ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses how land policy changes in Latvia’s Gauja National Park (GNP) are shaped by a debate between global and local land-use values. In the current international environmental context, each nation must contend with global influences on local environmental policy in addition to internal demands. The chapter explains how the post-Soviet GNP landscape has been altered through two mechanisms: land restitution and changes in the GNP administration’s goals. It shows that land restitution reflects a commitment to preserving the Latvian national identity, albeit with some problems arising from the process. The chapter also shows that the changes in the GNP administration’s goals reflect the global value of preserving biodiversity at the expense of protecting some of Latvia’s cultural and historic landscape, the very landscape that preserves the Latvian national identity. It suggests the values that inspired the catalysts of change and examines how these values conflict, and how they manifest themselves in the landscape and land-use policy of GNP.
