should me left the way
it was before arrival. One can “stress off” in nature and go home afterwards
with new energies. A visual relationship: “ look but don’t touch”. If nature
is to be touched it is in order to help it – for example when sports fishers
put out original, threatened fish species. Perception
of nature: Original, unchanging, uninhabited, peaceful,
rough and sometimes dangerous. Beautiful to look at and has “ Spiritual powers”, which can cure a hurt soul. Attitude of conservation: Divided. It would be better for nature if it was all conservated, but
for the single individual it’s not nice or healthy not to be able to have
access. People who abuse nature such as polluting farmers, exploiting hunters
and fishermen, should however have limited access.
Other
significants: Some who oppose conservation also do it out
of sympathy with the primary users, many with family background of primary
users. Closeness to nature, threat of life from nature and age are
significant to their relation, perception and attitude. |
Findings in the circumference of the nature
user categories Back to contents
It is significant that all categories of users are “gendered”. Women
from the childbearing age and up perceive their relation to nature as having a
lot to do with children – they start
talking of children constantly, though being asked questions that have no
direct connection to children. Men from all categories and all age groups are
more likely than women to talk about nature in economic terms, calculating the
cost/ benefits of certain utilities of nature. Moreover, all categories of
users refer to the Wadden are as: “Home, a place of drawing light, open spaces
and high to the sky, which they think they can never leave or will always
return to.” That might sound as something they make up to impress the
ethnographer. But cross cheeking the data on place of birth, education, and
residence it shows that people of the Wadden Sea are very immobile.[20] I have not been able to
analyse the hypotheses fully, but there are strong indications, as mentioned
above, that the people of the Wadden Sea are so dependent on their natural
surroundings for their well being that they cannot live anywhere else. It would
therefore not serve the tertiary nature
users justice, if the reader or I regard them as having “ no real relation to nature” or a “strictly
visual or detached relationship to nature” compared to the other categories. Thereby
all categories of users have something in common.
However, the argument of a dialectic
relationship between relation to nature and perception of nature leads us
to another point; Namely why these different categories, in spite of their
commonalities, have difficulties understanding each other. Because the
relationship is dialectic, a farmer cannot suddenly see the world from a
teacher’s perspective. His perception of nature does not “allow” him to do so
and the other way around, as the perception is “ bound ” in his relation to
nature. They will always be “talking” from the two opposite ends of the pole,
as perception and relation cannot be separated. That finding opposes Stanley
Tambiahs theory[21] where he argues convincingly that
people do not belong to an “either/or” epistemology, but they move back and
forth on a continuum in accordance with the cultural environments and
situations they find themselves in. (Tambiah 1990). I do not argue that
different categories of users cannot agree on many issues, as some of the
features of each category are
overlapping, just that they will never entirely be able to see it all from the
other sides point of view – which Tambiah claims possible. This finding can
also help us understand why the area experiences so explicit conflicts over the
utility of natural resources. The conflict is essentially economical and
political as people argue over the rights to utilise natural resources, but the
conflict is made even worse and even more difficult to solve, as people cannot
understand the argument from the other sides point of view. Therefore different
perceptions of nature produce a “ language barrier” between the opposing
categories of nature users.
According to Højrup ( Højrup 1983) lawmakers, civil servants,
politicians and people engaged in conservation organisations have a lifestyle
similar to what I define as tertiary
nature users. They decide from “above” how natural resources should be
utilised and that of course according to their own perception of nature. Locally,
in the Wadden Sea area, these people are the most educated, well- and
outspoken, know the “system” and which strings to pull. Their main opponents
are the primary nature users, who are
often less educated, not so well- and outspoken, have no strings to pull and
hostile towards the “system”. Therefore, it could seem likely that the tertiary nature users will “win” the
conflict of natural resources over the years to come. On the other hand, the primary nature users have started “
talking back”. As described earlier they have, for example, made their own nature associations and take lawmakers
to court. Furthermore, in the Wadden Sea area there are many signs of essentialising the “relation to nature”
as a mean of “talking back” to intruding elements by using an environmental discourse produced by the tertiary nature users. Basically the
same method of resistance as Poul Pedersen have found in religions such as
Hinduism and Islam, were people use the discourse of “modern environmental
concern” as a new way of being heard in a globalizing world where they feel
overlooked[22]. (Pedersen 1995). Many of the primary nature users do the same; Claim
that they have looked after mother earth for hundreds of years, lived with her
in a “ sustainable manner” and therefore have a special right to keep doing as
they have always done – or even teach others how it should be done.
