Land Rights

The past few weeks in Norway, I've been continually aware of the lack of 'boundaries' in the Trondheim landscape. Street becomes sidewalk becomes drainage swale becomes a yard or a field of a farm. Sometimes the 'road' is no more than a gravel driveway or wide dirt path commonly used publicly by bikers and pedestrians alike - though you may be walking through a residential community, there is no concept of 'insiders' on these streets. Sure, some houses enclose their yards in hedges, but for the most part a neighbor could pass into the adjacent property lot with no clear marker and a pedestrian on the street could easily use what in the US would be perceived as a person's yard as a shortcut.

I had chalked most of this up to the small scale of Trondheim paired with low crime rates and a generally casual attitude of Norwegians, but the unclear separation of public and private outdoor space kept appearing. Along intersections and on random roadside (or pathside) hills I keep finding benches. They are placed so casually that anyone may stumble upon them to sit and ponder the landscape (the topography here ensures that there is always a view), but they are not consistent enough to be part of a public citywide 'parks' space.

I'll have to come back to this with some photographs another day, but a couple of lectures from classes this week have begun to shed some light on the phenomena I've been noticing. In Norway (and much of Scandinavia), there is a national law known as 'Allemannsretten' or 'every man's right'. It can also be called the Open Air Act or Freedom to Roam. In short, it allows every person of the general public equal rights to access most land - publicly or privately owned. Many travellers know of this because it's common knowledge that one can camp freely through most of Scandinavia, but I am still learning the details and extent of this law. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam

Comparing Allemannsretten with what I have heard of land tenure battles in East Africa, or even with the traditional American fenced-in yard (or gated community!) that I know too well, I am becoming very intrigued as to the societal implications of this law (and practice). Remembering that my least favorite thing in Queens was the abundance of chain-link fence and property walls that serve little purpose than to receive graffiti, I imagine that a different frame of thought on land rights and ownership could seriously change an urban sidewalkscape for the better.

I am hoping to find yet another perspective on land rights when in Nepal in a few weeks. I hope to keep the line of thought in mind and see what parallels can be found between land ownership, societal norms/land use, and how the sense of citizen's responsibility to the land varies. At the moment I hypothesize that the concept of having rights and ownership to all the nation's land (shared with your compatriots) makes the society more personally responsible to the land and their environment. Perhaps knocking down a few fences could breed environmental stewardship.

For now, I'll go climb the unclaimed hill down the street to sit on its bench and read for a bit in the few hours of twilight left before the 11pm sunset.