Høgskulen for
Landbruk og
Bygdeutvikling,
Norway
Holar University College,
Iceland
Holar University
College, Iceland

NORA project 520 – 045
Report ©The Authors, 2013
Grateful thanks given to NORA for the funding for the first year of this project and to all the individuals and organisations who shared their knowledge, experience and expertise with us.
Cover photo: R Evans

1) Introduction
2) Formal description of RNNB project a.
Project Aims: b.
Project objectives: c.
Project Outcomes d.
Rationale e.
Methodology f.
Project design g.
Further Plans h.
Project Plan and timeline i.
Participants
3) Activities in the First Year/First Phase of project
4) What was learned in the first year of the Riding Nordic Native Breeds Project a.
Equine tourism in the Faroes b.
Equine tourism in Norway c.
Equestrian Tourism in Iceland d.
Emergent Issues i.
Native breeds as Cultural Heritage Artefacts ii.
Economic Imperative iii.
Horse tourism as sustainable tourism
5) Summary of first year lessons from the RNNB project
6) Conclusions

Introduction
The Riding Native Nordic Breeds project aims to focus new attention on the equine tourism sector in the NORA area, promoting it both internationally and within the region. It aims to learn Best Practice from operators across the region and to share this with them in order to support and encourage more operators to enter the field, and those already in it to consider new ways to enhance their businesses.
The three native breeds considered in the project – Icelandic horse, Fjord horse and Faroes pony – are each unique to the specific places in which they were bred and with which they are associated. Thus, they are part of, and represent the cultural landscapes in which they have been historically situated. Similar to other native breed species, modes of farming and cultivation, and modes of building, they are cultural heritage resources and potentially treasures which can be assets for rural development in these places. The project offers opportunities to meet the objectives of preservation of biodiversity of domestic animals by finding new economic imperative for native breeds.
The three places studied (Iceland, Western Norway, Faroes) vary considerably in the amount of horse tourism that takes place, and in the ways it is structured in terms of activities, markets and marketing, and regulation. In the first year of the project we held meetings in each locale with industry representations and organisations in order to map their situations.
This Report presents the findings from this first year of activity.
The Project was planned as a two year project, with the first year dedicated to datagathering and establishing links and a network of informants. To this end, small meetings were held in each locale; Hólar, Iceland; Torshavn, Faroes and Western Norway. In the second year, the information which has been gathered will be collated into two key documents – a Good Practice Guide for Horse Tourism in the North Atlantic Region, and the
Final Report in formal and publically-accessible versions -- which will be publicized in the three regions. These outputs aredesigned to offer existing operators new ideas for improving their businesses and to encourage new operators to enter the field. The Good
Practice Guide will be a generic document, compiled from a series of Good Practice and
Certification guides gathered in other jurisdictions and from the analysis of data gathered in interviews, etc, which will help each individual horse tourism business set its own quality benchmarks, and which can be used as a basis for a regional certification quality standard if desired. In the second year, it is planned to hold larger, public meetings in each locale to draw attention to the final products of the project and to establish the beginnings of a network of native breed horse tourism operators in order to bridge the distance and differences within the sector with a view to encouraging the actors themselves to make it easier for customers to access the products.
This Report summarizes the project, and the results achieved so far. It begins with a formal description of the project, a summary of First Year Activities, and the ‘lessons learned’ so far.

Formal Description of the Riding Nordic Native Breeds Project
Project Aims:
This project aims to support and strengthen the native breed equine tourism sector in
Western Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands. This refers to businesses providing a tourism experience using native horse breeds within local landscapes. The experience across the three highlighted regions and native breeds varies considerably in terms of landscape, support, and levels of activity and development. Through engaging practitioners in the exploration of innovative business models, best practice can be shared across locales and situations. This will strengthen collaboration in the sector across the North Atlantic region where there currently is none. The Project will highlight models of innovative business practice which will facilitate the further development of the sector which will provide sustainable jobs in a sector which capitalizes on the landscape and genetic assets of the region.
Project objectives:
Obj 1) To gather best practice information from existing native breed equine tourism enterprises and programmes in Norway, Iceland and the Faroe Islands and to generate knowledge to share across practitioners and policy circles in the regions.
Obj 2) To understand the complex and compelling human-horse-land relationship inherent in the native breed equine tourism concept in order to provide more effective marketing.
Project Outcomes
This project will gather knowledge which exists in an isolated condition amongst existing experts and make it available across the North Atlantic Region. This will contribute towards creating a more sustainable sector delivering native breed equine tourism services through improvement in breed conservation and promotion strategies, improved business models for enterprises providing the services and more effective marketing of the locations and the activities. Given that the loss of the historic purposes for these native breed horses has affected their viability both commercially and as a breed, this project will develop the practices to once more provide an economic justification for the development and preservation of the breeds.
Rationale
Given the rapid rise of ‘Adventure Tourism’ and other forms of outdoor recreation tourism, equine tourism has a potentially important role to play in the development of nature-based tourism in rural areas across the North. Norway, Iceland and the Faroes all possess native breed horses which were originally adapted to life in their particular landscapes. Now both the landscapes and the native breeds are increasingly co-identified with the specific places.

