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A generalized vulnerability framework was used to structure an interdisciplinary and intercultural examination of factors that influence the ways in which reindeer pastoralism in Finnmark (northern Norway) may be affected by climate change. Regional and local (downscaled) climate projections included scenarios that can potentially influence foragin...
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Context 1
... is seen further below, these narrow corridors or 'bottlenecks' made the herders particularly sensitive to development of any infrastruc- ture placement crossing or targeting such elevated ter- rain in the otherwise flat wet tundra. Inside the Bovanenkovo core area, infrastructure development interfered with the migration routes ( Figure 7). Industrial development often targeted rugged, elevated drier land -which was used by herders for mi- gration -for localizing infrastructure. ...
Context 2
... this area, four migration routes of two brigades and one private herding unit were used prior to the indus- trial development (Figure 7). However, after the indus- trial development took place, the two northernmost routes were physically blocked, and only the two rather close routes in the southern part of the Bovanenkovo in- dustrial complex are still possible. ...
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... had to cross four roads in 2009, again with pipelines. The same accounted for the private unit that lost their northernmost routes that were now phys- ically impassable and in 2009 had, for the first time, to break the traditional land management system and mi- grate a few days prior to brigade 'X' , using the crossing points of brigade 4 and at the same time grazing at the pastures of brigade X (Figures 7 and 8; Additional file 1). ...
Citations
... La modelización de la dinámica de sistemas utiliza modelos que consideran los efectos de retroalimentación que interconectan los sistemas socio-ecológicos en un sistema estrechamente conectado (Forrester, 1993;Aracil, 1995); además, el análisis mediante el uso de modelos socio-ecológicos ayuda a integrar enfoques multidisciplinarios (Pozo et al., 2021). El enfoque de la dinámica de sistemas se aplicó para explicar el comportamiento en diversas especies (Stǎnciulescu, 1985;Tyler et al., 2007;Dressel et al., 2018;Zamora-Maldonado et al., 2021). La dinámica de interacción entre los diversos elementos (vicuñas, ovinos y precipitación entre los principales) en la RNPG genera un contexto complejo cuyo análisis es posible de realizar mediante el enfoque de la dinámica de sistemas. ...
La puna constituye el hábitat de los camélidos sudamericanos, entre ellos resalta la vicuña que es el camélido silvestre más pequeño y de fibra fina. La Reserva Nacional de Pampa Galeras – Barbara D’Achille (RNPG) en Perú ha cobijado desde tiempos antiguos a las vicuñas, en este espacio las vicuñas coexisten con los animales domésticos. El objetivo de esta investigación fue analizar el efecto que genera la presencia de la población de ovinos sobre la estabilidad temporal de la población de vicuñas en la RNPG bajo el enfoque de la dinámica de sistemas. La metodología consistió en plantear un modelo socio-ecológico que considera las principales relaciones del ecosistema y se plantearon cuatro escenarios, el primero considera variaciones en las variables asociadas a los ovinos (consumo de alimento por los ovinos y tiempo de permanencia en la reserva) y tres escenarios considerando cambios en la precipitación (lluvias permanentes de diferente intensidad, lluvias con pulsos máximos y mínimos periódicos y lluvia aleatoria) utilizando el software Stella. Los resultados principales indican que la población de ovinos no tiene influencia directa en la población de vicuñas, pues el comportamiento de las vicuñas en todos los escenarios tiende a autorregularse en el tiempo (10 años). La población de ovinos muestra permanencia temporal en la RNPG; y su presencia se asocia inversamente a la época de lluvias, lo que sugiere que las familias campesinas acceden a la reserva para utilizar marginalmente los pastos en la época seca.
... A number of these studies have focused on winter, which is a critical season for herding because difficult snow conditions can decrease the availability of winter forage (Turunen et al., 2016;Heikkinen et al., 2012;Rasmus et al., 2018). The more frequent frost and thaw cycles, added to autumn precipitation, leads to deep snow or ice formation in the snowpack that causes reindeer to spend more energy digging and moving, which can affect animal condition (Tyler et al., 2007;Helle and Kojola, 2008). Adding to that, a shorter snow season with later snow cover formation and earlier snow melting has been described elsewhere (Turunen et al., 2016;Lépy and Pasanen, 2017;Luomaranta et al., 2019). ...
