Saving the mountain foxes from the Arctic

The conservation project Feles Fjellrev presents a good example of conservation practices

Conservation is often overlooked by people, economists and politicians in pursuit of a bigger goal or agenda. But environmental protection does not start and end with climate change and global warming. It actually starts with environmental conservation.

Feles Fjellrev project

In the case of Feles Fjellrev, one of the aims is to save the population of mountain foxes in Norway and Sweden. These animals respect no borders and move freely between the two countries. That is why, under INTERREG Sverige-Norge, funding is provided to protect them.

The programme puts innovative environments and natural heritage at the forefront of its goals and implementation strategies. As every other cross-border cooperation program, it aims at tackling common challenges that cannot be well-solved by any of the countries on their own.

The project was organized under the auspices of University of Stockholm and a research group led by Professor Anders Angerbjör and has two parts. The first one studies the demography, genetics and interactions of the mountain fox. The second part includes a conservation and monitoring program in the cross-border region.

The participants include board administration in Jämtland, Västerbotten, the counties of Sør Trøndelag, Nord Trøndelag and Nordland as well as Norsk institutt for naturforskning (NINA) the Norwegian Environment Agency and the World wildlife fund, WWF.

The size of the project is a very significant one with total funding available of more than 4 million euro.