Accommodation fields as a solution to mitigate conflict between humans and barnacle geese

Barnacle geese population breeding in the arctic Barents Sea area has increased strongly over the last 40 years to its present population size of about 1 600 000 individuals. A large proportion of the Arctic geese population migrates through eastern Finland back and froth between breeding and wintering areas. Up to 600 000 – 800 000 barnacle geese stop over and forage on fields and cause damage to agriculture and crop (hay and cereal). The compensation of the damage has also increased strongly and in 2020 it reached over 3 000 000€.

Accommodation fields has been proposed as a solution to mitigate the conflict between the geese and humans. On accommodation field, geese are allowed to rest and forage without disturbance, which may then decrease the extra flying and movements of geese due to chasing them away from fields. This may decrease energy requirements and damage caused by geese.

In this project (2021-2022), our aim is to examine the ecological, socioeconomic and societal functioning of accommodation goose fields in Northern Karelia (Pohjois-Karjala). Our aims are examine 1) farmers willingness to establish accommodation fields on their land, 2) conduct landscape-scale planning of accommodation fields with farmers, 3) functioning and research of accommodation fields, 4) behavior of geese and 5) socioeconomic acceptance and cost-efficiency of accommodation fields.