In its April edition, the international marine conservation and travel magazine SEVENSEAS republished the LT&C post about Raet national park and its potential to become Norway’s first marine protected area meeting international standards. Today, a spokesperson of the Norwegian Marine Research Institute in an NRK interview emphasized the need for Norway to increase its national marine protected area (MPA) network. He called the existing marine national parks at the Skagerak coast “paper parks” and urges Norway to establish MPAs with large no-take zones to stop the marine environment’s ongoing degradation. There is some positive movement in the official Norwegian discussion to improve the conservation status of protected areas. Maybe the time has come that we also hear from Norwegian tourism businesses that they are supportive of a (marine) advanced protected area network. They could at least play a positive role to make Raet national park the first marine protected area in the country to meet international standards. It would be the first LT&C-Example in Norway.
