The Arctic faces escalating pressures from climate change and overtourism, which threaten wild species, transform habitat types, and disrupt the livelihoods and culture of Indigenous Sámi communities and other local people. Law is widely regarded as a powerful tool for guiding behavior—it can impose restrictions, mandate actions, or incentivize positive practices. The ALAMOT project seeks to explore how legal and policy frameworks are currently being implemented and how they can be used to respond to and shape the actions of diverse stakeholders in the Arctic, helping to address the urgent challenges facing ecosystems, habitats, and Sámi and rural ways of life.
To achieve this, ALAMOT employs a comprehensive methodology, combining international systematic research mapping, stakeholder interviews, policy analysis, legal research, and comparative, interdisciplinary case studies across National Parks in Sweden, Norway, and Finland. By focusing on National Parks that are valued both for their pristine environments and their appeal to tourists, ALAMOT highlights regions where the impacts of climate change and overtourism are acutely felt. Despite similar environmental conditions across the Arctic regions of these countries—with overlapping species and habitat types—governance practices to protect both nature and Sámi livelihoods vary significantly. ALAMOT’s comparative analysis of these approaches aims to identify best practices for sustainable development.
Building on this foundation, ALAMOT first establishes the current understanding of climate change and overtourism's ecological and social impacts in the selected National Parks. The project will assess specific wild species, plant communities, and habitat types, with a particular focus on how these environmental changes affect the Sámi livelihoods rooted in nature. Simultaneously, the project evaluates the effects and implementation of existing legal frameworks, exploring opportunities for legislative improvement at subnational, national, and supranational levels.
Through an interdisciplinary approach that integrates international systematic literature review, stakeholder participation and analysis, and cross-country comparisons, ALAMOT seeks to identify novel legal and policy solutions. The recommendations aim to enhance environmental protection and support Sámi livelihoods not only in the three target countries but also across the broader Arctic region.
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