... Besides studies that focus on climate projections for the prediction of longer-term conditions (e.g. Rees et al., 2008, Tyler et al., 2007, Vistnes et al., 2009, to our knowledge this is the first study that explores the application of climate predictions at sub-seasonal and seasonal timescales for reindeer husbandry. ...
Reindeer husbandry in the Arctic region is strongly affected by the local climate. Reindeer herders are used to coping with adverse weather, climate, and grazing conditions through autonomous adaptation. However, today's rapidly changing Arctic environment poses new challenges to the management of herding activities. Finding means for combining traditional and scientific knowledge without depriving any of the systems of its fundamental strengths is hence deemed necessary. In this work, we apply a transdisciplinary framework for knowledge co-production involving international researchers and reindeer herders from different cooperatives in northern Finland. Through ‘climate change adaptation stories’, we co-explore how climate predictions can inform herders' decision making during the herding season. Relevant decisions include the anticipation of summer harvest time, the inopportune periods of cold weather in spring, and insect harassment in summer. Despite their potential benefits for climate-sensitive decisions, climate predictions have seen limited uptake, mainly due to their probabilistic nature and lower quality compared with shorter-term weather forecasts. The analysis of two different adaptation stories shows that seasonal predictions of temperature for May and June can successfully advise about the likelihood of having an earlier than normal harvest. This information can be obtained up to three months in advance, helping herders to better arrange their time for other activities. Likewise, sub-seasonal predictions of temperature during April and May can be useful to anticipate the occurrence of backwinter episodes, which can support herders in deciding whether to feed reindeer in pens for longer, avoiding putting the survival of calves at risk. This study, which would benefit from co-evaluation in real world settings and consideration of additional adaptation stories, sets the basis for a successful co-production of climate services with Arctic reindeer herders. This research shows the potential to enhance the resilience of Polar regions, offering opportunities for adaptation while supporting the sustainability and culture of traditional practices of Arctic communities.
... As a result, in the 1970s, the traditional Sámi system was changed in favor of calf slaughtering and high female proportions (Johnsen et al., 2015). In the 1960s, Sámi reindeer herds in Finnmark typically comprised 43-50% adult females, and two-thirds of the males were castrated (Vostryakov & Mezhetsky, 1968;Paine, 1994;Tyler et al., 2007). Before the reform, the traditional Sámi herd structure would include 50% females (>1 year) (Vostryakov & Mezhetsky, 1968;Mathiesen et al., 2023). ...
... Traditional elements of Sámi governance, such as diversity, flexibility, and mobility, are not reflected in Norway's reindeer husbandry regulations (Turi, 2008). Instead, Norway's approach to governing Sámi reindeer herding systems uses equilibrium-based management tools such as carrying capacity and other tools designed for agricultural contexts that can undermine the system's resilience (O'Brien et al., 2009;Tyler et al., 2007). ...
Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Nenets AO) in Russia and Western Finnmark in Norway are two large reindeer husbandry regions in the circumpolar North. The Soviet Union pioneered the industrialization and collectivization of reindeer husbandry in Nenets AO in the 1930s, while structural and rational practices of Sámi pastoralism in Western Finnmark started in the 1970s. Both regions aimed to increase meat production by manipulating the herd size and structure, seasonal calf slaughtering, changing reindeer ownership, and introducing novel labor standards such as shift working, housing programs, and mobile cabins for the herders. Experimental science of rational reindeer husbandry in the Soviet Union might have inspired reforms and a new model for reindeer husbandry established in Norway in 1976. This paper analyzes trends in reindeer husbandry in Nenets AO and Western Finnmark in light of these structural changes. An increase followed the expanded proportions of females during these periods of change in the total number of reindeer in both regions. However, we observed significant differences between trends in reindeer husbandry in Nenets AO and Western Finnmark. We conclude that while Norway implemented an adjusted version of the Soviet model with as much as 90–95% females in the herd and started slaughtering calves instead of adult females and 1.5 years old males, Soviet structural and rational practices never encompassed more than 65% females. Before this reform, 45% of the herd in Norway were traditionally females. Trend analyses in Western Finnmark and Nenets AO indicate that Norway’s extreme implementation of the new reindeer husbandry model increased the variability of calf production in Western Finnmark compared to calf production in Nenets AO. Despite Norwegian subsidies and policies encouraging high female percentages, a regression analysis based on data from 1981–2018 showed a negative correlation between the percentage of productive females and calf productivity in Western Finnmark. The rationale for the change in the management model in Norway in the 1970s was based on the assumption that reindeer herders in the North did not fully utilize the potential of the favorable climate conditions in Finnmark. However, in the past years, winters in Western Finnmark have changed. Increased winter air temperatures and changing snow conditions affect female reindeer. We conclude that Norway’s modernization program for Sámi reindeer husbandry in Western Finnmark resulted in a highly volatile production of reindeer calves that negatively affected reindeer herders’ food security and herding economy. The top-down productivity policy model for reindeer husbandry in Norway was weakly nested within Sámi herders’ traditional cultures and knowledge.
