Reindeer Blog

(Source - The Kremlin) Many Finno Ugric Peoples are reindeer herders - Sami, Komi, Khanty, Finns, Nenets, to name a few. While reindeer were not on the agenda at last weeks Finno Ugric Peoples congress in Khanty Mansisk last week, reindeer were not too far away..as seen in this picture with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Finnish President Tarja Halonen. Medvedev promised to visit to Finland in the near future - perhaps Reindeer will feature then?

(Pic-Philip Burgess). With the coming of summer and the migration of reindeer from Finnmarks’s interior to the coast, the local media has lately been filled with stories about the reinplagen. This translates as ‘reindeer plague’, a disease which sounds deadly, but so far, only reindeer have died as a result. It relates to reindeer grazing in urban and agricultural areas where they are not welcome by farmers or some residents. The epicentre of this ‘reinplagen’ seems to be Alta and Hammerfest. Both have been in the media extensively this last two weeks.

Read the rest of this entry »

(Visualisation of proposed wind power megaproject from Vernfosen)

Reindeer herders in the South Sami regions in Norway fear for their future, in a story from yesterdays NRK Sami Radio. Reindeer herder Terje Haugen is the head of the Fosen reindeer husbandry district (North of Trondheim). Much of his time over the last few years has been taken up with struggling against wind power development on his districts winter pastures, most particularly Fosenhalvøya. A seminar on South Sami rights is being held in Trøndelag this week and this issue has been high on the agenda. Hauge feels that legislation and current Sami rights do not protect their livelihood.

Large areas around each windmill will be developed, and roads are constructed between each windmill. When all this is combined, a lot of pastures disappear.

A campaign has been launched to protest against the megaproject, with an online petition.

(Pic - Philip Burgess, Reindeer in downtown Hammerfest) A media fury has erupted in Finnmark surrounding comments by a parliamentary representative Olav Gunnar Ballo who claimed that reindeer herders did not have the right to live and that reindeer husbandry was acting as a brake to development and that as a livelihood ‘it was just culture’. Many of these comments arose from a public meeting in Kvalsund regarding plans to expand copper mining in the area, as reported in the Reindeer Blog a few weeks ago.

The debate took a darker turn this week when 5 reindeer were found shot dead in Upper Alta in a farmers field, an event being investigated by police. The recently reappointed leader of the Sami Reindeer Herders Association  (NBR/NRL) retorted that such events are the result of the inflammatory remarks by Ballo. Ballo claims that his remarks have been misrepresented. Read the rest of this entry »

The annual NBR NRL meeting is now over and Nils Henrik Sara from Guovdageaidnu has been reelected as leader. He has a lot of serious issues to preside over - two that were in the media this weekend were the enormous increase in wind power development plans and another being the gender balance on the board.

Arvid Jåma, a reindeer herder in the southern Sami area of Fosen, Trondelag, where NVE plan to develop an enormous wind park supplying 4038 MW, said

I see no option but to quit reindeer herding if Fosen is developed into a windmill park. Read the rest of this entry »

The annual meeting of the Sami Reindeer Herders Association of Norway has started in the southern reindeer husbandry area of Trondelag. The theme of the opening day has been mental health issues for reindeer herders, an issue that is generally overlooked, accoridng to Nils Henrik Sara, NBR leader in a  report today in NRK Sami Radio. Nils Chris Danielsen , an elder herder spoke clearly and eloquently about the issues facing reindeer herders in the region, as he has seen it over the last six decades,

The whole world’s elite now come to the area. They come to areas (to ski) which we depend on in the summer. The reindeer need these areas for cooling in the summer, but the animals can no longer go there because of the skiing events. Interference is increasing. One can say that this also creates psychological problems for us,

 Danielson went on to talk about the other challenges that herders face in the area,

It is important to mobilise against the construction of windmills. Moreover, the expansion of cabin building creates problems for, among other things, migration. Those who have cabins will also be hunting in these areas. This creates problems for us with dogs who will run for anything at a time when the reindeer are to have peace. In addition, power lines are criss crossing the pastures.

If these issues were not addressed, reindeer could no longer thrive, said Danielson, and without reindeer, the Sami culture could not survive.

(Pic Svein Mathiesen, oil and gas installation, Nenets Autonomous Okrug)

Read the rest of this entry »

(Pic: Vartland) While many people would love to have reindeer gambolling through their village, it has long been a bone of contention in Hammerfest. Each summer, the reindeer migrate from Kautokeino /Guovdageaidnu in inner Finnmark to the island of Kvaloya, where Hammerfest is. Residents are tired of their flower beds being munched by reindeer and their defecatory practices. The local priest, according to an article in the Vartland newspaper has taken to erecting signs near damaged flowerbeds which read ‘A result of years of Hammerfest council saying We are Working On It’.

Read the rest of this entry »

Wind power is blowing its way across the windy parts of Europe - such as Sweden, Norway and Scotland. A major seminar in Scotland recently was attended by municipal leaders from Östersund, who were interested in learning how Scots had dealt with mega project windfarm development. At present there are only small scale wind farms in Sweden with fewer than seven turbines, however, a 100 turbine development is being proposed for a former military base. The impacts on reindeer pastures of such developments are known to be negative.

Predation is a serious problem for reindeer herders in the spring and early summer after calving season, as young calves are particularly vulnerable to predation. Kristian Jåma, a Sami reindeer herder from Sør-Fosen in Sør-Trøndelag region said to NRK Sami Radio that he feels that his claims about predation loss are not believed. In a small area, he has lost 24 reindeer, many of which are claves to predation, particularly eagle.

I feel that Statens naturoppsyn (SNO) do not believe me because they have not come to document the carcasses before they are eaten up.

Without documentation by SNO, reindeer herders do not receive compensation. Another risk to reindeer at this time of the year, when so many reindeer are moving or have arrived in their summer pastures is traffic, with a high number of reindeer fatalities being reported along the E6, Norway’s main North South artery.

Finally, a board member of the Finnmark branch of Norway’s right wing Progress Party (FrP), currently Norway’s second largest political party  has claimed in a local paper that reindeer husbandry is acting as a hindrance to industrial development in Finnmark, and went on to opine that as reindeer herders use such large areas and block development they should pay a tax on land use.