We have now been on a small excursion to the Wadden Sea. We have met
different people from the area. We have been told about their relation to
nature and perception of nature, which has been made explicit in the analysis
via the nature user categories. We have been told that, in spite of
commonalities among the population, there are big conflicts of interest
concerning the utility of natural resources, which seems unsolvable due to the
dialectic relationship of perception/relation. We have also met the ethnographer
and been taught a bit about doing fieldwork - both the ups and downs. That is
all interesting. - But what we all really want to know now is: “ Who should have the right to utilise
nature? Whom should we sympathise with and whom should we despise?” It is
not my purpose to answer above questions, neither to provide the reader with
“true” answers. Because there is no essential core of truth in these questions
we can use as guidance. However, what we can do is to take into consideration
all the rationales imbedded in each user category, before ever again passing
judgement on anybody engaged in a conflict over natural resources. Not
just the people of the Wadden Sea, but people all over the world. The nature
user categories derived from this analysis may not be directly transferable to
other settings – but the basic elements of them surely are. All in all, if we
are to ever clear the minefield of conflicting interests and thereby utilise
“mother earth” in a manner, which both secures her own life-ability and the
various livelihoods depending on her, we have to start understanding each
other. The purpose of this small project was explanative and hopefully it has
lead to a bigger understanding of – the others.
Agar, Michael: “ Speaking of Ethnography.” 1986. Newbury Park. Sage Publications.
Bernard, Russel: “ Research methods in Anthropology.” 1994. Newbury Park. Sage
Publications.
Fluehr-Loban, Carolyn:”
Informed consent in anthropological research: We are not exempt.” 1994. In:
“ Human
Organization”. Vol. 53 p. 1-10.
Ingold, Tim:”
Globes and Spheres.” 1994. In: Milton, K. (ed.): “Environmentalism: The
View
From Anthropology”. London and New York. Rutledge.
Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul: “ Ethnography: Principles in Practice”. 1997. London and New York. Routledge.
Højrup, Thomas and Rahbek Christensen, Lone:“ Introduktion til livsformsanalysens grundbegreber.” 1989. In: Rahbek Christensen, Lone (ed.): ”Livsstykker”. Forlaget kulturbøger.
Højrup, Thomas: ” Det glemte folk. Livsformer og centraldirigeringen.” 1983. Institut for folkelivsforskning.
Lincoln, Y. and Guba,
E.: “Naturalistic Inquiry.” 1985.
California. Sage Publications.
Marshall, Catherine
and Rossman, Gretchen: “Designing Qualitative Research.” 1999. Thousand Oaks. Sage
Publication.
Otto, Ton:”
Informed participation and participating informants.” 1997. In: “Canberra
Anthropology”. Vol. 20 p. 96-108.
Pedersen, Poul: “ Nature, religion and Cultural Identity: The Religious Environmental
Paradigm” 1995. In:
Bruun, O and Kalland, A (eds.): “Asian Perceptions of Nature: A Critical
Approach.” Richmond. Curzon Press.
Sanjek, Roger: “ Field notes: The making of Anthropology.” 1990. Ithaca. Cornell University
Press.
Tambiah, Stanley: “Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Rationality”. 1990.Cambridge
University Press.
Tashakkori, A and
Teddlie, Charles:“ Mixed Methodology. Combining Qualitative
and Quantitative Approaches.” 1998. Thousand Oaks. Sage publications.
“ What
is the perception of nature and the relation to nature among the Danish Wadden
Sea population?”
WWF International (World Wide Fund for Nature) is promoting their new
strategy: Ecoregion Based Conservation (ERBC) in the Wadden Sea area, including
regions in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark The overall idea behind ERBC is
to form crossboarder environmental protection regions defined by biological
diversity – but sensitive to human cultures inhabiting those areas. I have been
hired to do a qualitative data collection and a preanalysis of the data
regarding the Danish Wadden Sea population. But is the Danish Wadden Sea
population even interested in protecting their natural environment, and if so
why? Do urban/rural populations, men, women, different age groups and different
occupational groups have divergent perceptions of nature and relations to
nature? Do some groups have special political or economic interests in
promoting or opposing conservation?
