Reindeer froze to death after falling through ice. Pic: NRK

As many as 50 reindeer froze to death after falling through thin ice near Kautokeino, Norway yesterday according to a report in NRK Sami Radio. This is a dangerous time of year for reindeer and their herders, as although lakes and rivers are frozen, the ice is thin and liable to break.

Herders attempted to rescue the animals back to land by using a boat and walking on the ice – extremely risky work, but according to Mikkel NN Eira, as quoted in the article:

We had to and try get the animals onto land… We had to use a boat as we pushed on the ice in front of us.  When we came to areas where the ice was thin and we noticed that the ice began to break up, we had to hurry to jump in the boat. There were many times that my foot went through the ice.

Eira called it a ‘tragedy’, with some reindeer remaining locked in the water. Eira even tried bringing a reindeer inside the house to warm it up but it too succumbed to the cold. He said to NRK Sami Radio,

It was mostly females who went through and they would surely have calved.  This is a loss of at least NOK 100,000 in income.  The animals are our livelihood.

Indistry Minister of Norway Trond Giske With Minerals Map of Northern Scandinavia. His governement has just announced a huge increase in funding to support the mining industry - Source adressa.no

So said, the Minister for Industry of Norway (Labour Party) while announcing a big increase in funding for mining exploration in the country in a story that appeared in Adressa.no

The Norwegian Geological Survey (NGU) believes there is a vast wealth of minerals and ore under the soil just waiting to be exploiting – only what holds them back is insufficient knowledge. That will soon change thanks to the Norwegian government announcing an extra 100 million NOK (ca. 17M USD)) over four years to searching for gold and other precious metals, mainly in northern Norway.

The first 25 million (4.3M USD) will come in next year’s budget, which is presented on Tuesday. This will represent a doubling of the Geological Survey currently receive for such work.

Giske acknowledged that as most of the deposits are in Northern Norway, this may lead to conflict with reindeer herders, but insisted that any conflict between reindeer herding and mining was “fully manageable”

Not according to Nils Henrik Sara, the leader of the Sami Reindeer Herders Association of Norway(NRL), in a reaction in NRK Sami Radio,

“It’s not as simple as the industry minister told Adresseavisen.  But of course for their enforcement system, it might be “manageable” because they do not account for what the reindeer industry says, and thus it is easy for them to get the reindeer industry to follow their terms “

The NRL leader clearly stated that their organization is against all mining in areas used by reindeer husbandry.

“NRL is against all who have an intention to destroy the industry’s reindeer pastures.  Mining destroys grazing for reindeer, and it can not be accepted by NRL”

“Let the treasure hunt begin” the Minister was quoted as saying in the news report…

John Masvik, CEO of Finnmark Kraft, stated in Finnmarken newspaper,

There were strong views in reindeer herding, one might say. We have learned from this, and it is important for us to enter into dialogue with them as quickly as possible

This would occur after the current autumn migrations are completed, by November and December. The regional administration are extremely keen for the development to proceed.

Source – Finnmarken

Both Finnmark society and the Sami community is entirely dependent on new activity. If one is to preserve the culture and language we are going to have to have new jobs for the youth in the Sami villages. You can not save the Sami culture simply by having Sami kindergarten at Tøyen in Oslo and courses in communities with cafe lattes, it has to happen here,

You can read the rest of the article here on the Reindeer Portal

Reindeer ferry season is about to begin this year on April 20th from Balnes in Balsfjord and some 15,000 reindeer from 20 reindeer herding districts will make the ferry ride by May 9th.  National Geographic featured a short article on this unusual form of transport in collaboration with the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry which you can read here.

Source: LMD

The Press release continues that  traffic such as snowmobiling which can be illegal and dogs that are not under control in the grazing areas can cause a lot of problems  for the industry, which are exacerbated after difficult winter conditions. By law, dogs are supposed to be on a lead between April 1-August 20 when near reindeer grazing areas.

More information here at the Norwegian Reindeer Husbandry Administration.

Several measures have been evaluated to reduce the number of collisions, including fences along the most vulnerable routes, GPS monitoring, clearing of forests along the railway lines, lining the side valleys, and the use of reflectors to keep animals away from railway lines.

In 2009 it was scheduled to build a fence on a four-kilometer stretch between Semska and Sørelva and the Salt Mountain, which has been the site of numerous reindeer deaths.

