Climate change forces Sami reindeer herders to adapt

2020-05-29 2

With milder winters in Sweden, members of the country's indigenous Sami community who herd reindeer say that changing weather patterns are forcing them to travel further and spend more money searching for food to stop their animals from starving. Unseasonably high temperatures cause the snow to thaw and freeze again when the cold returns, building up thicker layers of ice that prevent reindeer from digging down through the snow to the lichen that sustains them throughout the winter months.