Research on point burning to improve ground level on the Bergträskryggen

On Bergträskryggen, five kilometers north of Råneå, branches and tops from forestry are burned in a clearing.

Elle Eriksson is a gamekeeper and reindeer herding Sámi in Gällivare forest Sámi village. She is responsible for the research project that investigates how so-called point burning can improve the conditions for ground lav - an important staple food for reindeer during the winter.

- This place has been a very important grazing ground for the Sami village. Since those conditions have disappeared over time, we hope in the long run to be able to recreate them so that the marcus thrives in this place again, says Elle Eriksson, PhD student at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Umeå (SLU).

Collaborates with Sveaskog

For two days, around 20 students from SLU participated in the work, together with the landowner Sveaskog.

The idea is to reduce the competing ground vegetation and at the same time leach nutrients because lichen needs nutrient-poor soil to grow.

- In some places we also set fire to trees. It is to benefit the natural values ​​of this place, says Elle Eriksson.

Then the professor hopes for results

The project is more extensive than an earlier, smaller point burning in the Luokta-Máva Sámi village in Arjeplogsfjällen. On the Bergträskryggen, the researchers will monitor how both the soil lichen and the biological diversity develop after the burning.

- We do this on a large scale and follow up much more carefully. Partly the lichen grazing, partly the biological diversity in the form of soil fungi that are inventoried before and after, says Lars Östlund, professor at SLU.

He hopes that the lichen bait will improve here already within a few years.

- It is because we have opened up this forest which has been a little too dense, says Lars Östlund.