CASE STUDY #34
Conservation, restoration and rehabilitation of fragmented wild reindeer populations in Norway: Successes and failures
Conservation efforts have secured the partial recovery of Eu- rope’s wild reindeer (Rangifer tarandus tarandus), although only in 24 separate fragments of their original range, now sep- arated by resorts and roads (Nellemann et al., 2003; Vistnes and Nellemann, 2009). A unique science-based broad support in the parliament and by the Norwegian Government has re- sulted in a rise in protected areas, so important for the reindeer that otherwise reduce use or even entirely avoid areas subject to hydropower, roads and resorts. However, full recovery of the original range will require restoration of migration routes across developed or disturbed areas to reestablish former migration (Vistnes et al., 2004), especially under climate change where western areas may become increasingly inaccessible during winter due to extreme snow and ice conditions in the future.
Restoration of a major former military bombing range at Hjerkinn, Norway, has resulted in controversies over removal of former military road infrastructure, where local commercial and recreational interests want to use the road infrastructure for
business development inside the National Park, thereby jeopardiz- ing a key feature of the restoration goals, namely full rehabilitation of the lost winter ranges for wild reindeer in the region. Unless ef- forts are taken to fully implement the restoration goals, a failure could make this a classic textbook example of how restoration pro- cesses may fail when restoration targets are changed and partly lost during the restoration process.
This possible restoration failure is contrasted by the more strict conservation regime and restoration attempts in the vicinity of the neighboring national park in Rondane. Here, reindeer had generally avoided a 5–15 km zone around most resorts during winter due to ex- tensive webs of recreational ski trails. A relocation and movement of both a major skitrails and a tourist cabin resulted in near immediate response in the reindeer distribution during winter: Reindeer moved into a formerly disturbed, but intact part of the winter range (Nelle- mann et al., 2009). By regulating trails and re-locating infrastructure, in this case trails and cabins, it was possible to effectively restore lost habitat while still promoting recreational development.
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