(In chronological order)
Bror Saitton
Member of the Sámi Parliament. Hjalmar Lundbomsvägen 50D, S-981 31 Kiruna, Sweden.
Reindeer husbandry is based on use of natural rangelands with some occasional supplementary feeding provided by the herders. Until the mid-twentieth century, tamed castrates were fed when used for drought. At exceptionally severe winter conditions when the ground vegetation was inaccessible, trees with arboreal lichen were felled in order to feed parts of the herd. The first more extensive feeding with commercial feeds came during 1960s in the county of Norrbotten. The feed was given as grinded full-feed. Feeding has increased considerably during the latest 30 years at poor winter grazing conditions, migrations, corralling and in connection to slaughter. There is a long experience within reindeer husbandry of how rangelands should be used to maintain long-term sustainability. In the competition with other land users, reindeer husbandry occasionally has to renounce optimum use of the ranges.
I will limit my presentation to grazing conditions during the period when the ground is snow-covered, although we all know that the meat production occurs only if the reindeer has access to green forage. Arboreal lichens are necessary as a yearly recurrent seasonal forage resource during three to four weeks, when frozen crust makes the ground vegetation inaccessible. With the desired rotation period in today’s forestry, the planning must aim for maintaining arboreal lichen forests in the areas used for reindeer grazing during late winter. Low-productive forestland and adjacent impediments towards swamps are suitable areas for the necessary arboreal lichen forests.
It is well recognized that ground lichen ranges should not be yearly grazed due to the low growth rate of lichen. At each grazing occasion the reindeer will inevitably graze more than the yearly increment, causing lichen mats, which are grazed yearly or every second year, to vanish within a few years. A sustainable use of winter ranges implies that the same hill should not be grazed every year, while it is claimed that reindeer industry should use the same peace of land yearly during very long time for the legal grazing right to be acknowledged. The situation is completely impossible for reindeer husbandry in this respect; if not having used the ranges in an unsustainable way, the grazing rights are on the whole deficient.
Martin Vavra1 & Dennis Sheehy2
1Forestry and Range Sciences Laboratory PNW Research Station, Forest Service, La Grande, OR and Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, Burns, OR, USA.
2Wallowa, OR and Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center, Union, OR, USA.
Into the foreseeable future, foods of animal origin will play a significant role in human diets. Animal product consumption in developed countries is increasing slightly, while developing countries have the most rapid increase. Those involved in animal production on rangelands face two major challenges. The first is the traditional challenge of maintaining an economically viable and sustainable production system year after year. The natural forage base, from which a major proportion of animal feed is derived, must be maintained over time to provide for a predictable off-take of animal products that can be sold and/or consumed. If sold, the price received for the products sold must equal or exceed expenses created in producing all animal off-take products. The second is a new challenge, which encompasses the traditional challenge of sustained animal off-take while expanding the definition of sustainability from exclusively economic to include social and ecological goals as well. Previously, the essentials for good grazing management meant maintaining vegetation cover and water holding capacity, and preventing accelerated erosion. A response to this challenge is still emerging in developed countries of the world and in most developing countries is not addressed. At the same time, rangeland managers and traditional users are being faced with competition from alternative uses of rangelands. Recreation, biological reserves, crop production, industrial and housing development are among the alternative uses replacing traditional grazing uses. In the development of new management strategies that reflect social and ecological goals, managers must consider such things as the ecological history of the area in question, its current condition, the potential for improvement, indigenous plants and animals (biodiversity), and public opinion; as well as those previously mentioned. Rangeland animal production systems can provide ecological and economical sustainability. Animals so raised are produced under more “natural” conditions, in terms of both food safety concerns with drug and food additive use, and animal welfare issues. Illustration of the new paradigms affecting rangeland based animal production systems will draw from production systems of the Tibetan and Mongolian Plateaus of Asia and from the Intermountain Region of North America.
Jan Åge Riseth
Senior researcher, Ph. D., NORUT Social Science Ltd., N-9291Tromsø , Norway (janar@samf.norut.no).
In modern time as well external encroachments as herders utilization of tecnological equipment have considerable influence on the state of pastures for reindeer. Currently reindeer management is in a serious squeeze between need for and access to pasture resources. It is important to focus the interplay between ecology and human action to understand human action space in pasture management. Straightforwardly, pasture state could be defined as sufficient pasture in quality and quantity at all seasons.
