Finland approves reform of long-contested Sámi Parliament Act
The legislative amendment centres around the right of the Sámi people to determine who is entitled to vote in elections for the Sámi Parliament.
#legislativeamendment #Sámipeople #votingrights #SámiParliament #determination
742 #ClimateSolutions #NrSweden #SamiPeople
"How climate solutions in Northern Sweden impact the Sami people in Kiruna" [ ± 1min]
by EuropeanJournalismCentre
You may like the longer version on the topic:
-> In the Swedish Arctic, a battle for the climate rages. Interview with Isobel Cockerell <- [7:33 min]
-> youtube.com/watch?v=65tqMYD9vHw <-
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/PM53KvWvhsI
Quote by EJC:
"Oct 29, 2024
The path to sustainability isn’t simple.
Climate solutions are essential, but they come with challenges and impacts. For example, in Northern Sweden, iron ore mining is a key part of the green transition. However, it’s also affecting the Sami people who live there, as daily explosions from mining shake the ground and disrupt their lives.
This issue is powerfully illustrated by the winning project of the Climate Journalism Award 2024 in the Storytelling & solutions category.
"In the Swedish Arctic, a battle for the climate rages" by Isobel Cockerell, Frankie Mills, Barclay Bram, Gemma Newby, Coda Story, The Economist."
#TakeCareForLife #TakeCareForEarth
#StopBurningThings #StopEcoside #StopThePlunder
#ClimateBreakDown #StopRapingNature
Hi, it's #Finland calling!
Pardon, no article about this in English, but must share anyways.
The think tank of the #FarRight government party #TheFinns started a web page vaestonvaihto - #GreatReplasement, and "there's absolutely no #ConspiracyTheory behind it!"
They are comparing the rise of migrants here for instance with the colonization of the US by the Europeans who then repressed the #FirstNations.
And they somehow forget that the #SámiPeople were here first
"As for the wind farms, the #Sámi already fought and won their case in court in 2021 [AND YET THAT OUTCOME IS BEING IGNORED!], thirteen years after they first began advocating against the wind farms’ construction. Ironically, the government set up a #TruthAndReconciliation Commission in 2018, not only to investigate the state’s assimilation policy and its consequences, but also to establish measures promoting greater equality for minorities in Norway. The investigation is soon to be published.
"When it came to removing the wind turbines, Sámi people have had to resort to civil disobedience to get the government’s attention. On February 23, protesters occupied the reception area of the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and blocked the entrances of several other government departments across Oslo.
“'#IndigenousRights are #HumanRights. You can’t weigh them against anything else,' says sixteen-year-old Jostein Tennø Loe, a socialist youth board representative. He was among the first activists to be arrested outside the Ministry of Finance. As they were carried away, passersby could hear the sound of #joik, the traditional Sámi singing once suppressed by the government’s #assimilation efforts. 'When #Norway, as a democratic state, ignores human rights and ignores the supreme court five hundred days after the ruling, something is deeply wrong,' Jostein says. For the Sámi, who are no strangers to conflict over land, the court’s ruling in their favor came a century too late — but the five hundred days that followed were nothing but a slap in the face.
"Not only is #ReindeerHerding a significant part of their culture — it’s also a crucial arena for the Sámi people of #Fosen to practice their language. Considering that the Norwegian government is single-handedly responsible for pushing the language to the brink of extinction, the prime minister’s lack of remorse was damning."
#CulturalGenocide #SamiPeople #Resistance #IndigenousPeople #ShameOnNorway
Norway’s Treatment of Sámi Indigenous People Makes a Mockery of Its Progressive Image
By Martine Aamodt Hess
March 13, 2023
"On March 1, global media outlets reported that #GretaThunberg had been arrested in #Oslo while protesting #WindTurbines. It wasn’t that the #ClimateActivist had suddenly taken a stand against renewable energy. Rather, she had joined forces with #activists standing up for #IndigenousPeople ’s plea to be able to continue practicing their culture in #Fosen, central #Norway. For hundreds of years, this land has been home to #ReindeerHerders — an important tradition, which helps preserve the Sámi’s endangered language. Yet today, the siting in Fosen of wind turbines, which frighten the reindeer, puts its continuation in doubt.