My choice to do a project concerning
people and their natural environment comes from a long theoretical, empirical,
and not least personal interest in the subject. My attitude[23]
towards conservation work has primarily been formed while advocating for
people, who had been or were under threat of forced relocation due to
conservation and other development[24]
projects.
The project aims at explaining the
views of the Wadden Sea population in a manner that will further understanding,
thereby securing that proposed conservation in the Wadden Sea will be done with
strong regard to and respect of cultural heterogeneities and human livelihoods
in the area.
This project will be used to fulfil
WWFs objective to make the entire Wadden Sea area into a conservation area. It
aims at securing that the people of the Danish Wadden Sea is heard loud and
clear in this process. Thereby insuring conservation, which meets the
expectations of the population.
General research questions:
(1) How do different age, gender and
occupational groups perceive nature?
(2) Do rural/urban populations have different perceptions of nature?
(3) How do different age, gender and
occupational groups relate to nature?
(4) Do rural/urban populations have different
relations to nature?
(5) Do some groups have political or economical interests in either
promoting or opposing conservation?
(6) Is there a language barrier
between different groups?
Framework:
Data quality:
(1) Qualitative questionnaires “filled out” by the interviewer.
(2) A diary of field notes. ( Sanjek 1990 p. 109-110).
(3) Tourist information and Internet sites.
(4) Participant observation and observation. (Otto 1997).
(5) Prolonged engagement in the field.
Data quantity: 150 interviews.
Setting:
Esbjerg, Ribe, Fanø, Mandø, Rømø, Tjæreborg, Højer, Skærbæk, Koldby and Vr. Vedsted. The interviews will be
conducted in private homes, libraries, on boats, restaurants, bus stations and
where ever people are.
Target group: Men and women aged 18 to 70, who
either lives or have lived in the Wadden Sea area for more than two years.
Reaching the target group: Random sampling and snowball sampling.
Timeframe:
Three months. October, November and December 2000.
The questionnaire is pre-made by the
WWF. Though I use it as an interview
guide the main questions cannot be change during the process of the study.
That limits the use of a hermeneutic cycle of inquiry approach. (Marshall and
Rossman 1999 p.26). Furthermore, the design of the survey does not allow time
or funding for a “true prolonged Malinowskian - style” participant observation.
However, the biggest risk to a successful outcome of this project is that my
employer is strongly associated with conservation. People such as hunters,
farmers and fishers who depend on nature for a living may well deny me access.
In:” Introduktion til livsformsanalysens grundbegreber”, Thomas
Højrup and Lone Rahbek Christensen create three distinct analytical concepts of
life styles (livsformer) that exceed the classical concept of class: (Højrup
and Rahbek Christensen 1989). In:“Det
glemte Folk. Livsformer og centraldirigeringen“, Thomas Højrup analyses conflicts of
interests between different groups of fishermen and the central government in a
small, Danish coastal village. ( Højrup 983). In: ”Globes and Spheres”, Tim Ingold theorises over the subject of mans
perception of nature. ( Ingold 994). In:”
Nature, Religion and Cultural Identity. The Religious Environmental Paradigm”,
Poul Pedersen explores how people of religions such as Hinduism and Islam has
found a new way of being heard in a globalizing world where they feel
overlooked. ( Pedersen 1995).
Informants will be met were they are without any prior arrangements. Interviews
will be conducted by using questionnaires, which are “filled out” by the
interviewer via semistructured interview techniques. ( Bernard 1994 p.
208:220). Throughout the study a field note diary will be kept containing
context descriptions, personal and theoretical thoughts, observations and
statements from the informants, which the questionnaire does not leave room. (
Sanjek 1990 p. 109-110). Photographic materials, tourist information, newspaper
articles and Internet information will be gathered during the project. Role-playing
will invite informants to teach the student. ( Otto 1997).
Michael H. Agar’s strip analysis will be used for analysing the data. (Agar
1986). I am however aware of the holistic fallacy which he ends up with, (Agar
1986 p.27:30) and will instead focus on the heterogeneity of the data closely
analysing any discontinuity in the strips. An Access database will be produced
for fileing and analysing the interviews. Diary field notes, interviews, the
relevant theory, tourist information and any other kind of collected data, will
all undergo continual analysis and evaluation via the hermeneutic cycle of
inquiry. ( Marshall and Rossman 1999 p.26). Triangulation of data and
Theoretical triangulation of the relevant literature will be used. ( Hammersley
and Atkinson 1997 p. 214:230:232).