This articulation of horse breed, landscape and region offers a unique opportunity to market these places across new modalities.
Native horse breeds can operate as authentic elements of the rural landscape experience.
The role of native breeds has changed dramatically over the last century, resulting in the extinction or near extinction of some equine breeds which have not been assigned a new role in a new economy. Their preservation and promotion addresses new values which parallel the growth of interest in authentic heritage, diversity in genetic material and the preservation of cultural heritage, both factors of increasing global interest which can be further promoted.
Three Nordic horse breeds will be the focus of this project;
1) The Faroese horse that is near extinction, with efforts now under way to restore the breed.
2) The Fjord horse in Norway, which forms the basis of a small but growing equine tourism sector in coastal Norway.
3) The Icelandic horse, which is very important to tourism in Iceland as well as being exported to and bred in many countries across three continents.
In each case practitioners are involved, sharing their practices with a view to identifying how enterprises in each area can maximize the market reach, profitability and sustainability of their businesses. In addition, the information gathered and shared will support policies, strategies and policy makers in order to encourage new entrants in the sector and to link existing enterprises for maximal impact at local, national and international scopes.
The project is constructed using a Triple Helix model in a collaboration between actual equine tourism enterprises, development agencies and academic experts. Each will bring to the table existing expertise, and a willingness to share and learn. To strengthen the foundations for knowledge-claims the project also involves collaboration with rural tourism research and human-equine relation studies being conducted in other regions across
Europe.
The informants are tasked with setting the agenda in terms of identifying factors for success, etc. But factors considered include categories such as: marketing strategies; membership in networks (tourism networks, horse breed networks, regional, national and international equine networks); partnerships; use of social networking and other digital media; training requirements for both horses and practitioners; business structures; financing and other funding support; authenticity; and effective breed preservation strategies. The Project supports the formation of clusters of native breed equine tourism operators at national and international levels. The project has also worked with informants to identify what it is about the human-horse relationship, produced and experienced in a landscape, which is compelling for tourists, in order to help identify how to best represent and market the experience across the world.

The project is designed to involve existing native breed equine businesses in knowledge formation and in the dissemination of that knowledge and will form the foundation of further efforts, beyond the geographic remit of the NORA funding, to develop knowledge about equine tourism in general, and native breed tourism in particular, to networks in the
NORA regions and beyond.
Methodology
The project uses Case Study Methodology (CSM), including the creation of a Case Study
Protocol which is applicable across all field sites, allowing gathered knowledge to be consistent across regions and businesses. Information was gathered in the field using indepth interviews at practitioners’ locations, and has been organised and analysed with a view to sharing best practice across the participants. Given that a key outcome of this project is the improvement of the viability of native breed equine tourism businesses in all three regions, the sharing of the information (both data and results) has, and will further take place in face to face meetings in which informants will be brought together in a workshop format seminar in order to share, discuss and evaluate the data and analysis. As all research has been conducted in collaboration with identified practitioners and agencies, their practices and priorities form the set of values which the project will report.
Project design
Two workshop/meetings were planned in each of the three regions. The first set was designed to generate knowledge and the second will share the compiled and analysed results. As each region is at a different stage of development, the meetings have been sized appropriately. In the Faroes, where there are just over sixty Faroese horses extant, the first meetings were small, informal and directed towards consciousness-raising and the second will be more oriented to celebrating the breed. Norway’s Fjord region, with a history of breed preservation and medium scale development hosted a two day meeting and in the second year will host a two-day national level meeting/workshop at the
Norskfjordehestesenter (NFS). In the second year, Iceland, with a long history of development of the Icelandic breed will host a three day final seminar in which the history of the international development of the breed status will be explored as well as the national strategies and learning already undertaken by the sector. The first knowledge-gathering meetings took place in each location with the participation of local actors and the project participants, and were held in the first year of the project. The second set of workshops will include these plus key actors/participants from all three regions.
Further Plans
Due to the existing lack of codification and collaboration of vital knowledge across the North
Atlantic Region, this project can be seen as the generation of baseline knowledge and collaboration. As a result, it is designed to generate knowledge in a form which is available for immediate use by existing and new practitioners in the NORA region. As such, it forms a stand- alone project. It will also, however, form the basis for an additional application for support from various funding sources to include other partners in non-NORA regions across
Europe. Some of these have already been recruited, including Scottish, Irish and French

