For years now, an unrest has been smouldering in the Nordic countries that touches on the rights of the region's oldest people. Let us begin with Sweden – the conflict between Sámi communities and the Swedish state forestry giant Sveaskog is one of the fiercest legal battles and environmental campaigns in the Nordic countries today. The Sámi are fighting Sveaskog in the courts using the legal principle of “since time immemorial” (urminnes hävd) in order to halt clear-cutting and protect reindeer pastures.
Litigation with Sveaskog
Sveaskog is the largest forest owner in Sweden, managing vast areas within traditional Sámi territories in the north of the country. The legal and practical conflicts amount to a direct clash of rights. Swedish law gives Sveaskog the right to manage state forests, while Sweden's Reindeer Husbandry Act guarantees Sámi communities the right to graze reindeer. The clear-cuts carried out in this Sámi region destroy old-growth forests and the tree lichens that are the reindeer's only food in winter.
Historically, Sveaskog was only obliged to consult the Sámi before logging, and the company frequently ignored Sámi objections because the Sámi had no right of veto. Sámi communities have therefore increasingly turned to the courts or staged physical protests, demanding that felling be cancelled outright. The position of Sámi communities in court improved substantially after the historic Girjas judgment, which shifted the country's case law in favour of indigenous rights.
A step back into history
Since the 19th century, relations between the Nordic countries and the Sámi have passed through aggressive colonisation, the seizure of resources and forced assimilation.
During the expansion of the 19th century, the Swedish state tightened its control over the northern territories, promoting agriculture and logging. Sámi land was declared state property. A policy was introduced under which only active reindeer herders belonging to official communities were legally recognised as Sámi. This stripped rights from those who lived by fishing or by crafts. Sámi children were sent to boarding schools, where they were forbidden to speak their native language.
In Norway, from the late 19th century right up to the end of the Second World War, the state pursued an aggressive assimilation policy known as “Norwegianisation”, or Fornorsking. The Sámi language was strictly prohibited in schools and in public life. In order to buy or keep land, Sámi people had to adopt Norwegian surnames and prove that they spoke only Norwegian in daily life.
In Finland, Sámi territories were likewise at times subordinated to the economic interests of the state forestry enterprise Metsähallitus. Although the Sámi were later granted cultural autonomy in Finland, their real power to decide on the use of state forests and land has historically often remained subordinate to the state's financial interests and to timber extraction.
A string of conflicts
Both in earlier times and in recent years, several loud conflicts have flared up and drawn international attention.
The Girjas court case, which ran from 2009 all the way to 2020, became the greatest legal victory in Sámi history. The Girjas Sámi community sued the Swedish state over the right to control hunting and fishing in its own territory. Sweden's Supreme Court ruled in the Sámi's favour, recognising that their rights have existed “since time immemorial” and that later state legislation cannot simply annul them.
The Luokta-Mávas conflict with Sveaskog broke out when the forestry company planned to clear-cut roughly 700 hectares of old-growth forest that the community used for grazing. It caused an international scandal and widespread protests by conservationists. Elsewhere in the Swedish part of Sápmi, the Gállok iron ore mining project met enormous resistance. The government granted a licence to a company backed by British capital, despite the fact that the mine physically “cuts through” and, in effect, destroys the historic migration routes of the Sámi's reindeer.
In Norway, the loudest conflict historically was the Alta conflict of the 1970s and 1980s, with mass protests against the building of a hydroelectric dam on the Alta river. Although the dam was eventually built, the conflict awakened Sámi political activism and led directly to the creation of Norway's Sámi Parliament. In our own time, the Fosen wind farm scandal has had a comparable resonance, after Norway built Europe's largest onshore wind farm on Sámi grazing land. Norway's Supreme Court ruled that the project breached the Sámi's human rights, prompting prolonged protests in Oslo until the state agreed to financial compensation.
What is happening now?
Many believe that the greatest threat to Sámi territories today is so-called green colonialism. In the fight against climate change, the Nordic countries are building wind farms on a massive scale, installing solar panel fields and opening new mines for the critical minerals needed to manufacture batteries and electric cars. All of these industrial projects require the appropriation of precisely those lands the Sámi traditionally use.
In Sweden, following the Girjas victory, other Sámi communities are also taking the state to court in order to take over hunting and fishing rights in their territories. This has created considerable tension in society, with rising hostility towards the Sámi and even threats from local Swedish hunters. The Swedish state still refuses to ratify International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 169 on indigenous rights, which would give the Sámi greater legal protection.
