Vaasa University
The 17th-21st of August, a few partners from the North Hunt group participated in a working group on sustainable hunting in Vaasa, Finland. The title of the working group was Sustainable hunting
– a socioeconomic tool for revitalising rural areas. The working group was a part of the 23rd ESRS congress (European Society for Rural Sociology), Re-Inventing the Rural: Between the Social
and the Natural. Participants of the congress were near 500 from around the world and were divided into 39 different working groups.
Six papers from five countries were presented in the working group on sustainable hunting i.e. Finland, Sweden, Scotland, Ireland and Iceland. The first paper was of Anne Matilainen and Susanna
Keskinarkaus from the University of Helsinki, Ruralia Institute, about the permit hunters’ attitude towards professional hunting tourism and the current hunting license policy as a perquisite
of social sustainability in Finland. Next, Yvonne Gunnarsdotter from the Department of Landscape Planning at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences presented her paper about Swedish
moose hunters in Locknevi and their encounter with hunting tourism around Danish and German moose hunters. After Yvonne’s presentation, David Watts from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland,
presented his research of the stakeholders’ perceptions of the sustainability of hunting tourism in Scotland. Next, another paper from Finland was presented. Mikael Nygård and Lorenz
Uthardt from Åbo Akademi University presented their paper about hunting tourism as an opportunity for rural areas or a threat to local hunters and their research about Finnish hunters’
attitude towards hunting tourism. The Icelandic partners, Eyrún Bjarnadóttir (Icelandic Tourism Research Centre) and Hjördís Sigursteinsdóttir (University of
Akureyri, Research Centre), presented their paper of the use of hunting rights on privately owned land as a source of income for landowners. Lastly, David Scallan from the Department of Geography,
National University of Ireland, presented his papers on what place hunting has in rural Ireland from an economic point of view.
The papers and the presentations were very interesting and casted a light on the situation in hunting in each country. Discussions amongst the participants of the working group who agreed that there
are many similarities and differences but it is important to view hunting in a wider context i.e. society and culture.