"Some five hundred days ago, #Norway’s supreme court ruled that the turbines are a violation of #IndigenousRights under international conventions. Yet they are still running even now — and indeed, even after the ebbing of the short-lived news attention surrounding Thunberg’s role in the protest. Once again, the Norwegian government has proven that it remains indifferent to Sámi lives.
"'What’s happening in Norway doesn’t surprise me — [there’s] this double standard of working to protect #indigenous groups around the world and presenting itself as this #progressive nation, yet not giving a shit about the indigenous people living within its own borders,' Elle Rávdná Näkkäläjärvi tells me. Between reindeer herding and her studies, the twenty-two-year-old is the leader of the Sámi Parliament’s youth committee and is a board member of the Norwegian Sámi Association youth group. During the recent eight days of protest in Oslo, she stood arm in arm with her Sámi sisters and brothers. “We are used to it but that doesn’t make it any less unjust. It’s about time Norway drops the mask. It’s about time the rest of the world sees Norway for what it really is,' she says.
"From the outside looking in, the Scandinavian country is often seen as a progressive social democracy. But — as Elle’s comments suggest — a story far less told is that of its #colonial past, also striking at indigenous people in Norway itself."
#CulturalGenocide #Assimilation #IndigenousPeople #SamiPeople #SamiResistance #Colonialism #LandBack #IndigenousResistance
[video] The #Sámi Fight for the Right to Their Land and Tradition | Full Episode | SBS Dateline
Sep 20, 2023
"As Australia heads towards the Voice referendum, Karla Grant travels to Norway to understand how their #Indigenous parliament works. But are they being heard in the halls of power?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnZeE1Km5jk
#SamiPeople #LandBack #Indigenous #Activism #Norway #Sweden #Greenland
“We Are Still Here”: #Sámi Resilience and Resistance
October 19, 2017
"In the early 1900s, the Sámi began to organize resistance to increasing state colonization and settler presence on Sámi lands. The first organization, the South Sámi Fatmomakka Association, was founded in 1904 and worked to resolve local land conflicts and improve the societal, economic, and political position of the Sámi. Elsa Laula Renberg (1877–1931) was the founder and first chairperson of the association. She was born into a reindeer herding family on the Swedish side and trained as a midwife. Renberg wrote a book in Swedish called Facing Life or Death in which she candidly denounced the increasing Swedish colonization of Sápmi and advocated Sámi unification to struggle together. She married a man from the Norwegian side and then also founded the first Norwegian Sámi association."
Read more:
https://jsis.washington.edu/canada/news/still-sami-resilience-resistance/
#SamiPeople #SamiResistance #LandBack #IndigenousPeople #Resistance
#Norway agrees to compensate #IndigenousPeople over land for Europe's largest onshore #WindFarm
By Angela Symons with APTN
March 4, 2024
"The wind farm fought against by #GretaThunberg will keep operating with compensation paid to #Sami reindeer herders.
"Norway on Wednesday reached an agreement with the Sami people, ending a nearly three-year dispute over Europe’s largest onshore wind farm and the #Indigenous right to raise reindeer.
"Under the agreement, the partially state-owned farm's 151 turbines stay in operation. Energy Minister Terje Aasland said the deal includes 'a future-oriented solution that safeguards the reindeer farming rights.'
"The agreement also has compensation for the Sami - including a share of energy produced - along with a new area for winter grazing and a grant of 5 million kroner (€439,000) for strengthening Sami culture."
Germany and Switzerland breaking human rights laws in Norway.
#socialism #millenial #guardianrebellion #leftist #humanrights #foryou #fyp #indigenous #humanrights #samipeople
#ChurchOfSweden apologizes, embarks on reconciliation with #Indigenous #SámiPeople
Apology comes as government [of #Sweden] continues to fight #Sámi communities in court
by John Last · CBC News · Posted: Nov 27, 2021
"In #Uppsala Cathedral, the heart of Swedish Christianity, Archbishop Antje Jackelén sat this week before a circle of Sámi leaders in traditional dress and the television cameras of Sweden's state broadcaster, listing the past crimes of her church.
"'You have told us about forced Christianization and Swedish #colonialism. Sámi culture was denied,' Jackelén said, in Swedish. 'Today, we acknowledge this and, on behalf of the Church of Sweden, I apologize.'
"Wednesday's apology service in Uppsala, the culmination of more than 30 years of discussions and advocacy, marked a major step forward for reconciliation in Sweden, where the Indigenous Sámi people continue to fight for self-determination and recognition of past wrongs committed by church and state.
