The Dimensions of Sustainability and the Neo-entrepreneurial Adaptation Strategies in Reindeer Herding in Finland

Current public discourse in Finland concerning reindeer herding has focused on the overgrazing problem and conflicts between herding and competitive forms of land use. Both herders and government administrators agree on the problems of herding, but conceptualize their causes differently. Administrators insist that sustainability in herding is reachable through bioeconomic management that unites biological metrics of sustainable systems with an economic efficiency calculus. However, we found that such policy erodes socio-cultural sustainability at the community level. It also encourages economic rationalization that leads to increased revenues but slower income growth, because it coexists with rising investment costs and decreasing producer prices caused by increased supply. Ecological sustainability is left unstable, because bioeconomic metrics focus only on partial environmental processes. This study sheds light on these intertwined trajectories by analyzing reindeer herders’ efforts to reach both economic and ecological sustainability through neo-entrepreneurial strategies. The study was carried out by semi-structured interviews in 17 enterprises run by both Saami and Finnish reindeer herders. Interviews covered the working of both traditional herding and neo-enterprises and the consolidation of these efforts. The results show that the neo-entrepreneurial adaptation strategies enhance both economic and ecological sustainability, but create problems for socio-cultural sustainability. Journal of Ecological Anthropology Vol. 11 2007 26 et al. 2004), the socio-cultural sustainability of herding communities continues to be left out of the calculations. There is a persistent tendency to detach selected economic and ecological variables from a broader political, economic and ecological context (Jernsletten and Klokov 2002; Mittarit porotalous 2003). Often, these ecological and economic variables are handled separately and their results are mutually contradictory. The ecologically-based restrictions on the total number of reindeer, along with the simultaneous economically-based increasing of individual herd sizes, results in a dwindling workforce, which must be supplemented with further mechanization that increases costs. This process is fueled with subsidy systems, while the overall intensification of production increases supply, which in turn pulls down producer prices. This familiar Western rationalization schema easily creates a circle with increasing revenues, but stalled net income (Figures 1 and 3). Our key analytical tool is the comparison between ecological, economic and socio-cultural dimensions of sustainability (Elliott 1999; Hukkinen 2006). The theory of human adaptation is derived from John Bennett (2005). Human adaptation is understood to depend primarily on strategic decision-making concerning the utilization of key natural resources. It is conceptualized as an open process, where local adaptation is seen as interplay between suband supra-local influences as well as politics of power and knowledge at different scales (Dove 2001; Robbins 2004; McGuire 2005). Methodology Data collection focused on the development of neo-entrepreneurship. For this purpose, 20 reindeer herder neo-entrepreneurs, working in 17 enterprises, were interviewed during 2004-2005. Enterprises were chosen from the official list of the Finnish Food Safety Authority (European Union approved establishments 2007). Care was taken to include both Finnish and Saami entrepreneurs from the whole reindeer herding area. According to the interviews and depending on definition, in 20042005 the approximate number of herders’ meat processing neo-enterprises in Finland was around 25. However, the number of affiliated entrepreneurs was much higher, because many companies and cooperatives have between two and 14 associates. Interviewees estimated that about one-third of the neo-enterprises were run by Saami (Table 1). The semi-structured interviews mapped the working of traditional local reindeer herding communities, the functioning of neo-enterprises, and efforts to consolidate these activities. Specific research questions focused on the organization of industries, interactions among and between neo-enterprises and herders, and the division of labor. Entrepreneurs were interviewed both at their homes and at facilities usually situated close by. Interviews took from 60 to 90 minutes and included touring and photographing the relevant facilities. For ethical reasons, monetary questions and herd sizes were handled as rough estimations (e.g., as shares of total family income or verbal estimation of the profitability of certain improvements). Data was organized and analyzed with QSR Nvivo Qualitative Data Analysis program. The results (e.g., how informants considered the sustainability effects of certain strategic actions) were discussed and reformulated with key informants. This data was complemented with Heikkinen’s (2002) study that explored the adaptation of reindeer herding in the western part of the Finnish reindeer herding area. The main method in that study was participatory observation coupled with 33 semi-structured interviews. Figure 1. The Western rationalization schema. 1. intensified primary production 2. increasing revenues 3. increasing production costs and falling producer prices 4. stalled or low profits, possible new subsidies Heikkinen et al. / Dimensions of Sustainability Vol. 11 2007 27 Reindeer Herding in Finland The origins of reindeer herding are uncertain, but, by the Middle Ages, several forms of husbandry were developing throughout Circumpolar Eurasia. Today, these range from large-scale tundra-herding, in which reindeer constitute the staple of life (e.g., Nenets in Russia), to small scale taiga-herding, in which reindeer are used for transportation in hunting, fishing and trading (e.g., Khants in Russia) (Jernsletten and Klokov 2002; Anderson and Nuttall 2004). Table 1. Studied neo-enterprises, with selected special features.