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This article explores the challenges and paradoxes of trying to recreate landscapes of the past and discusses how the cultural and physical construction of a Heathland centre on the west coast of Norway caused conflicts between the local population and the scientists involved in the project. The Heathland centre received a Unesco prize for the excellent cooperation with local stakeholders, although the factual collaboration with the locals was questionable. Part of this conflict may be explained by the hybrid nature of heathlands, as it is a cultivated form of nature that needs extensive utilisation and management to retain its characteristics, and because the practical and economical reasons for maintaining them have disappeared.