"Having studied the Canadian experience of reconciliation, church and Sámi figures alike emphasized that the apology must be followed by concrete actions, and came with no expectation of forgiveness."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/church-of-sweden-sami-indigenous-1.6263595
#CulturalGenocide #TruthAndReconciliation #IndigenousEuropeans #Samediggi
#Norway truth commission details country's dark history of #assimilation
'Norway does not have a history to be proud of' on minority rights, commissioner says
"In state-run #BoardingSchools, minority languages were forbidden, leading to their steep decline. Repeatedly, entire villages [of #Sami and #Finnish-speaking peoples] were forcibly relocated, with devastating results for culture."
by John Last · CBC News · Posted: Jun 02, 2023
"In an ornate assembly hall of the Storting, Norway's parliament, Dagfinn Hoybraten, chair of the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission, presented his work of the last five years.
"'The truth is, Norway does not have a history to be proud of when it comes to the treatment of its minorities,' he said Thursday.
"Before national media and dignitaries from Norway's minority groups, Hoybraten formally tabled the commission's final report, detailing the impacts of a 'comprehensive assimilation policy' — known as Norwegianization — which pursued 'the fastest possible linguistic and cultural assimilation' of #Indigenous and #Finnish-descended minorities over more than a century.
"'This dark side of Norwegian history has continued to cast shadows into our own time,' Hoybraten said. 'It is now time for a settlement regarding the nation's injustice'"
"Norway's commission took direct inspiration from Canada's process, with members visiting the National Centre for #TruthAndReconciliation in Winnipeg to study how the commission operated.
"The Norwegian commission's work has not been without controversy. Before the publication of the final report, several groups expressed concerns that the commission was too secretive about its work, and feared its recommendations would lack real teeth.
"Yet community leaders present at Thursday's ceremony generally voiced cautious optimism about the 700-page final report. 'I'm very excited,' said Kai Petter Johansen, leader of the Norwegian Kven Association, a linguistic minority group.
"'I think that it is promising,' said Runar Myrnes Balto, a member of the governing council of Norway's #Samediggi or Sami Parliament. 'I think it's important now that the parliament, quickly, invites us to a meeting, to talk about the best possible way to take the next steps.'
"The Sami are Europe's only recognized Indigenous group, occupying a broad swathe of Arctic territory spanning from Norway to Russia. Norway is home to their largest community, comprising around 65,000 people."
Read more:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/norway-indigenous-sami-truth-commission-final-report-1.6862471
#SamiPeople #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #IndigenousEuropeans
Europe’s #GreenRevolution Threatens #Indigenous Culture
The #Sámi indigenous people have inhabited northern Sweden for thousands of years. Now their way of life is threatened by giant wind farms, mines rich in rare battery minerals and logging.
By Kasia Strek and Jonas Ekblom
June 26, 2023
"The European #GreenRevolution designed to slow down #ClimateChange globally is threatening the way of life of the Sámi people, one of the continent’s last-remaining indigenous groups. The breakneck pace to decarbonize is having damaging consequences for the #forests and land they have inhabited for thousands of years.
"It’s not the first time progress and industrial development in Sweden come at the expense of the Sámi. The group comprises roughly 80,000 people spread out across northern Scandinavia and is commonly associated with a semi-nomadic lifestyle of #reindeer herding, even though only a minority of Sámis live like this today. In the past, they have been persecuted and oppressed by some Swedish and Norwegian institutions.
"Sweden never had any colonies, but instead it colonized its north, a Swedish saying goes. The abundant minerals, wood and water that helped the country become one of the world’s wealthiest during the 20th century are found mostly in the wild and sparsely populated region that’s also the Sámi’s traditional territory."
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2023-sweden-indigenous-sami-green-energy/
#SamiPeople #Sweden #CulturalGenocide #EnvironmentalRacism #ForestDefenders #WindFarms #Tourism #Vattenfall #NoConsent #Skogsupproret #Timberharvesting #Biomass
#Sami activist sets up camp outside #Norway parliament to protest #WindTurbines
By Gwladys Fouche
September 11, 2023
OSLO, Sept 11 (Reuters) - “An Indigenous Sami activist set up camp outside the Norwegian parliament on Monday to protest against wind turbines built on land traditionally used by Sami #reindeer herders, saying he will stay there as long as the turbines remain in place.