Transferability: The project is transferable as the primary
body of data is gathered by using a questionnaire, which could also be used in
similar settings. Reliability: Consistency in the results is expected
due to the use of questionnaires, the broad target group and the representation
of both urban and rural areas. Validity: Validity is secured by using
various data gathering- and analysis procedures as described in the relevant
sections above.
A report about the outcome of this project and related projects in the
three countries concerned will be made public by the WWF. Therefore I consider informed consent and
anonymity as a matter of course. ( Fluehr-Loban 1994).
|
Towns: Number of interviews: Timeframe in
days: |
|
Esbjerg 30 3 |
|
Ribe 30 3 |
|
Tjæreborg 10 1 |
|
Vr. Vedsted 5 1 |
|
Skærbæk 10 1 |
|
Koldby 10 1 |
|
Højer 10 1 |
|
|
|
Islands: |
|
Fanø 10 1 |
|
Mandø 15 2 |
|
Rømø 20 2 |
|
|
|
Sum: 10 150 16 |
|
|
|
|
|
Towns: Number of interviews: Timeframe in
days: |
|
Ribe 23 5 |
|
Esbjerg 39 5 |
|
Tjæreborg 5 1 |
|
Højer 15 2 |
|
Skærbæk 14 3 |
|
Koldby 0 0 |
|
Vr. Vedsted 0 0 |
|
Århus 8 1 |
|
Islands: |
|
Rømø 22 4 |
|
Mandø 13 4 |
|
Fanø 11 2 |
|
|
|
Sum: 11 150 27 |
|
|
|
|
|
Age |
Sex |
Residence |
5 Your profession |
17 Agricultural development |
18 Fishing development |
19 Tourism development |
|
34 |
female |
Ribe |
artist |
Agriculture in this area is not developing in either
direction, the farms are all medium seize |
Not so much fishing anymore, maybe the fishes are
dead due to pollution? |
Fed up with the tourists - don´t make money on them
personally |
|
21 |
Female |
Ribe |
student at the teachers college in Ribe |
- |
- |
not an advantage with turism, good for the economy
of the town but to much for the population |
|
19 |
male |
Ribe |
Student at the Gymnasium |
"Farming has the one advantage of giving food
on the table, but it pollutes and
gives spaceproblems due to the expansion of the Marsh, by damming more
areas" |
"Gives food on the table, but quotas are a
must" |
"The turism is good, but it can get too much,
its o.k under "natureguidence" ( The Danish concept of specialised
people doing tours, they are called Natur vejledere) |
|
19 |
male |
Ribe |
substitute teacher |
The fields are very poor, which gives bad
opportunities for industrialisation of the agriculture, that is an advantage
cause it gives more marsh lands |
If it is true that the farmers don´t polute so much
- its good for the fisheries |
"The new road will remove a good part of
nature, but it is good for tourism. Svend Auken (leader of Eu's environmental
agenture) has said that the road is bad and that beautiful nature gives more
tourism" |
|
26 |
female |
Ribe |
Student at the teachers colleage in Ribe |
No more land can be dammed in, and the small farmers
can´t compete |
- |
tourism is an advantage it gives more openess in
society |
|
27 |
male |
Varde |
shop owner, independent two shops specialising in
hunting, fishing and trekking equipment |
Sad about the farms they get bigger and bigger, traditinal
good farmers dissaper to give room for intensive farming |
"Good buisness in sportsfishing by tourist by
Ribe Å, very good for the economy, now more samon due to the returning to the
"old sling of Ribe Å", which had been straightened, but one should
be carefull to fish in an environmental sustainable manner" |
Tourism very good for the area, but care should be
taken taht it does´nt take its harm nature by "overuse" eveything
should be sustainabel" |
|
30 |
male |
Ribe |
cook |
farming is getting better more ecological |
there has been some bettering of the fishinggrounds
due to more caretaking from the users, that is good for the area |
is good for the economy of the area |
|
52 |
female |
Nr. Farup |
overassistent at Ribe tourist information. Education
translator English/ German |
The intensive "indvending" indamming of
land by the farmers is a problem, whwn it is done by the state it´s something
else that is to protect. Farming should continue, but with regard to
protecting the the vast flat areas. |
mussel fishing is very problematic, but it should´nt
be stopped because it is a traditon. |
intensive tourism is a problem when one build new
attractions or hotels in the old town or in the marsh. |
|
50 |
male |
Brøns |
student at the teachers colleage Ribe, former
education radio mechanic |
Farming good economy, but problem when in conflict
with nature, pollutes steams, drains wetlands, destroyes the small animallife
