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Herbivores are an integral part of Arctic terrestrial ecosystems, driving ecosystem functioning and sustaining local livelihoods. In the context of accelerated climate warming and land use changes, understanding how herbivores contribute to the resilience of Arctic socio-ecological systems is essential to guide sound decision-making and mitigation strategies. While research on Arctic herbivory has a long tradition, recent literature syntheses highlight important geographical, taxonomic, and environmental knowledge gaps on the impacts of herbivores across the region. At the same time, climate change and limited resources impose an urgent need to prioritize research and management efforts. We conducted a horizon scan within the Arctic herbivory research community to identify emerging scientific and management priorities for the next decade. From 288 responses received from 85 participants in two online surveys and an in-person workshop, we identified 8 scientific and 8 management priorities centred on (a) understanding and integrating fundamental ecological processes across multiple scales from individual herbivore-plant interactions up to regional and decadal scale vegetation and animal population effects; (b) evaluating climate change feedbacks; and (c) developing new research methods. Our analysis provides a strategic framework for broad, inclusive, interdisciplinary collaborations to optimise terrestrial herbivory research and sustainable management practices in a rapidly changing Arctic.

This reportis an external evaluation of the scientific basis of the Norwegian assessment system for ecological condition, commissioned by the Ministry of Climate and Environment. Two assessment methods are currently used for various terrestsrial and marine ecosystem: the Panel-Based Assessment of Ecological Condition (PAEC) and the Index-Based Ecological Condition Assessment (IBECA). The purpose of the evaluation is to scrutinise and compare the respective scientific strengths and weaknesses of the two assessment methods, as well as the assessments carried out since 2017, and to evaluate the suitability of the two assessment methods for evidence-based policy-making. The evaluation should cover possible improvements and adjustments to the assessment system regarding methods and scientific design, including opportunities and dilemmas, and "as far as the available information permits" discuss the role of the two assessment methods as basis for decisions in policy and management including any limitations of the knowledge base. All these aims are well covered in the report.

The evaluation panel has consisted of seven international experts, coordinated by the Norwegian Research Council. The panel has evaluated twelve PAEC and IBECA reports including an advisory report setting the framework conditions for the assessment system. Three peer-reviewed articles describining the respective methods have been considiered. Further, the panel has interviewed five experts involved in the assessments and 14 stakeholders to better understand the methods for assessment and the potential use of the assessment results for policy and management.

The evaluation ends with proposing specific recommendations both to the PAEC and IBECA methods and to the Ministry.

Forest disturbances are expected to increase in severity with climate change and intensified land use, threatening future delivery of several ecosystem services, including the climate-mitigating potential of forests. Alleviating these consequences through adaptive forest management demands a greater understanding of what drives the impacts of disturbances on forests, which, in turn, requires collection of high-quality data through large-scale and long-term monitoring programs. The Swedish National Forest Inventory has been recording “damages” on living trees across a forest area of 230,000 km², in addition to a wide range of stand characteristics and environmental conditions. Using 15 years of these data, we investigated the frequency of different types of tree damages and the causes of these damages and modeled damage risk among tree species and across gradients in stand attributes and environmental conditions. We found that 94% of all surveyed trees had some type of damage, but for 65% of these, the underlying cause was not identified. Nevertheless, for all damage types and causes, we found that damage risk varied considerably among tree species and across gradients in tree species richness, tree height, and stand age. For a few damages, stand age or tree species richness interacted with climate to influence risks. Among identified causes of damage, “wind and snow” was most common (11.9% of surveyed trees), followed by “forestry” (6.9%). Further, for most causes of damage where stand age was significant, the risk was highest in young or the youngest stands. As such, our results indicate that there is great potential for reducing the risk of tree damages via adaptive management, such as altered tree species composition and increased rotation length. However, for a greater understanding of what is driving the frequency and magnitude of forest damages, and to be able to provide specific, useful information to stakeholders, collection of higher-quality data must be prioritized by monitoring programs.

A dynamic world requires people to constantly adapt their behavior and make decisions to main­tain or enhance relationships between each other and the environment. Where the combined effects of anthropogenic and environmental change affect the livelihoods of Indigenous people, their options to pursue preferred adaptation strategies are often restricted by competing land uses. In this context, we explore how Sámi reindeer herders in Northern Sweden navigate the complex­ity of decision-making on adaptation, specifically decisions regarding supplementary feeding when winter grazing resources are inaccessible. How are decisions made and where are they positioned on an adaptation-maladaptation continuum? In a participatory approach with two reindeer herd­ing communities, we use fuzzy cognitive mapping to explore the multi-dimensional complexity surrounding supplementary feeding. Our results emphasize the herders’ conviction that supple­mentary feeding is not a preferred adaptation strategy. It is rather a forced response driven by complex system dynamics that transform their pastoral landscape. To maintain the preferred tra­ditional herding practices, desired adaptation measures viewed from a herding perspective should thus center at the system level, such as halting the loss and restoring already lost grazing grounds. This would require meaningful recognition and demands inclusion of reindeer herders’ right to self-determination into adaptation policies to mitigate environmental change.