horse tourism organisations, Finnish partners and potential partners in Canada. This will add further additionality to the networks being established in the North Atlantic Region, plus allow entrepreneurs to gain access to an even wider range of experiences. In addition, the knowledge and collaboration generated will form the basis of further attempts to raise support to actually create an international network of providers who can share best practice, knowledge on an on-going basis and perhaps collaborate on joint marketing initiatives.
Although the latter is beyond the immediate remit of this project, the project will provide the opportunity, where none now exists, for practitioners to consider this.
Project Plan and timeline
The project has two phases, which match the two years of funding applied for. The first involves the generation of knowledge from practitioners and experts. It will take the form of both face to face meetings with them, and some desk-based explorations. In this phase, the knowledge gathered will begun to be collated in a form suitable for sharing and will be validated in the secondphase. The second phase includes a second set of face to face and public meetings, which will include a wider representation of the sector and will validate the knowledge generated from the first phase plus disseminate it more widely. These two
Phases will mostly occur in the second year. Finally, the second phasewill take everything learned from the previous actions and format it into a Final Report and web-dissemination materials.
Phase 1.1: First round of knowledge-generation workshop/meetings, undertaken in the first year. See agendas in attachments 1-3
1) Iceland
-Visit by three project staff to Holar University, Iceland and local Icelandic horse development centres to meet with local entrepreneurs and tourism development staff.
2) Norway:
-Visit by three project staff to Norske Fjordehestesenter to meet with NFS informants plus appropriate local tourism development officers from local and regional authorities.
3) Faeroes:
-Visit by two project staff to meet with recruited Faroysk horse enterprises and
Faroese Breed organisation, plus Faroese tourism development officers.
Phase I.2: Collation of information and preparation of Interim Report identifying existing and potential factors and strategies for successful development of the sector.
Phase I2..1: Second round of knowledge-exchange and dissemination workshop/meetings.
1) Faroes
-Day Workshop to promote the local Faroese horse breed, and the knowledge generated by the project.

-Featuring one key informant each from Norway and Iceland, local actors and entrepreneurs, local tourism development officers.
-This event will be well publicized and all in the tourism and equine sectors will be invited.
2) Norway
-Two-day workshop on knowledge sharing, dissemination and business development with existing practitioners and potential new entrants, to be held in conjunction with Annual Fjordhest Show.
-Featuring three project staff, key informants from Faeroes and Iceland, local actors and entrepreneurs, local tourism officers.
-This event will be well publicized and all in the tourism and equine sectors will be invited.
3) Iceland
-Three day workshop/seminar showcasing the history of Icelandic horse breed preservation and development strategies, sharing of knowledge from other regions, plus discussion and verification of the interim report and preliminary results.
-This event will also address the key issue that there is more to horse-based tourism than riding, focusing on issues such as training, regulation, transport, horse shows, competition/racing, horse roundups, dissemination of the history of the horse , etc.
-Featuring all project staff, and key informants/actors from each region.
-Discussions will be held on ways to take existing momentum forward including the production of sector clusters, the creation of international networks to promote native breed equine tourism, and other methods of promoting excellence in the sector.
-This event will be well publicized (nationally and internationally) and all in the tourism and equine sectors (across the Triple Helix model) will be invited.
Phase 2.2: Final Results and Dissemination
-The results from the three final workshops will be collated and a Final Report produced. This will include a review of existing practices and recommendations on ways to maximize the vitality, profitability and market share of the native breed equine tourism sector across the regions.
-An Equine Tourism Good Practice Guide will be created, suitable for all equine tourism businesses across the region. It can form the basis of an individual business’ practice, or serve as a guide to the formation of a national set of quality standards.
-Efforts will be made to capitalize on existing collaborations with the aim of applying for support for further network generation, potential joint marketing initiatives and support for best-practice generation and training within the sector.
-Web and print-based dissemination strategies will be undertaken.