At a major scale the interplay between geology, climate, vegetation and landscape pattern have given origion to a natural main pattern for reindeer management in Fennoscandia: Summer pastures in the mountain ridge and coastal islands in north of Norway and winter pastures in continental heather and woodland in Finnmark (Norway), northern Sweden and Finland. The Sami reindeer pastoralism was based on this pattern. Pasture balance is the annual balance between accessible lichen pastures and green pastures. These two types of pasture have distinctly different growth patterns and herbivore-pasture dynamics. Further winter-pasture capacity decides potential herd size, while summer-pasture capacity decides production potential. Areas with lack of winter-pastures have high possibility to avoid overgrazing. Areas lacking summer-pastures and ample winter-pastures may experience that lichen pastures are grazed outside season when not protected by snow-cover; with serious pasture erosion as an outcome. It is interesting that in practice overgrazing is mainly found in areas with improper pasture balance (lack of accessible summer-pastures).
Human action ensuring good pasture state is the herders’ management based on animal need, e.g. physiological requirements and the annual cycle based on what nature offers. Traditional herding culture is grounded on an intimate knowledge of the reindeer’s adaptation possibilities.
Nation state border establishment, pasture conventions and bar fences promoted increasing deviations from the natural pattern. Among the consequences are lack of winter-pastures in Norway and summer pastures in Sweden and Finland. As the border treaty of 1751 between Denmark (including Norway) and Sweden (including Finland) contained an addendum, the Lap Codicil, to ensure the future of the Sami nation and free border crossing, this can seen from a Sami point of view be considered as a collective break of obligation from the nation states. A current proposal of a new pasture convention between Sweden and Norway is based on the need of reindeer management. The problem is what is possible to restore.
Competing land use has implied pasture fragmentation. The core problem for reindeer management is lack of protected property rights versus external users. Processes of modernization have set traditional values under pressure. The technological revolution has implied a tremendous increase in operation cost and increased competition over pastureland. In Kautokeino and Karasjok (Norway) the main strategy has been to increase animal numbers. This has led to an increased overgrazing of fall and winter pastures. Historically Swedish and Norwegian national reindeer management policy has from the latest part of the 1800s and towards modern time been focused towards limiting Sami property rights. The survival of reindeer management is thus a testimony of cultural strength.
Poor pasture state may have various and complex reasons, natural or human, while one-factor explanations are popular in public debate. Technological change, both internal and external, has created economical pressure and a potential resource pressure. Each herder needs an increased herd for subsistence. On the other hand accessible pasture decreases. The sum of internal and external pressure factors clearly indicates that the main trend is decreased future significance for reindeer management as a source of living. On the contrary, a series of committee works in Sweden and Norway and also court decisions in Norway, point in a positive direction.
Eldar Gaare
Norwegian Institute of Nature research - NINA, Tungasletta 2, N-7485 Trondheim, Norway. (eldar.gaare@ninatrd.ninaniku.no).
In the Nordic literature there is an overwhelming agreement that reindeer eats lichens. One can mention authors in Sweden as Olaus Magnus Gohti and Carl von Linné as well as Lønnberg, Skuncke and Olof Eriksson, in Finland Cajander and Helle and Kumpula, in Norway Nissen and Lynge to Lyftingsmo and Gaare. Both in Russia and North-America authors support the same view. Scientific studies of the reindeer diet throughout the year are scarcer. I attempt to give a vista of the more important contributions and discus if the reindeer management really needs more.
Jarno Mikkola1, Virve Väisänen1, Alfred Colpaert1, Jouko Kumpula2, Marja Anttonen1, Mauri Nieminen2 & Olavi Heikkinen1
1University of Oulu, Department of Geography, PL 3000, FIN-90014 Oulun yliopisto, Finland (jarno.mikkola@oulu.fi).
2Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute (RKTL), Reindeer Research Station, FIN-99910 Kaamanen, Finland.
