Lennart Olsson
Professor, Docent
Compound hazards of climate change, forestry, and other encroachments on winter pasturelands: a storyline approach in a forest reindeer herding community in Northern Sweden
Author
Summary, in English
The impacts of climate change on rural cultures and livelihoods depend on how the resulting complex biophysical processes
may transform people’s land use practices. We argue that research can incorporate local concerns of compound hazards through deterministic rather than probabilistic approaches to better understand the multiple causations involved in such
climate change impacts. We apply mixed methods within a storyline approach to examine how a forest reindeer herding
community in Northern Sweden copes with and experiences basal ice formation on their winter pasturelands under the infuence of climatic and environmental change. Our results show that the detrimental impact of basal ice formation on the availability of winter forage for reindeer is amplifed by the directional efects of climate change and encroachments, especially
particular forestry practices and their surrounding infrastructure. On the one hand, we show that policy action can address
local concerns through ecological interventions that improve the amount and distribution of ground and pendulous lichens
at the pastoral landscape scale. On the other hand, we show that policy inaction can threaten the community’s desired experience of human-animal relations in their landscape, which was inextricably connected to ecological conditions for natural
pasture-based reindeer pastoralism
may transform people’s land use practices. We argue that research can incorporate local concerns of compound hazards through deterministic rather than probabilistic approaches to better understand the multiple causations involved in such
climate change impacts. We apply mixed methods within a storyline approach to examine how a forest reindeer herding
community in Northern Sweden copes with and experiences basal ice formation on their winter pasturelands under the infuence of climatic and environmental change. Our results show that the detrimental impact of basal ice formation on the availability of winter forage for reindeer is amplifed by the directional efects of climate change and encroachments, especially
particular forestry practices and their surrounding infrastructure. On the one hand, we show that policy action can address
local concerns through ecological interventions that improve the amount and distribution of ground and pendulous lichens
at the pastoral landscape scale. On the other hand, we show that policy inaction can threaten the community’s desired experience of human-animal relations in their landscape, which was inextricably connected to ecological conditions for natural
pasture-based reindeer pastoralism
Department/s
- LUCSUS (Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies)
- MERGE: ModElling the Regional and Global Earth system
- BECC: Biodiversity and Ecosystem services in a Changing Climate
- Dept of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science
Publishing year
2023-10-04
Language
English
Pages
1-1
Publication/Series
Regional Environmental Change
Volume
23
Issue
4
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Springer
Topic
- Climate Research
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1436-3798