(by Sirpa Rasmus & Tim Horstkotte)
In connection to the “Reindeer and fish research days” in Ylläs, northern Finland, organized by Natural Resources Institute, CHARTER organized one of its last participatory workshops. After several ones had been held in three countries, Finland, Norway and Sweden, a joint event was planned to bring together herders and researchers to bring together the results from the previous workshops. The aim was to have a small event, with people comfortable working in English.
The major theme of the research days, as well as in our workshop, was “Integration of traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge – why, how, and for whom?”.
We had altogether ten participants in the workshop, six herders from different herding districts from Finland, Norway and Sweden – both from Sápmi, and from regions more south. Researchers represented mainly CHARTER, WP6 (Jussi Eronen, University of Helsinki, Sirpa Rasmus, Universities of Lapland and Helsinki, Tim Horstkotte, University of Umeå), while Stefan Sandström (Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, Umeå) represented the project LANDPATHS. During the two-day event, also other CHARTER researchers participated in the discussion during the second day (Otto Habeck, Bruce Forbes).
The first day was dedicated to discussions about urgent issues for each herding district and to the herders participating, in general related to land-use developments. We also tested the first version of a “herding game” that is under development. The game is a tool to facilitate discussions about reactions to and resources needed in different seasonal circumstances – to share and explain different needs and possibilities more easily than when “just” talking. The idea is also to show how cumulative impacts arise during consecutive seasons in a concrete way – and enable adding various, locally relevant “surprises”, such as rapid land-use developments or predator presence, into discussions with the biophysical environment and its variability as a backdrop. One topic repeatedly brought up in CHARTER workshops with herders on interaction with other forms of land use is the frustration and worry expressed as reindeer herders being experts in adaptation to changing conditions – and thus expected to do so at the conditions set by others.
We especially discussed different difficult seasonal weather events, how these were experienced, and what sort of resources could be used or needed to “play the cards right” and live well through the year – until the next calving season. Because of the focus on “knowledge”, all discussions emphasized the knowledge base of decisions made, and also knowledge that may be lacking in some cases – be it traditional knowledge, scientific knowledge and monitoring, or knowledge possessed by other land-users and people working in the governance or administration. We talked a lot about passing the knowledge on to new generations and language issues, about new knowledge formed in new situations, and because of the use of new technology like drones, and the localized nature of knowledge.
This was one of the first tries with the game, and participants shared our view that this tool could be developed into something that could help also the governance level, and other land-users, to understand the herder point of view better, and enable discussions related to resources, well-targeted support from the governance side, and seasonal impacts of land-use.
The second day started with following an NKJ-organized panel, also about different knowledge systems. Here there also was a strong CHARTER presence: Bruce Forbes was one of four panelists and Sirpa Rasmus one of two moderators. The panel presented several interesting viewpoints and recent developments related to the integrating local knowledge in research work and in impact assessments, and also raised many open questions – questions and critical points were also made by people from the audience, for example mentioning the participation fatigue, need to compensate local peoples’ time when participating in processes, and needs and possibilities for cross-border collaboration. These discussions will continue during the upcoming Nordic Conference on Reindeer Husbandry Research, 19–21 Feb 2025 in Alta, northern Norway.
Our workshop continued with discussions on panel topics, with specific emphasis on local impacts of tourism and hunting with dogs. One major conclusion was that there exist large knowldege gaps (or worse) within the majority society about the needs and practices of reindeer husbandry, and of Sámi rights / local rights in conflict with “perceived rights” by others (such as snowmobiling). In sum, as one participant expressed, the “need to protect reindeer is turned into the narrative of being mean to other people”. In short, increased knowledge and acceptence is necessary by others about reindeer husbandry, and there is a fatigue in the reindeer herding community to be responsible at educating others.
Workshop participants also participated in the research days programme and plenty of networking was done. Regular meetings like this were seen as important – sharing experiences on common pressures and also several good developments and solutions were seen as fruitful.
