Text «The reindeer´s invisible world» included in art catalogue for Åfjord Art Month 2025

This Autumn I have written a text for an art catalogue, "Åfjord Art Month 2025", in relation to an art exhibition that takes place this month (November 2025). Specifically, I wrote the text «Reinsdyrets usynlige verden» for Ingvild Melberg Eikeland´s art installation at this art exhibition, which takes place in Åfjord municipality (pp. 48–50 in the art catalogue). An English translation, «The reindeer´s invisible world», is also included in the art catalogue (pp. 51–53). Eikeland´s art work and my text draws on the Umwelt theory of Jakob von Uexküll.

Norwegian animal ethics conference 2021 held in Alta

On November 11th I was in Alta, attending Dyreetikkonferansen 2021, which had the theme "Dyrevelferd i reindriften: Utfordringer og løsninger" (Animal welfare in reindeer husbandry: Challenges and solutions). The conference was held at Scandic hotel Alta, and attended by some 30 people physically. It was also followed by some 100 people nationally via live streaming.

This year I have only been involved on par with the other members of Norway´s Council for animal ethics, which organizes the Norwegian animal ethics conference.

The conference has been mentioned in the Saami newspapers Avvir and Sagat.

"Wolf land" article referred to in "Habitat Model for a Recolonizing Wolf (Canis lupus) population in Finland"

My article

Tønnessen, Morten 2010. Wolf Land. Biosemiotics 3.3: 289–297 (online version, published April 23, 2010: DOI: 10.1007/s12304-010-9077-x).

is cited in 

Kaartinen, Salla, Harri Antikainen and Ilpo Kojola (2015). Habitat Model for a Recolonizing Wolf (Canis lupus) population in Finland. Annales Zoologici Fennici 52: 77–89.

Excerpt (pp. 77-78):

In Fennoscandinavia, the primary reason for the presently small number of wolves is presumably wolf-human conflicts, including wolf predation on semi domesticated reindeer herds in Northern parts of Norway, Sweden and Finland and sheep flocks especially in Norway, as well as wolf attacks on dogs, a problem that concerns all Nordic countries (Kojola & Kuittinen 2002, [...] Tønnesen 2010).

Kautokeino achievements

These last two days in Kautokeino Paul Thibault and I have conducted three video-recorded interviews. This brings the total so far up to seven (including the pilot study in Kristiansand), and 4-5 hours of recordings.

We have also stopped by at The International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry, the reindeer department (Reindriftsavdelingen) at Fylkesmannen i Finnmark, Kautokeino, and the Sami college and reindeer school. We have been based at the Sami university college, Sámi Allaskuvla (in the science building, Diehtosiida in Sami), with the help of its research coordinator Ville Söderbaum.