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RE: Walkwithme: Great views, a birthday wish and a bit of civilization (Thursday Oslo forest hike - part 3/3)
Are people allowed to build a hut in the middle of the forest like that in Norway? Or is it just some sort of temporary mid way place to take a rest during your walk?
Generally, no, not at all. Anyone is allowed to stay in the same place for up to three days in the wilderness (regardless of the ownership of the land, this applies to all Norway), but after those three days the place should be evacuated and look like when you arrived.
In the Oslo forests, no new permanent buildings are allowed (only maintenance of old buildings). The rules are super-strict, and they actually made it into a state law - if there ever exists such a thing as a beautiful political handicraft, this must be it - for someone to create new buildings (and hence privatize the commons) they would have to bribe both the local politicians and the national politicians, and they would also have to get the law modified. I think it's a general democratic problem, if it's up to a handful of politicians or bureaucrats to give a permit for building, sooner or later someone will get elected into office that has a friend that wants to build somewhere, and the permit is given - it's a quite irreversible thing - it usually takes just some hours and one signature to privatize the commons while it's very hard to unprivatize it. Hence common land is bound to slowly be privatized.
I guess this shack was made by some school or kinder garden, probably they have gotten a permit for it, and probably it's allowable since it's not a permanent structure and because it's not considered to be privatization (anyone can utilize the structure). Or, maybe, eventually someone has just thrown it up without permission. One thing is what's legal, another thing is what one can get away with.