International Conference on Landscape, Law & Justice, Centre for Advanced Study at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters, Oslo, June 16 th 2003. 1 The third alternative: a nature conservation partnership model at work on Svanöy Morten Edvardsen and Sissel Hovik (presented by Morten Edvardsen) Introduction In Norway, a growing critique against traditional nature conservation has led to a discussion about how to combine the interests of both production and conservation in nature areas worthy of preservation. There is an increased awareness of the need to incorporate the interests of economical utilization of local nature resources in the conservation planning and management processes. So far, this discussion has not led to a change in national policy, towards introducing private – public co-management of conservation areas. In this paper we present the result from a case study of one exceptional case of private – public partnership in Norway. Here, local opposition to conventional conservation plan resulted in conservation by a legal agreement between public and private actors. In this paper we will discuss the possible causes of this – in a Norwegian context – deviant example of private – public partnership. We will try to unveil which conditions did contribute to this co- management. We will further discuss some institutional conditions for co-management, and point to the necessity of redesigning public conservation policy, to achieve the objectives of nature conservation combining the interests of protection and production. In the next part of the paper we present the traditional nature conservation policy in Norway. In the third part we line out some favorable conditions for co-management, identified in international literature on partnership and governance, and relate them to the Norwegian conservation policy and administration. In the forth part, we make a brief presentation of Svanöy farming and conservation plan, and the process behind it. In the last part of the paper we discuss possible explanations to this deviant case, and its successful results. Based on the experiences from this case, we will unveil how public – private partnership challenges the traditional way of implementing nature management policies in Norway, and disrupts the traditional relations between both different public agencies, and between public and private actors. Neither the traditional design of the environmental policy, nor the institutional interests of the environmental bureaucracy, is in favor of partnership-based management. The success of this particular case, in spite of these conditions, points towards redesigning institutional conditions in favor of public-private co-operation. We will argue for a change in policy design, towards flexibility, differentiation and open-endedness. We will however also argue for the necessity of a combination of both ‘sticks’ and ‘carrots’.