... Such monitoring is particularly important on the winter pastures, where the availability of feed through snow becomes vital and where, under certain circumstances, the ability to rapidly and precisely move a herd to the appropriate grazing grounds can determine life or death for a large number of animals. Qualities of the snow cover -such as density, hardness, and depth -are key to determining access to forage and therefore the suitability of winter grazing grounds (Tyler et al., 2007;Eira, 2012). These qualities in turn can vary rapidly and over short distances, depending on local landscape features, weather systems, and other factors (Sara, 2001). ...
Reindeer herding is a complex, highly mobile, and environmentally adaptive form of livestock management, and a traditional way of life, practiced by indigenous peoples across the circumpolar Arctic. Given its distinctive characteristics, appropriate economic governance and regulation of the practice demands a clear understanding of its social, cultural, and environmental characteristics. In the following, we outline some of these and discuss their implications for economic management of the practice, with reference to the case of Norway in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In closing, we identify some key current threats and challenges that confront reindeer herding and present some suggestions for enhancing its economic viability and resilience, based on a strategy of revitalizing core economic and social mechanisms.
... It discusses examples of resilience sources in reindeer husbandry ( Fig. 8.1). While traditional knowledge of reindeer herding in Finnmark has been a source of resilience, development continues to affect traditional practices (Huitric et al., 2016;Tyler et al., 2007). Rocha (2022) reported that ecosystems worldwide are at risk of critical transitions due to increasing anthropogenic pressures and climate change. ...
... Norway implemented a reindeer husbandry model with as much as 90-95% females in the herd. Before this reform, the traditional ratio included 45% females (Tyler et al., 2007). The rationale for the change in Norway's management model was that reindeer herders in the north did "not fully utilize the potential for high production offered by favorable winters" in Finnmark (Norwegian Official Report, 1972;Degteva et al., 2023). ...
... It might also become a source of transformation of nomadic reindeer husbandry into a more assimilated Norwegian lifestyle. The amount of supplementary artificially produced pelleted feed has increased in the past decade (Tyler et al., 2007). Pelleted food used for reindeer, 810.400 kg in 2017, boosted to 5,015,659 kg during the winter crisis of 2019-2020. ...
Resilience expresses the capacity of a social-ecological system to adapt to, absorb, or withstand perturbations and other stressors so that the system remains. Reindeer nomadic husbandry is a coupled social-ecological system that sustains resilience by interacting with the animals and environment: either the herders adjust their actions to animal behavior or change this behavior in ways that suit the herd and pastures. Stressors and shocks affecting Sámi reindeer husbandry are, for instance, sudden warm air temperatures with subsequent snow melting and freezing in winter, bad grazing conditions, loss of grazing lands, and even socio-economic reforms. All these are sudden, unprepared, or forced changes. Climate change resilience includes using reindeer herders’ Indigenous knowledge of selective breeding by maintaining different phenotypes of reindeer such as non-productive and castrated animals in the herd. Nevertheless, in Sámi reindeer husbandry in Norway today, low numbers of male reindeer and the absence of castrated animals challenge the herders’ resilience coping strategies. This chapter discusses factors that constrain resilience in herding societies, contribute to the transformation of reindeer husbandry and the erosion of resilience in the herding society.