Various forms of land use have taken place in traditional reindeer herding areas in northern Finland during last five decades. Forestry, various forms of tourism and construction of settlement, roads, hydroelectric power plants and power lines, for example, have changed environment and landscape in reindeer pasture areas. There has been a great deal of discussions between land-user groups about effects of various forms of land use on quality, quantity an accessibility of reindeer pastures, but no expansive research has been done. The aim of this study is to illustrate effect of various land use on reindeer pastures during fifty-year period. Study area consists of four reindeer management districts in Northern Finland. First phase of study is creating GIS-database to describe changes in landscape, forest structure and different forms of land use from the 1950s on. Digital and paper maps, digital data and archive material from various land users and satellite images are used in creation of this database. Effects of land use on reindeer pastures during different parts of period are analysed by means of database, field observations and interviews. Field observations consist of GPS-measurements of movements of reindeer, tree stand and vegetation inventories and monitoring of snow conditions and grazing of reindeer in certain sample areas. The outcome of this study will tell both direct and indirect effects of various land use on reindeer pastures. Results will be further used to create a model for a land use interaction analysis system (LUIAS), which evaluates and valuates the various use of natural resources in respect to reindeer husbandry taking into account possible biological, economical and reindeer management components.
Mikkel P. Tamstorf & Peter Aastrup *
National Environmental Research Institute, Department of Arctic Environment, Frederiksborgvej 399, P.O. Box 358, DK-4000 Roskilde *(pja@dmu.dk).
From 1996 to 2000 National Environmental Research Institute and Greenland Institute of Natural Resources completed a project including vegetation description and mapping of caribou ranges, analysis of satellite images to describe snow cover and melt-off, satellite collaring of caribou and studies of the disturbance behaviour of caribou. Vegetation maps provide important background for assessing caribou range. The two most important caribou ranges around Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq in WestGreeenland were mapped using Landsat TM. The vegetation was classified in Shrub, Fens, Grassland, Snowbeds, Lichen rich dwarf-shrub heath, Dwarf-shrub heath, Steppe and Fell-fields. The classification was based on field work, where vegetation types were described in detail by the ITEX-method and field spectre of classified vegetation types were collected.
The maps show important differences in vegetation in the Nuuk area and in the Kangerlussuaq area. Most important, lichen-rich heaths cover vast areas in the western part of the Nuuk area. In Kangerlussuaq a very large part of the area is dwarf-shrub heaths without lichens. The differences in vegetation cover may be important for the caribou.
Preliminary analysis of the movements of the collared caribou shows that the differences in vegetation characteristics also can be seen when comparing vegetation types in the core ranges of caribou in Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq. During calving caribou in Kangerlussuaq spent most of their time in dwarf-shrub heath and grassland, while caribou in the Nuuk area spent most of their time in lichen rich dwarf-shrub heath.
The maps provide an important background for interpretation of mortality, and physiological characteristics of the different herds. Preliminary results of studies of body condition, weight and other physical characteristics indicate that differences in range conditions do influence these parameters significantly. The caribou in the Nuuk area have a higher calf productivity and fecundity and body condition, although the caribou in the Kangerlussuaq area had slightly larger body size. Finally, the maps are important for the monitoring of population size and population structure.
Marie B. Hagsgård
Court of Appeal for Western Sweden, P.O.Box 347, S-401 25 Gothenburg, Sweden (marie.hagsgard@kgg.dom.se)
What is said in the following about the right to use pasture applies to Swedish law. Circumstances are similar in Norway and Finland, so a lot of what I say can be applied to the situation in Norway and Finland as well.
The right to use pasture is part of the reindeer management right. The reindeer management right is based on prescription from time immemorial. The right to use pasture is thus based on the historic use by Sami. It is therefore important to get more research in this area in order to to learn more about the historic use of the pasture land. Where has pasture been used, by whom and how, and how has the right to use pasture been in relation to ownership of land?
Kaisa Korpijaako-Labba has in her research showed that the Sami land rights has historically been much stronger in parts of north Sweden-Finland than the right to use pasture lands according to the laws of Sweden and Finland. In Finland, a committee has recently proposed that state-owned land in the north of Finland should be governed by Sami and locals together. A committee, Samerettsutvalget, in Norway has proposed that state-owned land in Finnmark should be governed by a majority of Sami. In Sweden, no such proposals have yet been made.
According to the present Swedish law a person who is Saami and a member of a Sami herding community (“Sami village”) is entitled to use pasture. The right applies from Idre in the south to Treriksröse in the north, regardless of who formally owns the land. Some parts of the area can be used for grazing all year round, some only during the winter. The winter grazing areas are not clearly identified, which has caused conflicts between reindeer owners and landowners.