Participants
Project staff: Academic Institutions
- Dr Rhys Evans Høgskulen for Landbruk og Bygdeutvikling, Norway,
-Prof. Guðrún Helgadóttir PhD, Holar University College, Iceland,
- Assistant professor Ingibjörg Sigurðardóttir M.Sc., Holar University College, Iceland
Key Informants/Industry representatives
Equine Tourism enterprises and organisations: Practitioners
-Norway: AS Norsk fjordhestsenter, Nordfjordeid;
-Iceland: Lýtingsstaðir Horse tourism, Skagafjörður; The Icelandic Horse History Center,
Skagafjörður
-Faroe Islands: Felagnum Føroysk Ross
Development agencies/local authorities
-Western Norway: Våkn, Eid Kommune;
-Iceland: Municipality of Skagafjördur, -Faroe Islands: Torshavn municipal tourism office
Activities in the First Year/First Phase of project
This section of this Report details some of the activities which occurred in the first year of the project.
1) A Project meeting was held in Torshavn in January 2012.
-The project team met with various government and municipal officials, including from Tourism and Development, Fróðskaparsetrið university and the Agricultural research station.
- Businesses in horse base tourism were visited, and operators using Faroese and
Icelandic horses interviewed.
- Visits were made to two sites where the Faroese horses are kept. Planning was undertaken to help our partners advance their agenda.
-A model was built of ‘endangered species tourism’, developed and shared with
Faroese partners. Representations of and for this model were made with numerous officials. It was discovered that an opportunity existed to provide destinations for cruise ship passengers and that this would provide a tourism model of good horse welfare. An interview was given on Public Radio about the project.

2) A Project meeting was held in Nordfjord, in Norway, at the Fjordhestesenter in
March2012.
-Representatives were gathered from surrounding horse tourism operators. Their views were solicited and presentations were given by a number of key actors in the sector. Participants also included representatives of the Nord Norskhest prosjekt – a parallel project based in Nordland and Troms counties with native breed horses of their own. The meeting was publicized in the local print media and on National Radio
(NRK).
3) A Project Meeting was held in Holar, Iceland October 2011 to formulate the project, which included visits to local tourism enterprises and local authority development officers responsible for equine tourism policy. Presentations were given to students and staff at HUC about the Faroese horse and asset based rural economy, which is a premise for the project.
4) A linked project was established in northern Norway, an area outwith the geographic remit of NORA. This porject – the Nord Norskhester Prosjekt – focuses on the
Nordland/Lynghest native breeds and tourism operators in these regions. It uses a very similar plan to the RNNB Project so that data gathered there will be compatible with this project. In addition, participants in the Nordnorskhest project will attend the final RNNB meeting in Iceland to share their findings. It is hoped that the approximately 30 proprietors associated with the Nordnorskhest project will join with those in the RNNB project to form new networks.
5) Preliminary results were presented in three papers by three of the project team at the first international symposium on equine tourism in Saumur France, May 2012. (Equimeeting turisme, http://equimeeting-tourisme.blogscheval.net/ ). These will become chapters in a book to be published after the conference, edited by one of the project staff. Relations were also established with the Federation Internationale de Turisme
Équestre – the international organisation concerned with horse tourism with a view to encouraging Icelandic and Norwegian participation in the Federation.
6) Preliminary findings were also presented in a presentation at the North Atlantic Forum conference, held in Iceland in June 2013.
7) Presentation was also made of the preliminary findings at the World Congress of the
International Society of Rural Sociology in Lisbon, Portugal in August 2012. Further relations were established with other researchers who focus on equine tourism.
8) A presentation about the project was given at the 60 th anniversary of the Highland Pony
Trekking Society in Scotland on Sept 22, 2012. This meeting had Royal patronage and attracted much publicity.

9) Good Practice Guides for equine tourism have been gathered from Scotland, Iceland,
France and Norway. These will guide the creation of a central GPG.
10) On the basis of building a network of native breed tourism proprietors and agencies, contacts have been established with native breed organisations in Estonia, Finland,
Sweden (2), Scotland and Ireland. Contact has also been made with native breed organisations in Canada.
11) Further presentations of the partial results of the project have been communicated in international conferences (Nantes, France; North Atlantic Forum, Iceland; Active
Countryside Tourism, Leeds UK); and further chapters discussing equine tourism in the
Nordic countries have been commissioned in another book to be published in the UK.
Photo: R Evans

