Transhumance and Biodiversity in European Mountains

TLDR: In Norway, summer farming has a long history and can be traced back to the Iron Age and even to the Bronze Age as mentioned in this paper, but there was much variation in the local practices, depending on the local natural conditions.

Abstract: Norwegian summer farming has a long history and can be dated back to the Iron Age and even to the Bronze Age. Since the area that can be used for crops is limited in Norway, the pre-industrial agriculture here depended on the resources of outlying land usually above the lowlands. Summer farming was widespread, but there was much variation in the local practices, depending on the local natural conditions. Forest summer farming was common especially in the southeast part of the country and along the coast the islands were used for summer farming. In the mountains summer farms located at different altitudes made it possible to utilize the grazing resources also far from the farm. Many farms had several summer farms with a spring farm near the main farm and one or several summer farms higher up in the mountains. It was common to utilize the summer farms both for hay making and grazing as well as for harvesting of other outfield resources. The distance to the main farm was often too long for transportation of fresh diary products. Instead different milk products were produced at the summer farm, a production demanding large amounts of wood. Many mountain summer farms were therefore situated in the subalpine birch forest where both wood for fuel and alpine pastures were available. The summer farming created an open landscape where the flora from the lowland and the alpine meadows met. Depending on the ecological conditions and types of utilization several different semi-natural vegetation types were developed. They may be identified according to Fremstad (1997) as for example moist poor meadows, Deschampsia cespitosa meadows, Nardus stricta meadows, Potentilla crantzii-Festuca ovina meadows, Trollius europaeus meadows, but also as different dwarf shrub heaths and fens. The golden period of summer farming was in the 19 century. During the 20 century the land use has changed and the number of summer farms has decreased to about 2000. The mountain areas are mostly used for sheep grazing. Due to the decrease in summer farming activities, a large-scale overgrowing and reduced biodiversity are now characterizing the mountain area situation in Norway. 8 I. Austad, A. Norderhaug, L. Hauge & A. Moen