Fløya: exploring the limits of the Right to Roam

Allemannsretten, or the Right to Roam, is the traditional Norwegian principle that gives everyone the freedom to access and enjoy nature, regardless of land ownership. On Fløya, the most visited mountain around Tromsø, growing pressure from both visitors and residents is testing the limits of this principle.

This summer, Rissa Citizen Science is partnering with researchers from UiT and NINA to explore possible solutions to this dilemma and identify ways to balance public access with the protection of nature.

View of Fløya, looking towards the cable car, and Tromsø beyond, in spring 2025.

Fløya is the most visited mountain around Tromsø.

Whether climbing the Sherpa steps or taking the Fjellheisen cable car, visitors are flocking to Fløya in ever greater numbers. Annual visitation has increased from around 100,000 people in the 1990s to nearly 250,000 cable car passengers alone in 2025.

Most visitors continue from the cable car station to the viewpoint nearby, and some continue further up towards the peaks. There are no marked trails and visitors scatter across the mountain, creating soil erosion and damage to local flora and fauna over a large area.

The municipal management plan for biodiversity 2026-2032 calls for solutions to mitigate the impacts of growing visitor numbers on Fløya while ensuring the site remains attractive in the future.

The viewpoint near the cable car station.

A project for everyone

This summer, Rissa Citizen Science is joining forces with researchers Elina Hutton (The Arctic University of Norway/UiT) and Dara Sands (Norwegian Institute for Nature Research/NINA) to better understand how increasing visitor numbers affect Fløya. The project is partly funded by Tromsø kommune, and Fjellheisen is facilitating the logisitics. Ung Botaniker Tromsø (the association of young botanists in Tromsø) is also a key partner in this project.

The goal of this citizen science project is to identify practical solutions that can help protect nature while keeping this mountain accessible to all.

Fløya is a grazing area for reindeer in summer.

By involving volunteers, the project encourages reflection on the limits of Allemannsretten and reminds us that enjoying nature comes with a responsibility to protect it. This citizen science project will provide local authorities with the knowledge needed to better manage these impacts.

Volunteers measuring a cairn on Fløya. Building of unofficial cairns are contributing to habitat destruction in the mountains.

Volunteers are invited to join a series of events and contribute in several ways:

• Help map existing trails using GPS devices, providing valuable ground-truth data to complement satellite imagery.

• Measure trail erosion by recording indicators such as trail width and depth.

• Assess the effectiveness of measures designed to encourage hikers to stay on the main path.

• Take part in biodiversity surveys on a mountain renowned for its rich and diverse plant life.

A ordinary problem to solve: the multiplication of hiking trails where the Right to Roam is the only rule.

Fløya: a plant heaven

Many visitors to Fløya don't realize that beneath their feet lies an exceptionally rich plant community, including a number of threatened species. When we asked the botanists at Ung Botaniker Tromsø how many red-listed species have been found on Fløya, they checked the information available on Artsobservasjoner (a citizen science platform where anyone can report wildlife sightings) and came up with a list of twenty species!

Ironically, the most visited mountain in the Tromsø area is also one of its most remarkable hotspots for plant diversity.

Here are just a few of the plant species we encountered during earlier trips on Fløya. Thanks to our collaboration with the botanists of Ung Botaniker Tromsø, participants will receive expert support in identifying the plants found on the mountain.

The negative impacts of cairns and stone marking

Official cairns along the main hiking trail serve an important purpose: they help hikers stay on the correct route when visibility drops due to fog, storms, or darkness. They are an essential safety feature in the mountains.

However, the growing trend of building cairns for fun can have unintended consequences. Moving stones destroys microhabitats used by plants and insects as shelter from the harsh Arctic climate. Random cairns can also confuse hikers by leading them away from the main trail, contributing to the creation of new paths, increased erosion, and potential safety risks in the mountains.

Please resist the urge to build cairns. Leave no trace.

The growing number of unofficial cairns has become both a safety concern and a source of habitat degradation on many mountains around Tromsø.

Love declarations can also make an impact on the vegetation on highly visited sites.

Join the next events!

There will be around 10 events between June and early October. The events will be published on the events page of Rissa Citizen Science's website, and announced on Instagram. Thanks to Fjellheisen's support, volunteers will be able to use the cable car for free, to access the study site directly and have more time to contribute.

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• The project is partly funded by Tromsø Kommune. UiT and Rissa Citizen Science contribute significantly to the effort.

• Roel Melman is the project leader for Rissa Citizen Science.

• Elina Hutton from the Arctic University of Norway (UiT) and Dara Sands from the Norwegian Institue for nature research (NINA) are the project's research partners.

• Fjellheisen is facilitating logistics by offering complimentary access to the cable car.

• During selected events, botanists from Ung Botaniker Tromsø will help volunteers learn to identify plants and contribute valuable observations to Artsdatabanken, Norway's open-access biodiversity database.