Paper short abstract:

‘Beitekrise’, foraging crisis, is the vernacular term for a recurrent phenomenon that hits Sámi reindeer in winter. It refers to feed shortage due to icy conditions associated with Arctic climate change. This paper explores the crisis as a shortage of land, and a crisis of the commons.

Paper long abstract:

Reindeer migration routes have shaped human mobilities for hundreds of years. In the Nordic Arctic, these migrations are the backbone of Northern Sámi husbandry practices, and rely on free access to extensive landscapes, from low mountains and winter pastures in the southern inland regions where the snow is soft and allows access to lichen underneath, to summer pastures along the North Norwegian coast. Recurrent winter episodes of snow melt/freeze have always been a challenge, as it ‘locks’ winter feed under layers of ice, but with changing climate in the Arctic such episodes are now more frequent than they used to be. Some reindeer herders respond to the foraging crises by supplementary feeding of silage which is a major technological operation and expense. Others face the loss of calves and see their reindeer in a poor condition. In this paper, I argue that approaching the locked pastures as a crisis of climate change only, may mask the parallel anthropogenic crises that threaten migratory herding practices through encroachment and dispossession of land associated with the commons. How might attention to shifting and conflicting practices of land ownership illuminate the recurrent crises? To what extent does climate change mitigation exacerbate the pressure on land? How might future commons of the Anthropocene accommodate reindeer husbandry as a viable practice, and what is the role of digitalization in mediating human-animal relations in the reindeer herding landscape?