“Norway's supreme court in October 2021 ruled that two wind farms built at Fosen in central Norway, part of Europe's largest onshore wind farm, violated Sami rights under international conventions. But the turbines remain in operation today.
“The Fosen case is one of many conflicts that Norway has yet to resolve, with #ClimateChange and technology enabling #MineralExtraction, #EnergyProduction and #tourism while also threatening #TraditionalWays of life.
“The government has said that the supreme court, while ruling that the licenses of the two farms were illegal, did not give instructions on what to do next and that the conflict should be resolved through talks.
“‘It has been 700 days of human rights abuse and the Norwegian state has not done anything to stop it. So I have chosen to come here and set up camp until the human rights abuse stops,' Sami activist #MihkkalHaetta, 22, told Reuters, dressed in a traditional gakti outfit worn inside out as a sign of protest.
“‘I believe that there is only one solution and that is to tear down the wind turbines at Fosen.'
“In February #IndigenousProtesters including Haetta occupied the lobby of the #oil and energy ministry before police removed them.
“They later occupied the entrances of 10 ministries and were joined by #Greta Thunberg, who said #HumanRights had to go hand-in-hand with #ClimateProtection and #ClimateAction.
“Since the protests, the government and the reindeer-herding families affected by the #FosenWindFarm have been involved in mediation to resolve the conflict but no concrete measures have been announced yet.
“The reindeer herders have said the only solution to the conflict is that the turbines be torn down.
'We still hope that the mediation process will be able to lead to an amicable solution to the matter. It would be the best for all parties,' Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland told Reuters in an emailed statement.
“’It is too early to say anything concrete about when a solution might be in place, but I am focused that the mediation track can be followed as long as there is hope for a solution.'
“About Monday's protest, Aasland said 'the right to free expression is a founding democratic right I have great respect for’.”
#CulturalGenocide #IndigenousActivism #EnvironmentalRacism #SamiPeople #TraditionalLifestyle #EndangeredSpecies #BigEnergy #ClimateJustice
A Last #Wildness
Riding alongside the reindeer herders of Europe’s northernmost county.
Global warming and its discontents have brought energy firms, foreign investors, and the Norwegian state into conflict with an #indigenous #pastoral economy.
DECEMBER 5, 2023
by Ben Mauk & Carleen Coulter
"At seven o’clock one September morning, four reindeer herders on dirt bikes and ATVs drive up toward the peninsula whose tip is the northernmost point of mainland Europe. The peninsula is called Čorgašnjárga in Northern #Sámi, the working language of the herders, and Nordkinn in Norwegian. Channels of wind come down the fjords on either side and whip the land clean. Near the coast of Lakesfjorden, the herders find #reindeer gathered on the northern side of a wooden fence several miles long. They open a gate and begin to funnel the animals south toward a brown depression in the landscape, where, inside a labyrinth of pens, corrals, and fence-lined paths, several hundred more reindeer, and a dozen herders, are waiting.
“In summer 2020, the waning days of the midnight sun, the photographer Carleen Coulter and I traveled across Troms og Finnmark, Europe’s northernmost county, following reindeer herders during calf-marking season. The county is curved like the blade of a knife, tracing the edge of a belt of land that crosses #Norway, #Sweden, and #Finland into #Russia’s #KolaPeninsula. The region — known as Sápmi to the Sámi people who are its most longstanding inhabitants — is sometimes called Europe’s #LastWilderness. It is a rare sanctuary in the northern world, one where a #lynx, #stoat, or #salmon might emerge into being, live out its hungry life, and die without encountering any evidence of humankind.
“This wildness is now threatened, not only by #ClimateChange but by some of the very forces developed to combat that existential peril. The most visible sign of change is the wind turbine, hundreds of which are proposed for construction in Sápmi as part of Norway’s commitment to a climate-neutral future. Although its total output remains small compared to producers like #Germany and #Spain, Norway is home to one of the fastest-growing #WindIndustries in the world, and tripled its onshore capacity between 2018 and 2020. Much of the growth is taking place in Troms og Finnmark, where #WindFarms have proven to be uncommonly productive. The 15-turbine Raggovidda wind park in East Finnmark, one developer told the Independent Barents Observer, 'is the most efficient in Norway, in all of Europe — perhaps in the whole world.' It is so productive that its output has far outstripped the needs of its host municipality. Its owners sought and received a concession for the installation of extra power cables to export the electricity for profit. Plans for more ambitious wind parks, some with hundreds rather than dozens of turbines, are pending approval.
