Reindeer Blog

The Board of the University of the Arctic (UArctic) has approved the establishment of UArctic Institute for Circumpolar Reindeer Husbandry, as a result of the International Polar Year (IPY) project and the IPY EALÁT project.

Vapsten Sami village in Sweden has been granted state aid which enables them to test new methods in monitoring reindeer. Now, the reindeer will be fitted with GPS transmitters. Jon Mikkal Labba, the leader of the Vapsten Sami village, says that he begins his working day by turning on the computer, to see how the reindeer [...]

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) urged continued support for the participation of indigenous people in the work of the IGC (Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore), though the slow pace of work by this committee has been criticised by some. Still, the committee will continue its work and [...]

A Dukha Reindeer herder family in Mongolia receives a delivery of vitamins brought by Sas Carey of Middlebury in a trip last year. Carey is returning to Mongolia this summer to complete a health database for the 207 herders developing a project she calls Nomadicare: advocating for Mongolian traditional medicine, providing Western laboratory supplies and [...]

In Iqaluit, Nunavut, a national scientific advisory board Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) has recommended that the federal government place the Peary caribou on the endangered species list. photo courtesy of John Nagy/GNWT This recommendation was disputed local hunters and trappers, even though the numbers do speak of of a [...]

It is not only EALAT that is cooperating with national weather authorities. In a similar development, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology website has been set up to promote indigenous weather knowledge alongside modern science, including a seasonal weather forecast compiled from the traditional knowledge. There are four other indigenous seasonal calendars from the Australian Northern Territory [...]

Languages contain embedded knowledge, and critical to the maintenance of diversity is the maintenance of lesser used languages, many of which are disappearing or are under threat. In South Siberia, reindeer herders use the word to “dongur” to indicate in one word “male domesticated reindeer in its third year and first mating season, but not [...]

At the launch of the Canadian IPY, Minister for Northern Affairs Jim Prentice said “elders and other knowledge keepers” can make a big contribution to research and that many researchers have been encouraged to integrate Western science and traditional aboriginal knowledge into their polar research according to a March 9 report in the Nunatsiaq News. [...]