TO MOST PEOPLE, one reindeer looks much like another. But for Anders-Erling Fjallas, one of the Sami people indigenous to northern Sweden, it is easy to tell which reindeer belongs to whom. "We carve our brand in their ears with a knife when the calves are a few months old," says Mr Fjallas, who owns about 700 of the animals. Once hunter-gatherers, the Sami switched to herding reindeer (caribou) in the Middle Ages. Nowadays they move with their herds between the lowlands and the mountains. But their lifestyle is threatened by development.
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