| Summary: | The objective of the thesis is to discuss Finnish national parks and the ways of implementing sustainable development to preserve nature and reduce environmental impacts that are caused by human. The main emphasis of the thesis is on the environmental part of sustainable development. Although this is the main focus, also social and economic areas of the matter are covered since these three are integrated. Sustainable development is an important and current topic as environmental issues like climate change, are one of the biggest topics of today. Also, the visitor numbers of national parks are growing constantly and therefore the question of how to maintain nature and reduce the impacts of the people is becoming more crucial. The thesis discusses national parks overall but focuses on three. These three are chosen for their different locations which offer a variety of ecosystems. The chosen national parks are Urho Kekkonen national park in Northern Finland, Koli national park in Eastern Finland and Archipelago national park in Southern Finland. The theoretical framework introduces the theory behind the subject; the terminology is explained, sustainable development and its relation to tourism are examined and the importance of the subject is justified. Furthermore, the theory part introduces the planning and managing of a national park and takes a closer look at the three national parks chosen for the research. The method of the research is qualitative research and was executed by Webropol survey which was sent to the representatives of the national parks. This thesis aims to answer the question of how the chosen national parks are implementing sustainable development in their practices. The thesis mirrors the theory and reality of how the chosen national parks reduce environmental impacts and implement sustainability in their practices. The respondents agreed that the use and development of national parks should happen so that protecting nature values is the priority. The different nature of the chosen national parks is taken into consideration in the development plans of the national parks. The responses did not reveal much of concrete actions of how sustainable development in the national parks is implemented at the moment. The government and political decision-makers define the outlines and resources for the development of the national parks. This thesis is commissioned by Haaga-Helia and it is a part of the Erasmus + Tourist project, which aim is to produce international information to support sustainable development
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