“If you have hiked or driven past one, you will know the repetitive strangeness of a field of wind turbines. The effect is only enhanced near the Arctic Circle, where they are perched on treeless plateaus and holy mountains, surrounded by empty sky, each airfoil the size and shape of 747’s wing. Reindeer will not go near them, although the mountains, cool and #lichen-covered, are important summer grazing pastures. As a result, the animals starve, overheat, or become disoriented and are hit by cars.
“The corral where herders were marking reindeer that September is part of Norway’s second-largest herding district; Lágesduottar encompasses large tracts of public land in eastern Troms og Finnmark. There are nineteen reindeer concessions employing around one hundred people, as one linguist and herder present at the marking, Máret Laila Anti, explained, 'from babies to great-grandmothers.' With few exceptions, only #IndigenousSámi people are permitted to hold concessions in Norway. A concession cannot be bought or sold, only inherited or abandoned.
“Four wind power projects have been proposed within Lágesduottar district. Given the typical grazing paths of reindeer, the parks would also affect three other herding communities, totaling more than sixty concessions and about three-hundred people. If constructed, they would almost certainly spell the end of herding in the region. The extra work created by the wind parks—the loss of grazing grounds, the additional fences and labor required—would cause some herders to abandon their concessions. This would have a domino effect, Anti believed. Although reindeer themselves are family property, the land they graze is collectively managed, a division shared by #nomadic #pastoral societies around the world. Families gather together to make lighter work of marking and fence repair. 'If two families leave,' Anti said, 'the work on the others increases, and causes more to abandon herding, and the whole community will collapse.'
“Like reindeer herding, wind energy requires huge reserves of land—between ten and a hundred times the land required by coal-fired electricity, according to one estimate. Because turbines are frequently the target of urban activists who complain that they obstruct views and kill birds, developers find space where they always have: on rural land used and occupied by disenfranchised minority and indigenous groups. In Norway, the rise of mega-farms has punctured reindeer #MigrationPaths and imperiled longstanding strategies of land management. Although herders make up only a small minority of Sámi communities in Norway, their loss is a potent symbol of these changes, resistance to which is often framed around the reindeer’s life cycle.
“Following herders across landscapes filled with wind farms and proposed construction sites, we visited coastal fishing towns, camped along the last #WildSalmon refuge in Europe, and attended a plenary session of the Sámi Parliament, in Karasjok, where we met representatives who felt they had been silenced by #LargeEnergyFirms. One member of parliament, Maja Kristin Jama, came from a herding family who had grazed their reindeer in the Fosen herding district, now home to Europe’s largest onshore wind park. In 2020, Norway’s Supreme Court determined that the park had violated protected #cultural rights, and in 2021 ruled its licenses invalid, but turbines are still operational and there are no plans to dismantle the site. 'We can talk, we can discuss, we can protest, we can ‘have dialogues,' Jama said. 'But in the end, we can’t really affect these plans.'
#CulturalGenocide #IndigenousRights #EnvironmentalRacism #SamiPeople #TraditionalLifestyle #EndangeredSpecies #BigEnergy #RightsViolations
Lotten von Düben (1828–1915) was a Swedish amateur photographer known primarily for her photographs of Sami people taken during two trips, accompanying her husband Gustav, a medical doctor, on research expeditions. Each Lapp sitter posed for a front as well as a profile portrait … but they were not happy. Wrote Gustav: “Immediately on our arrival we had spoken to them about the photography, something they already knew about or quickly came to understand. Yet for a couple of days it was impossible to get them to sit for us, even though we made appointments + sent messengers to fetch them. We put this down to the customary tardiness and indecision of the Lapps, but later heard a different explanation. When we told them we wanted them to wear their festive attire, + that the old women should have their silver ornaments on … they grew wary + withdrew to discuss the matter. They were afraid that if they allowed themselves to be photographed in their costly apparel I would show the prints to the 'big chief' who would then realize … they were richer than they claimed to be, whereupon he would increase their taxes” #photography #amateurphotography #amateurphotographer #photographer #lottenvondüben #sami #samipeople #lapland #laplander #lapp #lappland #fotografia #fotografie #swedishphotographer #portrait #portraitphotographer #portraitphotography #womenphotographers #vintagephotography
