Today's reindeer herding in Vattme

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.

Here you can read more about

The value of the old forests for reindeer herding today, and the difficulties of keeping the operations up while the valuable areas keep shrinking.

Axelsson-Linkowski, W., Fjellström, A.-M., Sandström, C., Westin, A., Östlund, L., & Moen, J. (2020). Shifting Strategies between Generations in Sami Reindeer Husbandry: the Challenges of Maintaining Traditions while Adapting to a Changing Context. Human Ecology : An Interdisciplinary Journal, 48(4), 481–490. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-020-00171-3

Östlund, L., Bergman, I., Sandström, C., & Brännström, M. (2020). The legal application of ethnoecology: The Girjas Sami Village versus the Swedish State. Plants, People, and Places: The Roles of Ethnobotany and Ethnoecology in Indigenous Peoples’ Land Rights in Canada and Beyond, 188-202. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv153k6x6.19