ABSTRACT
In 1992 the Ministries of Environment launched a nationwide programme, Environmental Protection in the Municipalities, designed to transfer responsibility for solving environmental problems of local significance to the municipal authorities and to increase the municipalities' capabilities in protecting environmental quality. During the 1960s, a new mobilisation of conservationist interests took place. Ministries and politicians, as well as environmental and other types of interest organisations, use them in their arguments for or against specific policies or in order to enlist foreign and international allies to carry heavier weight in shaping Norwegian policy at a later time. As a policy strategy, it recognised that both economic and conservationist interests were legitimate and that a balancing of these interests had to be achieved. Norway's political system has grown out or and is based on rather fixed or even rigid lines of representation. Norway's economic structure rests largely on services, manufacturing and oil and gas production.