Sami have the right to use the pasture in areas, where the land is owned by others. Conflicts arise when different rights apply to the same land. For example the constructions of hydroelectric power stations, roads and the modern large scale forestry has disrupted reindeer management. Reindeer management has caused damages on newly planted trees and farmland with growing crops.
According to Swedish law, landowners are not allowed to use their land in a way that causes considerable inconvenience to reindeer management (32§ Reindeer Husbandry Act)- week protection for reindeer management. Forest owners shall show consideration for reindeer management in forestry, but to a large extent the rules have not been known or applied by landowners. Reindeer owners have, according to the Swedish law, also to show consideration for others use of land. For example do reindeer owners have to pay damages if their reindeer damage growing crops.
The Committee of Reindeer Management Policy has made proposals for the use of land by members of the Sami village, who use land based on the reindeer management right, and the landowners:
The proposals of the Committee have caused strong reactions from landowners and forestry. They fear that forestry will come to an end in the north of Sweden. They claim that this will lead to long prolonged negotiations before clear cuts can be made, and an extensive bureaucracy around this.
Research has a key role to play in showing how land can be used both as pasture for reindeer and for other purposes, for example forestry. Studies show that already small changes in forestry practices will save pasture. Often, but not always, the same measures, which save the environment, will also protect pasture. According to the Forestry Act, environmental considerations shall be given the same weighted as production in the management of forest land. Research, which show ways to pursue forestry in ways which are good for the protection of both environment and reindeer pasture, would help Sami villages and landowners to agree on how to pursue forestry with consideration for pasture as well as environment and help the authorities to ensure that enough considerations are taken to the environment and to pasture in forestry.
It is also important for scientists to describe how pasture is used by reindeer and how different areas are used different years. More descriptions are also needed of how other types of use of land affect reindeer management and what can be done to minimize negative effects on reindeer management, when planning for new types of land use. Lack of knowledge in this respect often leads to misunderstandings and sometimes to conflicts between Sami villages and other users of land.
More research is also needed to clarify what areas have been used for pasture back in time. Landowners both in Sweden and Norway have gone to court, claiming that reindeer herding has not occurred historically on their land. Thus the landowners claim there is no right to use the pasture on their land. For the Sami villages need to prove that they have a right to use pasture land. It is therefore essential carry out research, which shows where land has been used for a long time as for reindeer grazing.
Roger Bergström
Department of Animal Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and Research Unit, Swedish Association for Hunting and Wildlife Management, Bäcklösavägen 8, S-756 51 Uppsala, Sweden.
During the last decades, large herbivore feeding patterns have been analysed from the perspectives of e.g. optimal foraging and hierarchical foraging. The latter approach has rarely been applied coherently for any large herbivore, although, some recent studies on reindeer focus on grazing patterns on various hierarchically ordered spatial scales. The knowledge of the grazing patterns of wild and semi-domesticated reindeer is good and provide a good base for future studies and compilations along the lines of hierarchical foraging.
In similarity with other deer species, the reindeer is a selective generalist. A great number of plant species are potential food species and many studies have shown a selection among the species resulting in pronounced preferences and avoidances. The wide spectrum of plant groups in the diet of reindeer places it, together with e.g. red deer and fallow deer, among the intermediate feeders.
In terms of food quality and quantity, the variation in time and space is very large. Within an area, the abundance of food may vary considerably within a time-span of hours. In longer term, phenological and successional changes in the vegetation add to the variation in food abundance and quality. Further, the variation in these characteristics are amplified by a spatial heterogeneity.
Thus, from a fitness perspective there is much to gain by selective feeding for a species like reindeer, as a deviation from random grazing may give spin-off effects on body weight, reproduction and mortality. Increasing information is there to support a hierarchical foraging with a selection on various temporal and spatial scales, that are coupled in a complex way. Examples of spatial scales are region, landscape, vegetation type, feeding patch and plant species. Some of these scales are reasonably well studied in reindeer, while other scales are poorly covered. This information is discussed in relation to seasons.
The food - reindeer relationships are interactive and dynamic. Grazed plants show compensatory responses and the reindeer may in turn respond to such changes. This interactivity may also be scale-dependent. An understanding of foraging on various scales as well as the dynamics of the plant - reindeer system is a necessity in estimating abundance, distribution, quality and use of food resources and in understanding the impact of reindeer on its environment.