What was learned in the first year of the Riding Nordic Native Breeds Project
Although the project focuses on the local native breeds – in the case of Norway, the Fjord horse and Nordland horse -- as in so many places around the world, much of the growth of equine tourism that is happening occurs with non-native breeds, especially the Icelandic horse. This is a phenomenon we found in both Norway and the Faroes, and web searches make it clear that it is happening elsewhere as well. The successful marketing of the
Icelandic Horse as the ideal tourism horse means it often competes with native breeds in their home markets.
The project has led to a broader perception of horse based tourism, from a focus on equestrian tourism that is where the tourist is a rider, to the broader term equine tourism which also involves engagement with the history and contemporary situation of horses and the role of spectator at horse events.
Equine tourism in the Faroes
The Faroes receive over 40 cruise ship visits a year and our informants and research on passenger blog sites suggest that the local Tourism Agencies struggle to find events and sites suitable for their passengers to visit on their layover on the islands. The Faroes are a small territory with a small population so it is important to strengthen the infrastructure for tourism to cope with the large cruise ship groups in such a way to provide attractions and facilities that will generate income locally and improve the visitor experience.
The situation in the Faroes is unique in its micro scale. With so few of the breed in existence
(under 65 at the time of writing), building a traditional equestrian tourism sector based on these numbers is a non-starter. However, as part of the RNNB project, a form of
“endangered species tourism” concept was drawn up, and has, in the last year, been well received and supported by local authorities.
In the case of the Faroese Pony, the horses were fully integrated into Island life and it is clear that they are present in many of the historical stories, just as they are present in many historical images. Thus, the story of these ponies is part of the story of human life on the
Faroes and one risk arising from their endangered status is the loss of these parts of the story of what it means to be Faroese. Thus, there is more than simple sentiment in preserving the breed. It is a key part of preserving the cultural landscape which is the Faroe
Islands.
The Faroese horse is a small horse, it is sturdy in build and has a history as a strong work horse. It has not gained much popularity as a riding horse where imported breeds have become more favoured. The preservation of the breed has been undertaken by volunteers forming a society for the purpose and initial results indicate that awareness raising locally is a first step and secondly forming working relations between destination marketing and tourism operators and the breeders of the Faroese horse. Interviews indicated lack of awareness of the need to preserve the breed, lack of appreciation of the potence of its history as a resource for product development in tourism and even negative attitudes toward the Faroese horse as a riding horse. The idea is to build a Breed Centre which

features a riding ring, as well as stabling, where a core stock of horses could be kept and bred. The Centre would also operate a café/souvenir shop and provide a small interpretation centre with old material culture from the days when the ponies still worked on the land. The
Centre can host coach loads of cruise ship tourists who will each pay a small amount to watch a demonstration of the horses in the ring, ridden by the young women who are passionately involved in saving the breed. In this way, the Centre will raise money to support breeding programmes amongst the horses scattered across the 19 Faroe Islands, the riders will have part-time jobs working with the horses, and the cruise ship passengers will depart content knowing that their small spend will go to support this plucky ancient native breed which is so intimately entwined in the production of human life on the islands. Key to the success of this model is the creation of a Breed Centre, for which structures and funds are currently being sought.
Photo: Felagnum Føroysk Ross
Equine tourism in Norway.
Compared to the two other case study nations, Norway has medium numbers of horses and a relatively small equine tourism sector. Interestingly, given the relatively high price of tourist services in the country, the cost of horse trekking is quite reasonable on an international scale. The two breed centres (Norsk Fjordhestesenter (Fjord horse), Nord
Norskhestesenter (Nordland horse/Lyngshorse) both support some equine tourism. The
Fjordhestesenter trains students to ‘drive’ (kjøre) fjord horses and operates its own small carriage-based tourism operation in a local ski centre. The breed centre for the
Nordland/Lyngshest also supports tourism operators, even though it is located north of the
Arctic Circle. Arctic winter horse tourism is a growing sector. Interestingly, however, there is no active Norwegian association of equine tourist providers, although one used to exist. As a result, there is no organization able to represent proprietors of equine tourism.
In Norway there is a lack of unified marketing of horse tourism services, and what services exist are the result of key individuals and their passion for the breeds. And, in the highly regulated economy and society of Norway, issues of safety, certification and insurance currently partly restrict the further development of the sector. Here there is a clear need for a more rigorous certification regime that delivers trained professionals able to drive tourist carriages safely and in a manner which makes it easy to insure such services.

