Several factors threaten Norwegian reindeer herding, posing challenges to longterm sustainability. Changes in climate affecting the availability of winter pastures. Infrastructure projects, including the shift to green energy, fragmenting reindeer habitats affecting access to pastures and disrupting migration. Expanding anthropogenic land use also intrudes upon pasture availability. Reindeer herders also face challenges stemming from the prevailing management approach in reindeer meat production. This system, centred around centralization, economic planning, and industrialization, fails to align with the herders' requirements for incorporating local values and integrating their inestimable traditional knowledge.
Mitigating these threats and identifying solutions is important for continued sustainable reindeer herding. Achieving this goal requires collaborative transdisciplinary research that draws on a range of fields, in close cooperation with reindeer herders, reindeer herding organizations, governmental bodies, policy makers and other stakeholders. The convergence of insights from diverse disciplines is essential to develop holistic solutions that can address the multidisciplinary challenges posed.
The ReinConnect workshop aims to bring together different disciplines to contribute to the development of convergence environments focusing on solutions for the reindeer herding industry, while simultaneously benefitting the environment and the larger community. The main deliverable is a roadmap declaration from participating institutions, outlining shared principles for promoting transparent, inclusive, and fair research processes. This will guide future cooperation among academics. The workshop will also investigate the feasibility of establishing a unified digital platform for reindeer research.
Partners
- University of Tromsø The Arctic University of Norway
- Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO)
- Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA)
- NILU
- Research institute for water and the environment (NIVA)
- Norwegian Research Centre (NORCE)
- The Norwegian Meteorological Institute