Jon Moen & Johan Olofsson
Dept. of Ecology and Environmental Science, Umeå University, SE-901 87 Umeå, Sweden (jon.moen@eg.umu.se), (johan.olofsson@eg.umu.se).
Large herbivores may affect plant biodiversity in two major ways: by influencing competitive abilities and exclusion in the plant community, and by influencing spatial heterogeneity in the landscape. The effects through competitive interactions will interact with primary productivity to determine plant responses: in low productive environments the response of the plant community to grazing is often negative as growth rates are slow, while the response in productive environments is often positive if competitive dominance is broken. The effects on the spatial heterogeneity will interact with the foraging behaviour of the herbivore and the spatial pattern of the vegetation. Foraging behaviour that tend to increase the patchiness of the vegetation will increase spatial heterogeneity and plant diversity, while foraging behaviour that decrease the contrast between vegetation patches will decrease spatial heterogeneity and diversity. We will discuss these factors and suggest an hypothesis on the relationship between reindeer grazing and plant biodiversity in various plant communities in both summer and winter ranges. We argue that foraging behaviour by reindeer in summer ranges will generally tend to decrease spatial heterogeneity which will decrease plant diversity in low productive environments, while foraging behaviour in winter ranges with snow will tend to increase spatial heterogeneity and thus plant diversity. We will also discuss possible patterns in productive enviroments.
Timo Helle1*, Minna Karjalainen1 & Ilpo Kojola2
1The Finnish Forest Research Institute, Rovaniemi Research Station, FIN-96300 Rovaniemi, Finland.
2Finnish Game and Fisheries Research Institute, Oulu Game and Fisheries Research, FIN-90570 Oulu, Finland. *(timo.helle@metla.fi).
The observed and predicted climate change affects northern fauna in several different ways. The increased temperature will in long term push vegetation zones towards the north reducing the area of boreal forests and tundras. At the moment we know more about how trends in climatic variation influence directly phenotypic variation and population dynamics of northern vertebrates, including many ungulate species. Processes, which influence food quality and availability, movements of animals etc, are commonly related to temperature and precipitation, which in turn are associated to large-scale airmass movements at northern latitudes. Among them, the best known is NAO (the north Atlantic Oscillation) and AO (Arctic Oscillation). When the low-pressure centre is located near Iceland and high-pressure centre near the Azores, westerly winds are prevailing (the NAO index positive). Winters in northern Europe are mild and rainy. In the opposite situation easterly winds dominate and winters tends to be dry and cold (the NAO index negative). During the latest 30 years the NAO indices have been strongly positive, which has commonly considered as an indication of climate change.
We studied population dynamics of semi-domesticated reindeer in the herding association of Käsivarsi, northwestern Finnish Lapland in 1960-2000. The number of reindeer varied from 4500 to 20 000 animals with a peak in the late 1980s. Calf percentage ranged between 10 and 75 and was not dependent on density. It correlated negatively with several snow variables, such as precipitation in October-April, snow depth index, length of snow period and the time of snow melt. Severe ice formation in early winter occurred in 6 winters reducing calf percentage markedly. Ice formation and the snow index explained together 53.7% of the yearly variation in calf percentage. The correlation between calf percentage and NAO or AO remained weak, whilst the affective snow variables correlated in most cases significantly with NAO and AO. In 1970-2000 heavy winds (data not available from earlier time) had a significant negative effect on calf percentage, probably due to hardening of snow.
The relative population change and the growth rate were negatively related to the time of snowmelt. Population changes correlated with the NAO index with a 2-year time lag. The most drastic crashes followed the strongly positive NAO winters around 1990. Contrary to earlier findings in cervids, major declines in the number of reindeer also took place after winters with highly negative NAO indices, i.e. in the mid-1960s in our material. That period was characterized by eastern winds, which blow over Barents Sea and bring moisture and snow to northernmost Lapland.
These same patterns in reproduction and population dynamics are also evident in many other herding associations in northernmost Lapland as well as in northern Sweden and Norway. Difficult snow conditions occurring frequently from the late 1980s onwards, have forced in Finland reindeer owners to arrange emergency or supplemental feeding, which drastically increases the costs of reindeer management.