Another issue which emerged from our first year meetings in Norway was the need for equine tourism operators to form collaborations with industry bodies. Knowledge of horse keeping is something which one can spend a whole lifetime acquiring, and for horse people, it can be enough just to keep horses working and in working condition, with all the requirements for care and housing. This leaves little room to concentrate on issues such as marketing or customer satisfaction. This was apparent in the way the equine tourism businesses we met operated and marketed themselves. As a result, it has been suggested that Norwegian equine tourism businesses work with the regional ‘reiseliv’ Destination
Organisations in a joint marketing and customer satisfaction campaign. This will assure that the businesses attract more customers and that, in satisfying them, they increase the chances of their return. The beginnings of such an alliance is being undertaken in the
Nordfjord area by one of the industry partners of the RNNB project and the results are eagerly awaited.
Equestrian Tourism in Iceland
Tourism is a rapidly growing sector in Iceland, and in fact, has enjoyed exponential growth during the last two decades. Numbers of foreign visitors in Iceland have more than doubled since 2002. The annual increase in tourist arrivals in Iceland has been 7.3% since 2000. At the same time, worldwide growth in international arrivals was 3.4%.
This massive growth has increased the share of tourism in Iceland’s GDP (gross domestic product), and the share of tourism in export venues and taxes from tourism. Within the tourism sector the greatest growth has been in leisure and recreational activities. The majority of visitors arrive during high season from June to August, but the high season has been elongating, resulting in better utilisation of facilities and better conditions of tourism operations, not the least outside of the capital area.
Equinetourism has been developing in Iceland since 1970. Short and long riding tours are the most common form, but in recent years, other kinds of horse-based activities have become popular among domestic and international guests. Live horse shows and horse-related events attract thousands of guests every year. Equestrian tourism in the form of long riding tours is most common during the summertime because of difficult winter weather conditions but short riding tours and events like competition in riding abilities on ice and indoor shows and competitions are popular during the wintertime.
As it is for reasons of animal health forbidden to import any horses to Iceland, all horse related activity in Iceland is based on the Icelandic horse, which is a native breed, well known worldwide for its gait abilities, variable colours and strong spirit. There are about 77.000
Icelandic horses in Iceland but about 170.000 abroad. Those horses are widely used for tourism.
Several issues have emerged from our interviews with Icelandic horse tourism providers.
Similar to the situation in Norway, there is an acknowledged need to build more

partnerships, both between providers and tourism professionals, but also among providers, so that new ambitious products, especially themed long-distance rides, can be developed.
One respondent, for example, is considering cooperating with other providers to offer long distance tours between significant seasonal horse events such as the regional autumn roundups of horses which have been in the hills all summer. By working together, two or more operators can deliver a bigger or better customer experience than either can alone.
Another issue which has emerged from our interviews is the supply of suitable horses for tourism. Several informants mentioned the difficulties they had with horses bred for shows and competitions, rather than for working. Show horses, particularly those that win, attract the highest prices and so naturally, breeders aim for this. The result is a lack of specialist tourism horses coming from the top breeders. This is a phenomenon not restricted to
Iceland. When we have mentioned this in other locales, from Finland to France, similar responses were received.
Photo: I Sigurdardottir

Native breeds as Cultural Heritage Artefacts
Another issue which arose from the first year’s research is that, as a category, native breeds are more than just horses. Rather, they are the product of a system of breeding – the encounter of human needs and reproductive technologies with the genetic potential of the horses. Native breeds are the result of hundreds of years of careful and skillful breeding by farmers and others which was aimed primarily at producing horses which are optimal for wresting a living from the often difficult northern environments.
These horses had to be strong and robust because they did hard work, often pulling heavy loads, in steep terrain. They had to be robust because there were few resources to care for weak or ill horses. That robustness extended to coping with the cold winters where they not only worked outside in the cold, but also living outside in the hills and valleys over the winter. They needed to be efficient feeders, needing a minimum of supplementary feeding, and they needed to be able to survive without blankets or other covering. Further, their temperament had to be suitable for hard work – intelligent enough to know and remember what to do, yet calm enough that they could be entrusted to younger members of the family when needed. These are some of the qualities which the breeders were looking for in the offspring, and over the years, the distinctive features of the breeds began to emerge.
Photo. R Evans
Many of the traits, which were bred for in the historical practices, also turn out to be very useful in modern days. The calm temperament, solid conformation and relatively slow gait make the Faroes horse ideal for younger riders. As young girls are a key market segment in the growing world of human-horse activities, these breeds can be valuable resources. Similar things can be said about both the Fjord horse and the Icelandic horse too. Qualities which made them ideal for early agricultural work transfer across to modern uses such as therapy horses, leisure horses and horses for children. Thus, they have both a role as

