Introduction

Dr. Ivar Svane Holand and Dr. Olof Stjernstrom did well presenting despite such short notice and the fact that English is not their first language.  I learned some things about Norway and their fish farming in Dr. Holand’s ‘Marine spatial planning-Determinants for zoning’ presentation.  First, fish and oil are Norway’s major marine exports.  Second, fish farming is extremely important for the economy.  Fish farming started in the 1970’s in Norway, but had large growth in the 80’s and 90’s.  Two-thirds of Norway’s fish sales are from fish farming, while one-third comes from wild stocks.  In order to have a good fish farm location, you must have a strong current, depth, shelter, and proximity to infrastructure.

Dr. Olof Sjernstrom’s presentation was on ‘Local and regional planning for a sustainable development in the European Arctic.’  His major question for previous research was “Is wage effect related to booming mining industries?”  The answer of course was yes.  The economy boomed and all professions seemed to make more money.  However, housing prices also went up in the area and it was tough to find a place to live within 20-30 kilometers for an affordable price.  The main takeaways from Dr. Sjernstrom’s presentation were that we love to problematize and categorize.  We put everything into baskets and group them together, as well as making everything into a problem.  As well, Dr. Sjernstrom posed the idea of multiple types of sustainability and how to define that.  He made us think about the largest copper mine and asked if that was sustainable with jobs.  Finally, his major takeaway was ‘Language is Power.’  Communication is key.  Without proper communication, you may repeat studies/research.  We can learn much from each other, as we are all trying to achieve similar goals.

I enjoyed the presentations; I liked getting a new perspective from academic scholars elsewhere.  I found the presentation styles to be very similar to those here in Canada.  One thing that was different was that there seemed to be fewer slides in the presentations; they would spend quite a bit of time on each slide.  I like both methods, but I think there must be a balance.  If too much time is spent on one slide, the audience members may daze off.  However, going through slides too fast in a short time period can be detrimental, as people cannot keep up.

The content was very intriguing and you could tell they knew their respective subjects well.  It makes me wonder how much research is being repeated, just in different parts of the world.  With access to the internet this should not be the case, but it can be hard to translate papers into different languages.  I would like to delve into the literature on my thesis a bit more and see if I can’t find anything from other parts of the world doing similar studies.  Following up on this, one question I would ask is: ‘How often do you collaborate with researchers from different nations’?