En regional analyse af bæreevnens udvikling i de færøske hauger

Abstract

Until the Faroese sea fishing began in the middle of last century, agriculture was the dominant occupation. Sheepbreeding assumed an outstanding position, althougt it was carried on rather extensively.

Already in 1298 a special law for the Faroe Islands, Seyðabrævið (the sheep letter) was passed, which among other points stated that »the number of sheep to be kept on an area of pasture land shall be the same as it was in previous times, unless men see that it can accomodate more«. This figure, in the Faroese language called the seyðaskipan (orjust skipan), expressed the carrying capacity of each individual location, and to this day, it is used as an expression of the optimum carrying capacity, for the various parts of the islands.

The seyðaskipan has changed through history, generally with a rather marked decline since the seventeenth century, but the development is characterised by considerable regional differences. It is the purpose of this regional study to judge, how the development of this optimum can be interpreted in a predominently »human-ecological« way, and to stress some socio-economic features of development, which are necessary to explain the development.

Several circumstances have to be taken into account: Systematic errors due to false information in surveys and taxations; changes in the sheep race due to replacement of the stock after an extensive mortality in connextion with a severe winter (a socalled felli), which could influence both sheep size and slaughterpercent; generel trends in climatic variations and overgrazing related to these trends; changes in the territorial organization of the sheepgrazing system and especially the generel development from private ownership to the single sheep ('kenning'), to joint management of the sheep, and ownership based on the farmers' share of the total value of the village - the socalled 'markatal' ('feli').

It is concluded, that a general reduction in the carrying capacity might be related to a climatic decline in connexion with, or
even making worse, tendencies of overgrazing. The influence of the change from 'kenning' to 'feli' is given high priority too,
and is also evaluated as a factor which should lower the areal-productivity and the grazing pressure. The reasons for this development has however no ecological explanation, but has been social induced because of the growing fragmentation of private property. A lowering of the areal productivity due to this change is not supported by the regional analysis. 

A slight growing productivity in the last century (measured as a growing slaughterpercent in a period of constant overall skipari) can be primary related to the introduction of drugs, which counteracts the generally declining efficiency in the use of the biological grazing potential, due to a steady lowering of the labour input.