representatives and artefacts of the cultural landscapes, and in the modern world of leisure horse riding.
Economic Imperative
The Norwegian breeds exist in relatively small numbers now, and there were recent reports of a ‘crisis’ in the number of Fjord horse foals born in Norway during 2011, which was less than 200. The breed itself is not under threat, as there are many more of this breed in other places, such as Canada and the USA. However, numbers are stable or declining slightly in
Norway. In the Faroes, their breed is seriously endangered with numbers so low that it is recommended that care be taken with the genetics of breeding the population back to health. Yet, according to our respondents, many Faroes ponies were exported to the UK every year prior to the middle of the 20 th Century to work in mines and other industries.
Populations were high, but once this trade collapsed, so did the numbers of Faroese ponies.
Only the Icelandic horse population has bucked the trend, with the Icelandic horse continuing to flourish both in Iceland, and around the world.
What is the element that unites these situations? It is not just horses. Nor is the significant element the presence of mechanized farm and transport. Rather it is the loss of the
economic imperative, which lay behind the breeding and use of horses. Horses delivered economic benefits because they were part of a technology which enabled human beings to produce surplus from the ecological resources around them. When humans developed more
‘efficient’ technologies, the economic imperative behind the possession of horses disappeared. And so also disappeared the need to breed them. As a result, numbers plummeted.
Three of the four native breeds studied here reflect that loss of economic imperative in their low population numbers but one of them does not follow this trend. What can we learn from this? There are several key factors in the flourishing of the Icelandic breed. Firstly, a conscious decision on breeding policy was made in the early 20 th century to emphasise riding ability over the strength and size of a work horse (Icelandic Horse History Center, n.d.).
Secondly horse riding is extremely popular (the third most popular sporting activity after football and golf) and is still practiced as a family activity (Sigurdardottir 2010). Last but not least, horse tourism is an important industry in Iceland. Estimates suggest that 15 to 18% of all international visitors to Iceland ride horses (Helgadottir & Sigurdardottir 2008).
This means that both a social (family-based) and an economic imperative to breed Icelandic horses continues to exist in Iceland. Further, the marketing and export of Icelandic horses has been developed to become a significant income stream in the sector. The exclusivity of the Iceland Horse Stud Book (the only one in the world) and the monopoly on the production of judges, etc. mean that innovative modern marketing and economic development techniques have been brought to the equine sector in Iceland. The result is over 170.000 Icelandic horses outside of Iceland, and over 77,000 in a country with a population of a third of a million people (WorldFengur 2012).

Of course, like the landscape of Iceland, the situation of the Icelandic Horse is unique and distinct. It is not a simple matter of replicating the Icelandic situation in Norway or on the
Faroe Islands. What, however, is needed is some way of creating new economic imperatives for the use and breeding of these native breeds in the 21 st Century. Possibilities can be found in the new use of horses for therapy and education, for spectator sport, for leisure riding as a counter to growing urban life and its stresses, and particularly, in equine tourism.
Horse tourism as sustainable tourism
Whilst learning about the specifics of native breed tourism in each region, we also learned more about equine tourism in general – knowledge which can contribute to gaining support and new customers for native breed tourism businesses.
The first revelation is that equine tourism is an example of the fields of outdoor/adventure tourism and nature-based/tourism which is the fastest growing sector of tourism enterprise, globally. This is the result of growing urbanization and increased prosperity, which drives the desire on the part of consumers to experience unique ‘natural’ places directly. This tourism sector delivers experiences which are ‘authentic’, unique experiences which live on in the memory of the tourist. As such, they are part of what is termed the ‘Experience
Economy’. One of the key features of the Experience Economy is the fact that it can charge a premium for the experiences it delivers, in part because they cannot be had elsewhere, and in part because the experience lives on in the mind of the consumer, providing long-lasting value in the memories it generates.
Equine tourism in general fits this description and native breed equine tourism fits it even more. Riding native breed horses is a high quality way to experience the local cultural landscapes which the horses were part of creating in the first place. And given the sublime beauty of the Nordic landscapes, this is doubly so. So, although many equine tourism operators may not see it this way, all other things considered, delivering these types of tourist product allow them to charge a premium for the premium experience the customer receives.
Secondly, although the presence of ‘sustainable tourism’ remains a moot point in some circles, current definitions of ‘sustainability’ include native breed tourism within their remit.
For example, under European Union policy, the integration of economic, social and environmental sustainability as the definition of sustainable development offers the opportunity to include certain types of equine tourism within this definition. Equine tourism offers excellent opportunities for farm multifunctionality, for example, and can help small farms in remote areas sustain the farm economy against increasing exclusion from the agriindustrial economy. Recent studies in Poland and Italy suggest that certain types of equine grazing practices can sustain certain types of grassland, particularly when integrated with grazing by sheep. And there is no doubt that equine tourism offers the chance for new sets of relationships to be established between city dwellers and rural residents, creating new opportunities for social interaction and improving rural-urban relations. In these senses, then, equine tourism can be said to be sustainable tourism.