The global challenges that humanity faces are addressed in various global agreements, such as the Paris Agreement and the Convention on Biological Diversity. However, all global goals require local implementation and must be locally accepted. Adaptation and transformation will claim large land resources, such as infrastructures, wind farms, mines and intense land use for bioenergy. This may exacerbate already existing conflict over land use and the rights to resources, not least in northern peripheral areas. Reindeer pastoralism is affected by all of these interwoven processes, which gives a need for more holistic regional land use planning. This chapter summarizes some of the factors that have contributed to a lack of such planning and points to the importance of including reindeer herders as ‘rightsholders’ and their traditional knowledge in a transition to a just and sustainable society.

Traditional grazing areas in Europe have declined substantially over the last century. Specifically, in northern Fennoscandia, the grazing land is disturbed by cumulative land-use pressures. Here we analysed the configuration of the grazing land for reindeer and sheep in northern Fennoscandia in relation to the concurrent land-use pressures from tourism, road and railway networks, forestry, industrial and wind energy facilities, together with predator presence and climate change. Our results show that 85% of the region is affected by at least one land-use pressure and 60% is affected by multiple land-use pressures, co-occurring with predator presence and rising temperatures. As such, a majority of the grazing land is exposed to cumulative pressures in northern Fennoscandia. We stress that, if the expansion of cumulative pressures leads to grazing abandonment of disturbed areas and grazing intensification in other areas, it could irreversibly change northern vegetation and the Fennoscandian mountain landscape.

Reindeer husbandry has a long history of sharing landscapes with a multitude of other forms of land use. By competing for space, industrial resource developments from the early 20th century onwards have affected where, when and how the landscape can be used for reindeer grazing. Extending from the local to the landscape level, these impacts can reduce pastures either directly or indirectly as a result of increasing landscape fragmentation or changing reindeer behaviour. Furthermore, environmental drivers influence the dynamics of forage availability or accessibility for reindeer. The observed trend of shrinking pastures in the three countries is caused by these cumulative impacts. As a consequence, grazing pressure on the remaining pastures increases, and it curtails reindeer herders’ options to respond to the challenges of climate change. Reversing the continuing decrease in pastures requires the restoration of grazing resources and increasing landscape connectivity to facilitate movement and grazing rotation. However, socio-political incentives are also required to sustain reindeer pastures in the future. This includes an increase in the influence of reindeer herders on land use decisions and the inclusion of their traditional ecological knowledge of pasture management to identify alternative approaches to natural resource management.

This volume offers a holistic understanding of the environmental and societal challenges that affect reindeer husbandry in Fennoscandia today.

Reindeer husbandry is a livelihood with a long traditional heritage and cultural importance. Like many other pastoral societies, reindeer herders are confronted with significant challenges. Covering Norway, Sweden and Finland – three countries with many differences and similarities – this volume examines how reindeer husbandry is affected by and responds to global environmental change and resource extraction in boreal and arctic social- ecological systems. Beginning with an historical overview of reindeer husbandry, the volume analyses the realities of the present from different perspectives and disciplines. Genetics, behavioural ecology of reindeer, other forms of land use, pastoralists’ norms and knowledge, bio- economy and governance structures all set the stage for the complex internal and externally imposed dynamics within reindeer husbandry. In- depth analyses are devoted to particularly urgent challenges, such as land- use conflicts, climate change and predation, identified as having a high potential to shape the future pathways of the pastoral identity and productivity. These futures, with their risks and opportunities, are explored in the final section, offering a synthesis of the comparative approach between the three countries that runs as a recurring theme through the book. With its richness and depth, this volume contributes significantly to the understanding of the substantial impacts on pastoralist communities in northernmost Europe today, while highlighting viable pathways to maintaining reindeer husbandry for the future.

This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of both the natural and social sciences who work on natural resource management, global environmental change, pastoralism, ecology, social- ecological systems, rangeland management and Indigenous studies.

This introductory chapter presents reindeer pastoralism as a social-ecological system and outlines its essential components. Reindeer herders – the pastoralists of the north, the reindeer and the natural environment of Fennoscandia – are briefly introduced. The chapter describes how different historical, natural and social environments lead to different management forms in Finland, Norway and Sweden. Further, it provides a historical overview of reindeer pastoralism deeply embedded in Sámi and local culture and gives some key statistics of the situation today. Finally, it outlines the major challenges that reindeer pastoralism is facing today within the three Fennoscandian countries. This chapter therefore provides the background for the detailed analyses in the main part of this book.

This chapter addresses the challenges to reindeer husbandry in Fennoscandia from a systems perspective. Drawing on information in other chapters in this book, the specific focus is on so called tipping points, or abrupt changes in the coupled social-ecological system. Tipping points may occur when external drivers push a system to an alternative system state, characterized by different feedbacks than in the original state. Compared to ‘ideal’ or traditional reindeer husbandry, examples of alternative states include reliance on supplementary feeding to compensate for losses of pastures, fencing herds to provide protection from predation, becoming a meat-processing industry based on more centralized herding practices and a total loss of reindeer husbandry. All of these states are seen as undesirable by the herders. Reindeer husbandry, as it is currently practised, requires intact social-ecological relationships within the herding districts, as well as in their interaction with the external society. These system qualities need to be strengthened as they innately provide resilience, and will demand structural, institutional and legislative changes, but also discursive changes of how we imagine what sustainability is, and whether herders are treated as one of many stakeholders or as the rights holders that they really are according to the law.