CCPR/C/83/DR/1023/2001 Page 5 Herdsmen’s Committee at a later date, having indicated in its previous plan that the next logging operation would be due to take place only after a year and in a different location. The complaint 3.1 The authors allege a violation of their rights as reindeer herders under article 27 of the Covenant, both inasmuch as it relates to logging already undertaken and to logging proposed. At the outset, they complain that since the 1980s, some 1,600 hectares of the Herdsmen’s Committee’s grazing area in Paadarskaidi have been logged, accounting for some 40 per cent of lichen (utilized for feeding reindeer) in that specific area. 3.2 As to the effect of the logging on the author’s herd, it is submitted that reindeer tend to avoid areas being logged or prepared for logging. They therefore stray to seek other pastures and thereby incur additional labour for the herders. After logging, logging waste prevents reindeer grazing and compacted snow hampers digging. The logging operations result in a complete loss of lichen in the areas affected, allegedly lasting for hundreds of years. 3.3 The authors recall that after heavy snows in 1997, herders had for the first time to supply capital and labour intensive fodder for the reindeer rather than rely on lichen. The ongoing and increasing logging of fine lichen forests increases the necessity of providing fodder and threatens the economic self-sustainability of reindeer husbandry, as husbandry depends on the reindeer being able to sustain themselves. 3.4 The authors recall that the maximum number of reindeer that may be kept by the Herdsmen’s Committee is decided by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. The Ministry is charged by statute, in determining the maximum number of reindeer, to ensure that the number of reindeer grazing in the Herdsmen’s Committee’s area in the winter season does not exceed the sustainable productive capacity of the Herdsmen’s Committee’s winter pastures. Since the Committee’s Views in the earlier communication, the Ministry has twice reduced the Herdsmen’s Committee’s number of animals: from 8,000 to 7,500 in 1998, and from 7,500 to 6,800 in 2000. In two administrative decisions within two years, then, the Ministry considered that the sustenance of winter pasture in Muotkatunturi was so low that the sustainable number of reindeer should be reduced by 15%. The authors allege that the principal cause of this decline in winter pastures, and particularly of horsehair lichen pastures, are the logging operations. 3.5 Despite the recent reductions in reindeer herds, the National Forest & Park Service continues to conduct logging operations, destroying the Herdsmen’s Committee’s pastures, and further deteriorating husbandry conditions. The authors contend that this situation violates artic le 27, in that forestry operations are continuing and the effects are more serious than first thought. At the same time that logging proceeds, reindeer numbers have been reduced because the pastures still available cannot support the previous number of reindeer. 3.6 The authors state that, in respect of logging at Kirkko-outa and Pyhäjärvi, all domestic remedies have been exhausted. As to the other areas, the authors invoke the Committee’s Views in the earlier communication for the proposition that the domestic courts do not need to be seized afresh of the matter. These elements are said to be satisfied, since the State party itself recognizes that the effects have been more serious, while it continues both to log and to plan further logging.