Across the globe, conservation has been increasingly in conflict with other human activities. National parks are an important concept in nature protection and probably the most recognized institution in nature tourism worldwide. The concept of sustainable nature tourism became a part of the planning and management of Finnish national parks at the beginning of the new millennium. We analyze the environmental conflict and the idea and practices of sustainable nature tourism from a historical perspective in one Finnish national park: Koli. The main research question is how has the concept of sustainability been used to resolve the conflict between tourism and nature protection? Our perspective is based on the essence of sustainable nature tourism as humanity's interaction with the environment. The main data of the study consists of interviews with park managers and planners and archival material from local newspapers. In Koli, the history of the founding of the park and tourism development were strongly affected by diverse nature relationships between different actors. In the human-nature relationship perspective, it was a matter of how the land was to be utilized, on an anthropocentric or eco-centric basis. From the park management point of view, sustainable nature tourism was a conceptual and practical tool to diffuse the conflict. Experiences in Koli show how eco-utilitarian perspectives toward nature conservation can help to resolve conflict. Today the idea of sustainability has been adapted by large-scale tourism developers and earlier failed vast plans for Koli are alive again, only reconceptualized with the idea of sustainability. This kind of economy-based sustainability in turn pushes the idea of sustainable nature tourism further from nature itself and eco-centric perspectives and provides foundations for a new conflict.

Nature and culture are often seen as two separate entities in the travel industry. In this article, it is argued that nature is an essential part of human culture, and nature tourism should also be interpreted through cultural concepts. Cultural nature is addressed by examining the historical imaginaries used in the tourist attractions within the North Karelia Biosphere Reserve in Eastern Finland. The main scope of interest is how nature is implicated in the local narratives of the past, and how history and nature are intertwined in nature attractions such as national parks. The findings will be viewed with the help of a museological significance assessment, which enables the examination of the different meanings given to cultural nature in tourism. The cultural information about local nature and human traces of human life in nature can be regarded as enhancing the attractiveness of the area and as constituting an integral part of the nature experience. National parks can be seen as nature museums, which originally sought to preserve samples of virginal forests, thus representing the nature relationship of the previous generations. Nature, the key attraction of the area, is deeply connected with the local history culture and imaginaries of the exotic wilderness of Karelianism. The national romantic view bypasses to some extent the local experience and stories by emphasising the 19th-century national romantic artists and images related to historical Border Karelia.

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Artikkelissa esitellään ja analysoidaan, minkälaisiin asioihin ihmiset tukeutuivat etsiessään arjesta tuttua, turvallista ja pysyvää ja kestääkseen poikkeuksellisia oloja. Tarkastelun ulkopuolelle on rajattu poliittinen ja aatteellinen keskustelu ja siihen liittyneet valinnat sekä mentaalisen selviytymisen yhteisöllinen puoli. Ajanjaksoa lähestytään yleisinhimillisenä tragediana, jossa yksilöt erilaisissa olosuhteissa ja tilanteissa pyrkivät jatkamaan elämäänsä kukin parhaansa mukaan. Käsittelyperiodi kattaa koko vuoden 1918, mutta tarkastelussa korostuu ajanjakso helmikuusta syksyyn, sotatapahtumista ja punaisen Helsingin ajanjaksosta vankileirien aikaan ja syys-lokakuun armahduksiin. Keskeisiksi teemoiksi nostetaan luonnon ja säätilojen vaikutus, piristeiden ja nautintoaineiden kaipuu sekä perinteiden ja vuotuisjuhlien symboliikka. Artikkelin päälähdeaineistona ovat eri arkistoissa säilytettävät aikalaisten kirjoittamat kirje- ja päiväkirjamuistiinpanot.

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