Meanwhile, in the largest area of reindeer husbandry in the world, the most northerly railway in the world has just opened for business. Linking the vast gas fields of Bovanenkovo in the middle of the Yamal Peninsula to the Russian railway network, this railway has been under construction for many years and from an engineering standpoint is marvel as it is almost entirely built on permafrost and crosses several large rivers, including a 4 km long bridge across the Yuribey River floodplain. The bridge is the world’s longest above the Arctic Circle. The railroad will be used for transport of equipment and materials for the development of the gas field and for construction of the Bovanenkovo-Ukhta pipeline across the Baydaratskaya Bay a press release from Gazprom reads. The Ob-Bovanenkovo railroad is also planned to be used for transport of gas condensate from the fields on the Yamal Peninsula. For reindeer herders, the railway bisects the migration routes of several reindeer herding brigades.

Arctic railway lines are all the rage in northern Europe with feasibility reports being commissioned on extending railway routes in Norway and Finland to the Arctic Ocean.

“Over the past three years, I’ve had to give some hay to my 800 reindeer during the coldest months. It’s more expensive and it gives me more work,” said Jan Egil Trasti, a reindeer herder from the native Sami people.

The reason: the lichen his animals graze on has become tougher to find as winter temperatures rise. The snow thaws, and along with rain, then freezes anew — covering the ground in layers impervious to all but the most tenacious reindeer.

Grazing land is also disappearing under the weight of industry as buildings, pipelines, roads and other infrastructure increasingly dot old pastures.

Trasti’s nomadic ancestors have raised these beasts for hundreds of years. His grandfather worked the Russian tundra before moving to the Norwegian coast.

“I have it in my blood. I hope one of my sons will take over,” the herder said. He has, though, a hint of doubt in his eyes, his meagre earnings well below the average Norwegian salary.

Only a minority of Sami — some 3,000 — make their living raising and herding in Norway, home to around 240,000 reindeer.

In this month of November, just weeks ahead of a key UN climate summit in Denmark, snow has not yet blanketed the flora in the Far North.

Indeed temperatures in this region near the Barents Sea are unseasonably mild, above zero degrees Celsius.

In the past, when the snows have come, they have generally fallen on dry ground, whereas now they fall on lichen engorged with water.

Trasti is no scientist, and environmental experts hesitate to link specific weather events to long-term climate change, but trends over the last several decades have clearly shown the Arctic hit hard by global warming.

In September, a study in the journal Science reported dramatic effects on animals in the Arctic due to a one-degree Celsius warming over the past 150 years.

The Arctic tends to warm three times faster than elsewhere in the Northern Hemisphere because of a phenomenon called Arctic amplification — a separate study in the same journal noted that summer temperatures were some 1.4 degrees Celsius warmer than they should have been by the year 2000.

Jonathan Colman, specialist in “reindeer ecology” at the University of Oslo, explained that sometimes “there’s wet ice in the lichen.”

“It gets into their stomachs and they can’t digest the food.”

To avoid losing precious livestock, the Sami are forced to move reindeer to drier ground, meaning it is more important than ever to respect the tradition of driving herds across the entire north of the nation.

An animal can sell for 240 euros (359 dollars), and its meat for around seven euros a kilogramme (10.46 dollars per 2.2 pounds).

Trasti can make extra money selling the hides or antlers to tourists, and also gets compensation if his animals are killed by predators.

Norwegian Sami follow the herd with vehicles, but their cousins in Russia still accompany the animals with sleds, camping as they go.

But the drive, and the ability to follow the reindeer, has been increasingly hampered by industrialisation.

An iron ore mine which was closed down 15 years ago has re-opened nearby, while elsewhere liquid gas terminals, wind farms and roads are dotted across, or separate, traditional pastures.

The International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry has expressed regret that “the herders have only a marginal influence on the development of their own traditional lands.”

That’s despite a law that “Norway was built on the territory of two people, the Sami and the Norwegians,” said Christina Henriksen, a Sami who coordinates an aid programme for native peoples in the Arctic region.

“For me, being a Sami means herding reindeer,” said Trasti, who does not speak his native language.

“My parents weren’t allowed to speak Sami at school in the 60′s,” he said, and out of guilt, they “didn’t teach us the language.”

For the moment though, reindeer numbers are holding up under the strain of global warming, but that’s a fact Colman puts down to their very resilience.

“If reindeer weren’t as adaptable, there wouldn’t be any left,” he said.