- but its turm´ning now towards the better |
Again a conflict between oeconomi and sustainability
- it´s all a political question abot the utility of the resources |
"Economic benefit, good for many people but it
takes it´s toil on the nature, and the restrictions on acces harms the
locals" |
|
17 |
female |
Vojens ( Sønderjyllands amt) |
student (HF, lower youth education) |
Farming pollutes the streams, very dangerous cause
the lakes dies |
Gives food on the table for free, when you first have
the equipment for fishing you can get food for free your whole life, but
"overfishíng" is not good |
It´s good when they are nice, good for the area with
new people |
|
54 |
male |
Ribe |
engineer |
- |
There is not really any fishing left, so that is no
problem |
"Tourism is surely developing the area, but one
should be carefull that it is not destructive" |
Id |
Sex |
Age |
5 Your profession |
9 What is wadden sea to you? |
30 Meaning of nature |
32a Support closed areas (YES/NO ?) |
32 support closed areas (WHY ?) |
|
55 |
male |
79 |
shopkeeper/pensioner |
a palce were nature guides should keep away from,
the hunters have used it for 1000 years why not nay more? No duck and
goosehunting allowed in the area, Too many seals they get sick why not hunt
them? Copenhagen officials should stay out |
4,000 m2 garden, they most beautifull garden on the
island, people come from Flensburg just to see it |
no |
no, they wanted to protect my house against
compensation and also the whole area, but there were many protests |
|
45 |
male |
71 |
shopkeeper, 1957 busdriver, pensioner |
Robert Jacobsen, Panduro |
everything that is not created by humans |
yes |
Yes, Langeli has been used for cattle now it´s a
conservation area. We can´t change that anyway |
|
24 |
male |
65 |
truck and bus driver (long distance) |
? |
Out in it, daily life |
yes |
In order to protect and conserve birdlife |
|
41 |
male |
29 |
studying to become a production technician |
It means something to the tourists, economy,
something one uses in the summer for parties |
flat areas, wide open space |
no |
no, not completely |
|
23 |
male |
35 |
foreman at Nisap Maskinfabrik |
nothing |
farming |
yes |
|
|
52 |
male |
60 |
teacher now international internet consultant
working with agriculture computer systems in developing countries |
not a real sea, has great importance for the
animallife, birdmigration, lots of goose, foodchamber for birds, was a
politician in Højer when the new dikes were made in 81/82 " fremskudte
diger" |
almost everything - but the family is put higher.
Denmark is very poor on nature Rømø is an oasis |
yes |
for periodes, if people don´t live up to their
responsibility |
|
32 |
male |
58 |
specialist teacher in production of plastics |
birdlife, nature, what means the most is fanø and
Blåvandshuk |
trees, animals, insects |
no |
no, but it can be necessary, for example in nesting
seasons or if the area is inhabited by protected species |
[1] See map of the Wadden Sea area in
Appendix A and map of special protection zones in Appendix B.
[2] Ecoregions are defined by
biological diversity (in this case Waddensea and thereby areas in Denmark,
Germany and Holland) but the overall idea is to make crossboarder protection
sensitive to human cultures inhabiting those areas.
[3] Only 135 interviews will be used in
this paper as the rest of them have yet to be transcribed. Not all questions
answered in the interviews are of relevance to the objectives of this paper, so
specific parts of the interviews have been selected for the analysis. The
remaining data is considered background data.
[4] An outline of the main research ideas
and methods is found in the research proposal Appendix C.
[5] Please see Appendix D for an
expected timeframe and Appendix E for the actual timeframe.
[6]
On Mandø Jens Aage sheared his sheep, send the wool to Poland to be
carted and dyed, then the wool went to England to be spun and in the end
returned to the shops in Denmark. The market costs of all that affect him and
his family’s daily living. The same goes for the fishermen and everybody
related to the shrimp industry on Rømø. Dutch, German and Danish fishers fish
for shrimp in the North Sea, load off the catch at the harbour of Havneby on
Rømø, then it is quickly loaded on trucks for Holland from where it is flown to
Morocco where the shrimps are picked, then it is driven back to Denmark and
labelled as Danish or Dutch shrimps.
