Distinguished Scientist
The renowned scientist Dr. Robert W. Corell has accepted a professorship in this new Arctic Institute. Dr Corell brings with him an impressive CV and unique experience for the position, which is financed jointly by the Sámi University College and the International Center for Reindeer Husbandry.

Corell was the leader of the Arctic Council project ACIA (Arctic Climate Impact Assessment), is head of the CAI (Climate Action Initiative), a senior adviser to the Global Environment and Technology Foundation, and former vice president at the H. John Heinz II Center for Science, Economics and Environment .

Al Gore’s adviser
Dr. Corell has been working a lot with research on climate and global change in addition to the interaction between research and policy, particularly research that focuses on global and regional climate change and related environmental issues.

In Tromsø in April 2009 Dr. Corell led the Melting Ice Conference with Vice President Al Gore and Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and since 2000 he has worked with reindeer herders and researchers in Kautokeino.

Dr. Robert Corell had the original idea for the EALÁT project (Reindeer Herders vulnerability networks study: Reindeer pastoralism in a changing climate) which later was initiated by the Association of World Reindeer Herders. He has been a member of the research group in EALÁT since 2005 and has published several articles together with this group.

Dr. Corell is also a researcher for Arctic Governance Project, an international arctic management study.

Includes Arctic indigenous people
The professorship is awarded to Dr. Corell to honor and recognize his willingness to include the Arctic Indigenous Peoples and their knowledge and understanding in research on the effects of global change.

The reindeer herding societies in all arctic and subarctic regions now face pervasive changes. The challenges of climate change, increased development and globalization are so extensive that we must use the best available evidence in order to adapt to the future.

But which and whose knowledge is this? Of course, the science-based knowledge has been and will continue to be important. But often the best available evidence in fact is the knowledge of the reindeer herders – the traditional knowledge that is developed through careful observation of reindeer and nature, transmitted from generation to generation, and used every day by both reindeer herders in the tundra and the taiga.

Dr. Robert Corell is widely known for hes support to include the Arctic indigenous peoples in research and reviews, and with this new position he will be better able to continue to support the ongoing efforts to develop adaptation strategies for future climate change in Arctic communities.

Read the press release and view pictures here on the Reindeer Portal

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 behave and where they are.

I can see if it the reindeers move a lot and then I know that there is interference, either predators or other things, and then we can concentrate on that area during the day.

Currently, Vapsten have 30 GPS transmitters in one siida (winter group) and Labba thinks that that it is a good number.

I think it works very well

Jon Mikael Labba says that they have chosen to have the transmitters on large females, because the transmitters are rather clumsy, so the reindeer must be large.

It is an entirely new approach that is under development in reindeer herding. Jon Mikkal Labba admits that, in this way, he may lose contact with nature and the traditional way of practicing reindeer husbandry. But he believes that the old knowledge about how reindeer behave in the wild is not always useful in today’s reindeer because nature has changed.

Nature is so altered due to forestry, so that you can not say more how the reindeer are, and in this way we get a better insight how the land looks like and we are in different areas from year to year and use large areas.

Traditional knowledge might have an answer as to why a wild reindeer decided to live with goats in Southern Norway. Is it possible it was escaping cabin construction? A continued boom in cabin development is threatening the pastures of Norway’s small remaining wild reindeer herds - 4,900 holiday cabins, most involving road systems and associated infrastructure as well, were built between 2001 and 2005 near the conservation areas set aside for wild reindeer.

photo courtesy of John Nagy/GNWT

This recommendation was disputed local hunters and trappers, even though the numbers do speak of of a steady decline over time.

“The Peary Caribou is not endangered,” said Larry Audlaluk, a director with the Iviq Hunters and Trappers Association in Grise Fiord. “The cycle of Peary caribou in the high Arctic is not like your regular caribou in other parts of the north.” “The Peary caribou has never been big in population,” Audlaluk said. “What really hurts me is when traditional knowledge is not taken seriously” Read the rest of the story..

COSEWIC says that it will include more traditional aboriginal knowledge in its work, addressing these very concerns from aboriginal people that their voices aren’t heard by scientists.