Banning or controlling? A critical analysis of the paradoxical framing of Sitka spruce in Norwegian environmental policies

This article presents a framework for researching how narratives guide management of invasive alien species (IAS). Through identification of plant-oriented, place-oriented and practice-oriented narratives in policymaking, the article demonstrates how framings of spatial context and societal practices challenge the status of ecological approaches to IAS. Through a document analysis of a public consultation process for the revised policies on foreign trees in Norway, it is demonstrated that the utility of foreign trees for timber production conflicts with the preservation of nature diversity. Yet, and through IAS control, Norwegian authorities aim to facilitate both planting and eradication of foreign trees. The article analyses how this paradoxical policy is justified through the use of narratives in policy formulation. The narratives illustrate how conflicts surrounding IAS management are entangled in a complexity of values and knowledge frameworks, causing tensions between ecological and wider societal interests in environmental policymaking that are proving difficult to reconcile.