Lastly, a key finding across all three case locales is that majority significant proportion of customers for equine tourism are domestic Thus, equine tourism offers some of the benefits of domestic tourism – affordability in local currencies; more frequent but smaller duration visits; interchanges in local language; and shorter journeys to reach the tourism site. In this sense too, equine tourism can be said to be an example of sustainable tourism.
This can be important for the further development of the sector. Interviews with development officers suggest that they are very aware of the marketability of sustainable tourism and that this not only offers new ways to market native breed equine tourism services, but also can allow the development of such services to access development funds which focus on sustainable development.
Summary of first year lessons from the RNNB project
Very important lessons have already been learned from the RNNB project. More contacts have been made, and more ideas have been worked on in relation to the project than were expected in the beginning. The broader vision of horse based tourism growing out of this project that is the diversity of possible equine tourism products to develop on the scale of active experience from riding to watching horses, is very important. The project has turned out to be very useful in many ways and it appears that the diverse positive effects of the project will probably be appearing for years in the form of important contacts, information and knowledge used for further product development, research and other kinds of support for the industry.
In particular, what we have learned is the importance of knowledge-sharing and discussion among business operators, authorities, consultants and researchers working with native horse breeds. The possibility of learning about what others have been developing within their businesses, and dealing with in their struggle of creating the economic foundations for keeping and breeding native breeds, has been very inspiring.
Because of the situation of the Icelandic breed, being known worldwide and sold and raised in a number of countries, it can be concluded that, in Iceland an economic reason for the breed has been found, but perhaps that the return on the investment could be enhanced even more through marketing the knowledge of equine tourism and native breed marketing strategies. Learning about ways to improve economic importance of native breeds has been really useful. It has been instructive to realise that entrepreneurs in equestrianism are dealing with similar challenges in Iceland, Norway and Faroe Islands despite the distinctiveness of the situation in each locality. This distinctiveness offers opportunity for knowledge transfer in the equine sector within the North Atlantic region.

Business operators in all our case study countries have usually started their businesses in order to be able to own horses and run their farms. Business are run to make better utilization of horses, land, buildings and equipment, and the horse-based activity is, in many cases, not the only source of income for the operators. Rather it is a source of farm pluriactivity. These common identities might be a platform for an increased and rewarding cooperation among equestrian tourism businesses across the Nordic countries where native breeds are being used in tourism. Such cooperation is also important to develop supportive conditions for propagation of the Native Nordic horse breeds.
Focused product development in equestrian tourism seems to be of much importance in all the participating countries, to ensure service quality and conditions of operation in the field.
One of the lessons learned in that context, is the importance for native breeds to be evaluated on their own reasons, rather than calculating their value by measurement against other, more popular, horse breeds. All horses do not really need to be able to do show jumping or dressage. Instead, the focus should be on reinforcing the strengths of each breed and promoting their qualities and skills and the unique qualities which identify the particular breeds. The final lesson is probably that all stakeholders can benefit from cooperation and common work to develop equestrian tourism where native Nordic breeds are being used.
Using those breeds in tourism and ensuring their future as “unique breeds” also has strong connections to the history and cultural heritage of their countries of origin.
The first year of this project has been a very busy and productive one. We accomplished our first year objectives by meeting key equine tourism operators across the three locales, as well a meeting key industry and local development representatives. We have gathered a great amount of information and consolidated our plans to turn it into a Report which will hopefully inspire others to join the sector and existing operators to try new practices. We are now in a position to produce a well-researched and relevant Good Practice Guide which we can give to all practitioners and organisations in the region. We have made links outside of the project area as well, presenting what we have learned and publicizing the three native breeds at international conferences and, in particular, bringing increased awareness about the breeds and equine tourism in the North Atlantic area among key international organisations in equine tourism. And we have learned a lot about equine tourism in general, this learning translating into at least five chapters in international books about equine tourism.
Most importantly, we have plans to turn all of this learning into outputs which we can share with the colleagues we have met in the Faroes, Norway and Iceland, and we hope, in the second year of the project, to do just this. We want to inspire them to take on new equine tourism products, to attract ever more tourists, and to make the native breed equine sector one which is growing and increasingly contributing to the fortunes of rural residents throughout the North Atlantic region, while delivering experiences to new customers which demonstrates what a unique and beautiful place this is.

Photo I. Siggurdardottir