Local land acquisitions: Landscape tales and collective efforts of multi functional land-sharing

In recent years, multifunctional land consolidation has emerged as a part of the solution to address the climate and biodiversity crisis. Multifunctional land consolidation implies that different interests should be taken into consideration in land use change, and that the future landscape should accommodate both agriculture, nature, outdoor and recreational life as well as rural development and contribute to lowering Denmark’s greenhouse gas emissions. The competing interests involve a risk of conflicts over land use and about whom the landscape should benefit. This project investigates how stories and narratives about the landscape and its history become played out in negotiations of the opposing considerations and concerns. This is the point of departure for developing storytelling as a method for the co-creation of future landscapes. Narrative interviews, transect walks and audio-visual methods are used to document local histories about the landscapes, and the new methods are tested at workshops and citizen meetings. The project is implemented in collaboration between researchers from University of Copenhagen and partners from The Danish Nature Agency Himmerland as well as the municipalities Mariagerfjord, Viborg and Randers.