Breheimen National Park

The reindeers habitat include a varied plant life, tied to the high mountain environment: scree slopes, old pine and birch forests, waterfalls and glacial river deltas.

Norway has International responsibility for the security of the Reindeers environment. In the high mountains there is a relatively sparse animal life, aside from the Reindeer, but many of the larger wild animals can be found here such as the Wolverine (jerv), King Eagle (kongeørn), Falcons (jaktfalk) and Buzzards (fjellvåk)

The folk that live around Breheimen National Park have through time been strongly tied to the mountains with hunting and fishing, working on mountain huts and what was the thoroughfare between East and West Norway. There are many cultural sites where traces of Reindeer hunting have been found, with stone age arrowheads and Reindeer 'pits', or hunting graves. There have been tracks found around 3 mountain huts in Breheimen, sleeping areas found on mountainsides from the same time. Hunting of wild Reindeer still happens today, an unbroken tradition of 9,000 years.

There are some examples of the mountain pasture areas that have been restored to use again, one of which is in Vigdalen, Jostedal. Here you can find grazing animals such as sheep, goats and cows.