[7] When mentioning WWF I have met
similar attitudes among; Farmers, hunters, sports fishers, younger people and
people employed in the tourism industry.
[8] The dike was made broader in 1981to
make it harder for the waters to break through it because the waves
” get
tired ” while rolling up the dike. That protects the farm land, grassing land
and towns but the downside has been, according to my informants, that there is
now less fish.
[9]
One cannot ask a woman to talk with for 15 minutes when she has a
screaming baby on one arm, a toddler in a push wagon and groceries for the
supper she is going to cook for her family in the other hand.
[10] In some cases they even called and
arranged for an interview with the chosen person and a retired journalist gave
me a detailed list of both sides of the argument.
[11] I have no data on the name of this
particular king.
[12] Kog is the man-made
land between two dikes. The land is very fertile and they used to grow wheat
there. That was banned and they put the cattle there. But now the Danish agency
for Forestry and Energy has launched a grand plan making the three kog closest to the sea into an all year
wetland in the favour of birds. Instead of pumping the water out of the area
they pump it in. In some places they are allowed to keep the cows, but the
cattle gets infected with pests and lungworms due to the wet swamp it has to
grass in. The agency funds a monthly, polluting spraying of the cattle. Henning
do not have ecological farming but he is still concerned for the ecological
farmers, for what about their cattle? It cannot be sprayed and the cows suffer.
[13] For example of the questionnaire
please see Appendix F.
[14] I have been feeding cattle,
walking, driving, riding, sailing and biking in nature with informants, mocking
out and cooking with informants.
[15]
See Appendix G for examples of analysis made via Access Data base
[16]
If for example an informant is asked: “ What is your relation to the
Wadden Sea?” - and she then starts talking about children, the category I use will still be “relation to Wadden Sea”,
as her answer will not be “pulled away” from the question, where a person using
Nud.ist might use the category “Children”
or “ Womens´/gender issues” as he
cannot see what the question was, that she actually is responding to.
[17] A pattern had started to appear on
Rømø where the island was divided into three: A “south team” of nature loving new comers supporting
conservation in order to maintain the unique
beauty of nature, a “ north team” of farmers, fishermen, and hunters of
whom many had lived on the island for many generations and opposed
conservation, and a strange middle group consisting of a mix between new comers
and Rømsere highly dependent on tourism, this group was divided on the question
of conservation.
[18] In:” Introduktion til livsformsanalysens grundbegreber”, Thomas
Højrup and Lone Rahbek Christensen create three distinct analytical concepts of
life styles (livsformer) with overlapping elements that exceeds the classical
concept of class: The independent life
style (farmers and shopkeepers), the wage
earner life style ( factory workers, cleaning assistants, shop assistants),
the career bound life style
(managers, agents, salesmen). The concepts are based on peoples´ choice of occupation
and the personal ideologies that lies behind those choices. It describes what
people gain personally from living with a sudden occupation and in turn how
that effects their whole way of living and attitudes towards different elements
of life: Family, leisure-time, work, education, politics, nature etc. (Højrup
and Rahbek Christensen 1989).
[19] People living right behind dikes or
dunes are more at risk of loosing everything, including their own lives, to
nature.
[20] Many have lived in the area for generations,
others have returned home after their studies or working abroad, some have
stayed at their place of birth and others again have just moved around in the
vicinity of the Wadden Sea.
[21] In:“ Magic, Science, Religion and the Scope of Relativism” Tambiah
dissolves the distinction between objectivism and relativism, rationality and
irrationality, science and magic. He sees the two poles, not as oppositions,
but as connected epistemologies on each end of a continuum and claim that
people do not belong to an “either/or” epistemology. (Tambiah 1990).
[22] In:” Nature, Religion and Cultural Identity. The Religious Environmental
Paradigm.” Poul Pedersen describes how, due to the global concern about the
use and abuse of mother earth, people find a voice through pointing out, via
the reinterpretations of ancient religious scriptures, that they have always
lived in perfect harmony with nature and therefore have cultures worth
safeguarding. ( Pedersen 1995).
[23] In 1996 I worked for the Bangkok
based Ngo Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance (TERRA).
[24] Such as dam construction,
commercial logging, schripmfarming and eucalyptus plantations.