Élise Lépy

University of Oulu

For decades, a post-Cold War narrative heralded a 'new Arctic', with melting ice and snow and accessible resources that would build sustainable communities. Today, large parts of the Arctic are still trapped in the path dependencies of past resource extraction. At the same time, the impetus for green transitions and a 'new industrialism' spell oppo...

For decades, a post-Cold War narrative heralded a 'new Arctic', with melting ice and snow and accessible resources that would build sustainable communities. Today, large parts of the Arctic are still trapped in the path dependencies of past resource extraction. At the same time, the impetus for green transitions and a 'new industrialism' spell oppo...

Place-based education and, more specifically, field-base education, is increasingly considered an effective way to enhance learning experiences . By connecting academic curriculum with different ways of knowing and practicing, these are seen as potentially transformative experiences that can offer participants enriching opportunities to learn about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3XMVYSXHu8 The Nordic Centre of Excellence REXSAC has conducted research with the overall aim of contributing with new knowledge needed to develop practices and processes that ensure the sustainability of Arctic communities in a rapidly changing social, political, cultural, and ecological environment. We are now p...

The report originates from a two-day workshop held in Kiruna in 2018, when the research networks CLINF, ReiGN and REXSAC arranged the event together with reindeer herders from Norway, Sweden and Finland. It reports the cahllenges and opportunities related to supplementary feeding experienced by reindeer herders.

Denne rapporten har sin opprinnelse i en slik kunnskapsutveksling mellom reindriftsutøvere fra de nordiske landene. Resultatene som presenteres er basert på erfaringer, kunnskap, innsikt og aktivt engasjement i skriveprosessen fra reindriftsutøvere som deltok fra ulike regioner i reindriftsområdene i Norge, Sverige og Finland. Vi håper at dette sam...

Combining different knowledge systems by collaborative processes is widely recognized within environmental governance. In the context of co-management of natural resources, the benefits of integrating different knowledge systems are seen as leading to both an increased empowerment of local communities, as well as a way to identify and clarify the p...

Matching knowledge Demand, research Funding and knowledge Supply (DFS) is important in order to enhance societally and policy relevant research, target funding appropriately and enhance the connectivity between science, policy and society. The DFS field around reindeer management in Finland offers a fertile case study to examine interconnected and...

We examine roles and knowledge by which researchers can enhance connections between science, policy, and society. We arranged a participatory scenario workshop with representatives from environmental administration to discuss how different land-use governance arrangements link to sustainability of reindeer herding in northern Finland. We used fast...

This paper explores the adaptation possibilities of reindeer herding regarding environmental changes at the Northernmost Swedish-Finnish border region. Four herding communities of Könkämäeno-Muonionjoki River Valley were chosen due to the cultural and environmental diversity of the region and the similarities of livelihood challenges. The objective...

In Finnish Lapland, reindeer herders’ activity is strongly dependent on the surrounding natural environment, which is directly exposed to environmental changes and climatic variations. By assessing whether there is any evidence of change in climate in Fell Lapland over the last 50 years, this paper attempts to link global climatic trends with local...

Cet article porte sur la perception du temps par les éleveurs de rennes de Laponie finlandaise. Il s’appuie sur les méthodes et résultats d’un projet plus large (CLICHE) qui traitait de l’impact de la variabilité climatique sur les communautés d’éleveurs de rennes et leur environnement naturel. Ce projet avait pour ambition d’envisager des strat...

Reindeer herding is an emblematic livelihood for Northern Finland, culturally important for local people and valuable in tourism marketing. We examine the livelihood resilience of Finnish reindeer herding by narrowing the focus of general resilience on social-ecological systems (SESs) to a specific livelihood while also acknowledging wider contexts...

(1) Background: In Finland, slippery snowy or icy ground surface conditions can be quite hazardous to human health during wintertime. We focused on the impacts of the variability in weather conditions on tourists' health via documented accidents during the winter season in the Sotkamo area. We attempted to estimate the slipping hazard in a specific...

In this chapter, we analyse two empirically identified challenges for examining the interplay of global change and local concerns: (i) making science meaningful for local tourism stakeholders and (ii) analyzing the effect of global discourses on local worries. We put forward the use of Ontological politics and Assemblage Theory as heuristics in ord...

The major part of the attractiveness of Nordic tourism relies on natural resources and features such as the landscape, the flora, the fauna and the four seasons. Lately, it has been predicted that climate change will alter these preconditions of nature-based tourism destinations, which may have severe consequences for the tourism industry. Neverthe...

In recent decades, the mining industry has expanded globally especially in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. Mines often boost rural economies, but may have also negative impacts on environment and local livelihoods, such as tourism and reindeer herding. That is why acceptability and undeniable right to operate – the social licence (SL) to mine ha...

Spatial and temporal variability of Baltic Sea ice conditions greatly highlights the regional climate variations. In this context, it seems relevant to attempt a historical reconstruction of sea ice conditions. Data sources are mainly historical, literary, statistical or even cartographic. This article sheds light on the history of Baltic Sea ice c...

The Baltic Sea is one of the major maritime highway. During the middle ages, many of its southern ports belonged to the Hanseatic League. Since then, maritime traffic in the Baltic Sea has grown, having its trading activities internationalised through the diffusion of new shipping technologies. In 2007, the volume of cargo handled in Baltic ports w...

In socio-ecological research, the focus and the conceptual grounding as well as the scales of analysis have shifted several times in recent decades between global and local dynamics and the general rules of evolution and specific local adaptations. Nowadays, the main paradigm emphasises the embeddedness of socio-ecological systems and conceptual to...

This article contributes to many studies on sea ice often carried out by geophysicists and rarely by geographers. Thus, it aims to understand climatic and marine processes of ice formation and break-up of littoral waters and coastal sea, and their environmental, economic and societal consequences in the Baltic Sea. The interest of this research lie...

The study deals with the seasonal ice growth and melting phenomena on littorals and marine areas in the Gulfs of Bothnia and Riga (Baltic Sea), and the sea ice impact on their physical and human environments. The purpose is to understand climatic and marine processes of ice formation and break-up of littoral waters and coastal sea, and on their env...

La thèse se propose d'étudier le phénomène de prise en glace saisonnière sur les littoraux et les espaces marins proches des Golfes de Botnie et de Riga (Mer Baltique), et l'impact de ces glaces marines hivernales sur leurs milieux physiques et humains. La problématique s'interroge donc sur les processus climato-maritimes responsables de l'embâcle...

Marine ice melting topic is a repetitive phenomenon in alarmist speeches on climate change. The present positive evolution of air temperatures has in all probability many impacts on the environment and more or less directly on societies. Face to the temperature elevation, the ice pack is undergone to an important temporal variability of ice growth...

Sea ice melting topic is a repetitive phenomenon in alarmist speeches on climate change. The present positive evolution of air temperatures has in all probability many impacts on the environment and more or less directly on societies. Face to the temperature elevation, the ice pack is undergone to an important temporal variability of ice growth and...