Studies on climate and references in Vattme

Page reviewed: 02/04/2025

Vattme has been and still is a very important area for reindeer herders within the Sami village of Luokta-Mava. There are good winter pastures, important calving grounds and fine summer pastures above the tree line. Although the area has been used as winter grazing land for a very long time, in the last 20 years it has become increasingly important for the Sami village of Luokta-Mava, because the winter grazing in particular has deteriorated greatly in the cultivated forest closer to the coast. In Vattme, there are no clear-cuts, no ground preparation and no Contorta plantings, only old natural pine forest with lots of lichens on the ground and the trees – a perfect winter grazing land.

How is research in forest history made?

What methods do we use to study yesterday's and today's forest in Vattme? To get really far back in time, we have used a method called pollen analysis and then we have taken samples from bogs in the area. The peat in the bog is gradually built up in layers and by counting the tree pollen in each such layer we can interpret how the forest has changed since the last ice age.

Another important method for interpreting the history of the forest is to study the tree rings in dead and living trees. That method is called dendrochronology. Since many trees in Vattme are very old, we can go back many hundreds of years with the help of annual ring studies. We can date marks in trees after Sami bark extraction, after forest fires and other events that affected the trees. We know exactly what year these events occurred and sometimes even if it was at the beginning or end of summer.

We have also worked with various historical documents and maps to interpret Vattme's history. In these you can read about how the tax was paid, who lived there, who had rights to different parts of the area and much more.

Here you can read more about

The toolbox of forest history research and how to combine different methods to understand the history of Vattmes forest)

Josefsson, Torbjörn (2009). Pristine forest landscapes as ecological references. Diss. (sammanfattning/summary) Umeå : Sveriges lantbruksuniv., Acta Universitatis Agriculturae Sueciae, 1652-6880 ; 2009:77 ISBN 978-91-576-7424-1

How we use pollen analysis to interpret the history of the forest in Vattme

Josefsson, T., Hörnberg, G., & Östlund, L. (2009). Long-Term Human Impact and Vegetation Changes in a Boreal Forest Reserve: Implications for the Use of Protected Areas as Ecological References. Ecosystems (New York), 12(6), 1017–1036. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-009-9276-y

The use of tree rings to see changes in the forest and how humans have used the trees and forest in Vattme

Fassl, Magdalena (2023). Tree-growth and climate-growth relationships of Scots pine and downy birch in a natural forest in northern Sweden. Avancerad nivå, A2E. Umeå: SLU, Institutionen för skogens ekologi och skötsel

Baudet, M., & Östlund, L. (2022). Collecting Cores to Age Hollow Trees: A Research Note on Scots Pine (Pinus sylvestris). Tree-Ring Research, 78(2), 150–155. https://doi.org/10.3959/2021-7

Baudet, M., Josefsson, T., & Östlund, L. (2020). New insights into estimating the age of old Scots pine from increment cores with stem rot. Dendrochronologia (Verona), 64, Article 125782. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dendro.2020.125782

How we’ve used different historical documents to learn about the lives and activities of the Sami population in Vattme

Josefsson, T., Bergman, I., Östlund, L. (2010). Quantifying Sami Settlement and Movement Patterns in Northern Sweden 1700–1900. Arctic, 63(2), 141–154. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27821959