... The main foresight files discussed in the three arenas depict the Arctic a space full of geopolitical, environmental and economic challenges but place much less emphasis on its role as a homeland. The dialectic description of the Arctic as being vulnerable to global changes but also full of opportunities for development gives an overly simplistic picture of the realities facing IPLCs and their history of diverse adaptive responses to various transformations (Bates, 2007;Elwood et al., 2019;Hastrup, 2009;Huntington et al., 2019Tyler et al., 2007. Decolonizing the futures would entail modifying these representations by acknowledging their political impact and also becoming conscious of the influence of colonial patterns on the processes, methods, and results of foresight. ...
... On another level, even the situation of Sámi reindeer herders needs a plurality of viewpoints to be fully appreciated. As noted in Tyler et al. (2007), loss of habitat, economic predation and legal frameworks "potentially dwarf the putative effects of projected climate change on reindeer pastoralism." ...
... The experience described in Tyler et al. (2007) is illuminating: ...
... This kind of objectivity is often only possible by drawing on local sources of knowledge, made possible by the extended peer communities described here. In this respect, an interesting quote to close the present work comes from Tyler et al. (2007) ...
... The Sámi term čappa éallu describes "a beautiful herd" in terms of its composition (Oskal 2000). For instance, in a herd that normally features few males, strong, old female reindeers are important to break the ice to access plants underneath or trample the snow in order to make a path (Tyler et al. 2007). This would generally not be understood as an "effi cient form of breeding," but it is most appropriate in maintaining and sustaining herding practices in the long term. ...
... (page 128) 2 Ethnobiological research examines interactions between humans, animals and environment by using methods of ethnography and biology but also other disciplines. (page 128) 3 This is a reference to an unpublished manuscript based on the recent interviews conducted by P. Soppela, N. Mazzullo & Tuomivaara, A. in (Tyler et al., 2007). ...
... Difficult winter conditions include ice layers in the snow, too deep snow or long snow season, while good conditions imply deep hoar layers, loose snow structures or shallow snow cover. From the limited information from reindeer herders that can be found in the scientific literature, it is clear that these conditions have varied greatly from year to year (Tyler et al., 2007;Lie et al., 2008;Päiviö, 2006). The information indicates difficult winter grazing conditions over the entire or parts of the Finnmark plateau during the winters 1917/18, 1957/58, 1961/62, 1966/67, 1967/68, 1989/1990, 1996/97, 2000/2001 as well as during the 1990s in general (Tyler et al., 2007;Lie et al., 2008). ...
... From the limited information from reindeer herders that can be found in the scientific literature, it is clear that these conditions have varied greatly from year to year (Tyler et al., 2007;Lie et al., 2008;Päiviö, 2006). The information indicates difficult winter grazing conditions over the entire or parts of the Finnmark plateau during the winters 1917/18, 1957/58, 1961/62, 1966/67, 1967/68, 1989/1990, 1996/97, 2000/2001 as well as during the 1990s in general (Tyler et al., 2007;Lie et al., 2008). Good winter grazing conditions have been reported during the 1980s in general. ...
In Finnmark, average winter (Dec-Jan-Feb) temperatures in the period 1961–1990 were about −5 °C at the coast, slightly lower in the fjords, and typically 10 °C lower inland. In the Yamal Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) average winter temperatures were even lower, ranging from −20 to −25 °C. Temperatures are presently increasing in the area, and towards the end of this century, winter temperatures in the YNAO may, under a medium high emission scenario, resemble the previous conditions in the interior of Finnmark, while inland Finnmark may experience conditions that were earlier found along the fjords. The snow season in 1961–1990 typically lasted from 6 to 8 months in Finnmark. Higher temperatures lead to a reduced snow season and model calculations indicate a 3-month reduction along the coast, where it is shortest today, while the inland snow season may be one month shorter towards the end of the century. Along the coast, a 60% reduction in the winter maximum snow amount is projected towards the end of the century. In the interior of Finnmark, considerably smaller changes are projected in maximum snow amounts, as average precipitation is projected to increase, implicating increased snowfall during winter. Maximum snow amounts may even increase slightly at some inland sites. Higher winter temperatures will lead to changes in the snow structure. Compared to herders’ reports, the SNOWPACK model successfully reproduced high-density snow layers during the past decades. To describe future snow structures of relevance for reindeer grazing conditions in Finnmark and YNAO, more detailed climate projections are needed.