In Norway, legal disputes are being fought even across national borders. The European Court of Human Rights brought an end to a 50-year border dispute in the so-called Saarivuoma case, rejecting a Swedish Sámi community's claim against Norway concerning the right to freely use historic summer pastures on the Norwegian side. After the Fosen scandal, the Norwegian government is now trying to find a legal balance between the development of wind energy and respect for indigenous rights, so as to avoid further litigation.
In Finland, the situation escalated when the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued a legal decision in favour of Finland's Sámi. The international committee found that the Finnish state's forest management practices and timber extraction directly threaten the survival of Sámi culture and the traditional way of life. That decision is now forcing the Finnish government and the enterprise Metsähallitus to review their logging policy in the country's northern regions as a matter of law.
The legal precedent – Girjas
The Girjas Sámi community's case against the Swedish state lasted more than ten years and concluded with a historic Supreme Court judgment in 2020. The case fundamentally changed how indigenous rights are understood within the Swedish legal system.
At the root of the conflict was a 1993 decision by the Swedish parliament that stripped Sámi communities of the exclusive right to regulate hunting and fishing on their traditional lands above the so-called “cultivation limit” – odlingsgränsen. State bodies began selling hunting and fishing permits to anyone who wanted one. The Girjas community argued that such a step breached their historic rights, since the Sámi had been managing this land for centuries before the Swedish state came into being.
In court, the Sámi lawyers and historians drew on the legal concept mentioned earlier, “since time immemorial” – urminnes hävd. They demonstrated that the Sámi had used the territory continuously and without interruption long before the 17th century. The Swedish state, for its part, defended the position that the land legally belongs to the state and that it is therefore entitled to dispose of the resources as it sees fit.
The Supreme Court judgment and its consequences
Sweden's Supreme Court ruled unanimously in favour of the Girjas community. The court recognised that the Sámi hold exclusive rights to manage hunting and fishing in the territory and that the state has no right to issue permits without their consent.
The judgment set off an enormous chain reaction, because it created a precedent for other communities. The Girjas victory opened the way for dozens of other Sámi communities to claim the same rights through the courts. It must be stressed that the decision also provoked a sharp backlash from local Swedish hunters and anglers, who lost free access to the forests. It even triggered a wave of racism on social media and attacks on reindeer herds. To head off hundreds of new court cases, the Swedish government set up a special commission of inquiry tasked with reviewing all the relevant legislation and deciding how hunting and fishing rights can lawfully be transferred to the Sámi in other regions as well.
The Gállok, or Kallak, conflict – the fight against mining
Gállok (in Swedish, Kallak) is an area near the town of Jokkmokk in northern Sweden where rich iron ore deposits have been found. The conflict has become a symbol of the clash between industrial interests and indigenous peoples' rights to their own environment.
The British company Beowulf Mining and its local subsidiary Jokkmokk Iron Mines spent years trying to obtain a licence to establish an open-pit iron ore mine in the area. The Sámi communities Jåhkågasska tjiellde and Sirges opposed it categorically. Gállok lies right in the middle of the two communities' winter pastures and the migration route the reindeer use to move between the mountains and the forests. Building the mine and the infrastructure it requires – roads and power lines – would physically cut these territories in two.
The conflict reached its climax in 2013, when activists, Sámi and environmental campaigners from all over the world set up protest camps and physically blocked the company's machinery from reaching the drilling sites. Police removed the protesters using force, which drew wide coverage in the media.
After almost a decade of hesitation, the Swedish government granted the company an exploration and extraction licence. It justified the decision by the need to secure jobs in the region and to supply the European market with the iron ore required to produce “green steel” without carbon emissions.
Sámi communities and environmental organisations described the decision as yet another act of “green colonialism”, in which climate goals are achieved by sacrificing indigenous rights. The Sámi immediately appealed the government's decision to Sweden's Supreme Administrative Court, and the court upheld it. The fight now continues at the next stages of environmental permitting and technical approvals; Sámi communities have declared that they will use every legal and indeed physical means to prevent actual construction work from beginning.
The Fosen wind farm conflict in Norway
The Fosen conflict is one of the biggest legal and political scandals in modern Norwegian history. It caused a serious crisis in government and radically changed investors' attitudes towards renewable energy projects in indigenous territories.
The Norwegian state energy company Statkraft and its international partners built one of Europe's largest onshore wind farm complexes, with 151 turbines, on the Fosen peninsula. The project was carried out on traditional Sámi territories that local reindeer herders used as winter pasture. The Sámi argued that the vast turbines, which they consider noisy, and the accompanying infrastructure frighten the reindeer, rendering the area unusable for their traditional way of life.
