Herding and old-growth forests

Old forests with ground and arboreal lichen (arboreal = growing on trees) are crucial winter pastures for reindeer. Especially during late winter, when the snow cover is thick and hard, reindeer are almost entirely dependent on habitats containing arboreal lichen as several studies show. These pastures consist mostly of old-growth forests.

Unfortunately, state forests have been managed very intensively in the Sámi area, as in most other parts of Finland. Since the 1950?s, extensive clearcuts together with other large-scale projects, such as the building of water reservoirs and tourist resorts, have considerably affected land use in the Sámi area. The pressure inflicted on reindeer herding by these modern forms of land use has been studied and documented most thoroughly in the southern part of the Sámi area.

In the Inari municipality, some 40% of forests have been protected, and all over the Sámi area the management practices of the FPS have been claimed to have changed during the past decade. However, despite the high percentage of protected areas, all of the most important winter pastures are not protected. All new loggings will cause further deterioration of the crucial winter pastures. The most important winter pastures situated in unprotected old-growth forests have been documented in the "Last of the Last" -map published by the Taiga Rescue Network in 2000.

In the 1990's reindeer herders started demanding logging moratoria on the late winter grazing forests of reindeer. During the past decade, there have been several lawsuits initiated by the herders. Herders have even filed appeals to the United Nation's Human Rights Committee. However, these lawsuits have not yielded intended results, mainly due to the fact that the courts have considered each logging conflict individually, instead of looking at the total effect of forestry on reindeer herding in each co-operative. However, in its decision concerning the appeal by the Muotkatunturi co-operative, the UN Human Rights Committee concluded that any additional logging in the co-operative's area could be considered a violation of the Sámi indigenous rights. As the loggings on state land have been expanded in 2000, the co-operative has made a new appeal to the Committee (see Lapland case studies: L-1).

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