PHOTO: GUNN-BRITT RETTER / SAAMI COUNCIL
Climate Impacts on Terrestrial Environments (CITE)
The aim of this project is to create a digital tool for herding communities for systematic documentation of herders´observations and experiences related to observed changes on their land.
Reindeer herders across Sápmi are facing various challenges as climate continues to warm and weather and ecological conditions change on the different seasonal pastures. The large variabilities from year to year combined with the local variation in climate, ecology, and herding practices makes predicting the local impacts of climate change and finding adaptive strategies more challenging. Saami herders have accumulated detailed knowledge about how conditions on the seasonal pastures affect reindeer condition, production and needs for adaptation, but their observations and experiences are rarely used in combination with climate-and ecological data to inform climate actions.
The aim of this project is to create a digital tool for herding communities for systematic documentation of herders´observations and experiences related to observed changes on their land. This aims to improve decision making about the biodiversity and ecosystem services that Saami reindeer herders depend upon for sustaining their traditional livelihoods, and enhance social learning and local adaptation to climate and environmental change.
“As Indigenous Peoples, we possess an understanding of resource use and the importance of the “circular economy” as part of our values and culture, and we know how to adapt to serious challenges. We can and must contribute this knowledge to the conversation about climate change. Together with technological development, these assets can strengthen Sápmi.”
Who are we?
This project was initiated by the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program (AMAP) and the Saami Council, and is a collaboration between Saami Indigenous Knowledge holders and AMAP researchers.
The project is co-led by the Saami Council and AMAP.
The Project team:
Máret J. Heatta, project lead and coordinator Saami Council
Janet Pawlak, lead the Arctic Monitoring aand Assessment Program (AMAP)
What do we do?
We are creating an online tool for herding communities to have a systematic documentation of observations and experiences related to observed changes on their land. The tool is created in the platform Maptionnaire, which allows for an user-friendly and adaptable online survey developed specifically for this project.
The project is co-produced between Saami reindeer herders and researchers from different research institutes — all the way from the planning of the project, choice of method, and development of the online tool.
The project involves cooperative work between Saami reindeer herding communities and AMAP scientists for: 1) creating a digital tool for herding communities for systematic documentation of herders’ observations and experiences related to observed changes on their land; this digital platform will facilitate the collection, sharing and communication of environmental data; 2) testing this digital tool for use in community-based monitoring and communication of observations in pilot areas in selected herding communities in the three Nordic countries; and 3) interviews and interactions with herders and herding communities for the preparation of a story map concerning their observations of climate impacts on herding conditions on a year-round basis.
CITE Maptionnaire is available in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, English and North Saami, but can also be answered in other preferred Saami languages.
PROJECT PERIOD: 2022-2024
FUNDERS:
