When Climate Change Turns Good Plant Bad–A Dynamic Multispecies Model of Reindeer Herding in a Changing Arctic

Pham M. Nhat (), Claire W. Armstrong, Charles B. Sims and Kari Anne Bråthen
Additional contact information
Pham M. Nhat: Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Claire W. Armstrong: Norwegian College of Fishery Science, UiT The Arctic University of Norway
Charles B. Sims: The University of Tennessee
Kari Anne Bråthen: UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Environmental & Resource Economics, 2025, vol. 88, issue 5, No 5, 1297-1337

Abstract: Abstract In many Nordic countries, climate-induced encroachment of the native and allelopathic Empetrum nigrum (crowberry) on other palatable vegetation decreases pasture quality for the culturally important reindeer herds. Unfortunately, current pasture management plans do not include pasture quality indicators. To argue for the importance of pasture quality and provide adaptation guidance, we develop a three-species bioeconomic model (reindeer-vegetation-crowberry) with three controls (reindeer slaughter, supplementary feeding of reindeer, and crowberry control). Our model indicates that without human intervention, vegetation biomass and reindeer herd size will decline due to crowberry’s allelopathic effects, resulting in 42% loss in reindeer stock and 40% (100 million NOK) profit loss. Human interventions, specifically supplementary feeding and crowberry control, reduces the profit loss by half. To incentivize these interventions, which are partially public goods, the paper proposes a conditional subsidy program that only compensates herders for crowberry control when the shadow value of crowberry becomes negative. This approach can be generalized to other regions experiencing similar ecological changes, in which habitat quality is a crucial yet often overlooked factor.

Keywords: Allelopathic Encroachment; Bioeconomic Modelling; Reindeer Husbandry; Supplementary Feeding; Empetrum nigrum (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10640-025-00966-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:enreec:v:88:y:2025:i:5:d:10.1007_s10640-025-00966-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... al/journal/10640/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10640-025-00966-2

Access Statistics for this article

Environmental & Resource Economics is currently edited by Ian J. Bateman

More articles in Environmental & Resource Economics from Springer, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().