Contested coastal commercialisation: Marine Fishing Tourism in Norway

- if the world is shrinking in terms of resources, it is expanding in terms of new candidates of ownership (Strathern 1999:23) Abstract Coasts have been throughout history popular areas for nature-based rec - reational tourism and with an overall increase in global travel many coastal com- munities are now experiencing a fast growth in tourism activities. The develop - ment of coastal tourism represents a new challenge for the management of coastal areas and marine resources. It also adds to the level of stakeholder conflicts in the coastal zone. This is currently the situation in Norway, a coastal nation experienc - ing a steady increase in marine fishing tourism activities. This article presents an analysis of the discourse on sustainability on marine fishing tourism following this increase and it presents the regulatory framework which has been suggested as a result of this discourse. From this analysis it is concluded that present at - tempts at regulating marine fishing tourism in Norway are more a result of politi - cal pressure to regulate the activity than a thorough process of evaluating what would be the best regulatory framework.