The litigation dragged on for years while the facility was already operating and generating electricity. This time Norway's Supreme Court ruled in the Sámi's favour. The court found that the wind farm's construction licences breached Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. That article protects the right of indigenous peoples to enjoy their own culture. The court declared the licences legally invalid.
After the judgment, the Norwegian government found itself in a deadlock and took no real action for more than 500 days. It was unwilling to demolish energy infrastructure worth hundreds of millions of euros that was supplying the region with “green power”. This procrastination triggered mass protests in Oslo. Sámi young people and environmental activists blockaded the entrances to Norwegian ministries, demanding that the rule of law be respected. The crisis ended with a public apology from Norway's prime minister to the Sámi for the violation of their human rights.
The government and the companies reached a financial settlement with the Sámi communities. The Sámi agreed that the turbines would not be dismantled and would keep operating until the end of their service life – roughly 25 years. In return they received substantial annual cash compensation, rights to additional alternative grazing areas and a guarantee that, once the licence period expires, the land will be fully restored and returned to the Sámi.
A contradictory future
Analysing the events of recent years in Sweden, Norway and Finland, several fundamental conclusions can be drawn about relations between the Sámi and the Nordic countries. Europe's transition to climate neutrality is in direct conflict with indigenous rights. Nordic governments are seeking to meet global climate targets – building wind farms, opening mines for iron, lithium and rare earth metals – at the expense of traditional Sámi lands. The Sámi are placed in a position where the survival of their culture is sacrificed in the name of the “common good”. Sámi communities have learned to use the mechanisms of national supreme courts and of international bodies – the UN and the European courts. The Girjas precedent in Sweden, the Fosen case in Norway and the UN CESCR decision in Finland show that the courts are increasingly siding with indigenous peoples, holding historic rights to outweigh the state's economic interests.
These legal victories have heightened tension and ethnic polarisation at local level. Many residents of rural areas in the Nordic countries regard Sámi rights as “privileges” that hold back economic development, restrict hunting and take away jobs. This is fuelling a rise in racism and xenophobia towards the Sámi.
The Fosen and Gállok cases serve as a warning to international investors. Energy and extractive companies will no longer be able to rely on state-issued licences alone. They will be obliged to seek the free, prior and informed consent of Sámi communities under the FPIC principle from the very start of project planning. Otherwise the litigation risks and the losses running into billions will be too high. The Renmarkskommittén commission set up by the Swedish state will have to find a legal model for extending the Girjas judgment to the remaining Sámi communities. That will require amendments to the Reindeer Husbandry Act and will most likely intensify the political battles in parliament. Finland will be forced to change the mandate of its state forest manager Metsähallitus in order to curb clear-cutting in the north.
Future industrial projects in indigenous territories will no longer be approved without Sámi financial participation. To avoid litigation, states and private companies will offer Sámi communities the chance to become co-owners of wind farms or mines, or to receive a direct percentage of the profits, much as has historically happened in Canada and Alaska.
Yet despite these gains, the Sámi will still find themselves “under double pressure”. On the one hand, their way of life is directly threatened by global warming, which shows itself in unstable winters across Sámi territories, layers of ice on the snow that prevent reindeer from reaching their food, and generally more difficult grazing conditions. On the other hand, Sámi land will continue to be threatened by projects that are ostensibly fighting those very climate changes. This contradiction will remain the main source of conflict in the region.
About the Sámi
The Sámi are the only indigenous people of northern Europe, historically inhabiting the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions. The traditional Sámi homeland is called Sápmi , formerly better known as Lapland, a term the Sámi themselves regard as derogatory. Sápmi is not a separate state but a transnational region stretching across the northern parts of four countries
In Norway this is mainly the Finnmark region. In Sweden it is the northern provinces and mountain regions, reaching as far south as the town of Idre. The northern part of Lapland – the municipalities of Inari, Enontekiö and Utsjoki – belongs to Finland, while the Kola Peninsula is administered by Russia.
Worldwide there are some 80,000-100,000 Sámi in total. An exact figure is hard to establish, because official statistics on ethnicity are generally not collected in the Nordic countries. The largest Sámi community lives in Norway – around 50,000-56,000 people; some 20,000 live in Sweden, around 10,000 in Finland and only 2,000 in Russia. Fewer than half of all Sámi speak one of the Sámi languages in daily life; there are currently 9 dialects in which Sámi people converse.
A look back at history
The ancestors of the Sámi arrived in northern Europe immediately after the end of the last Ice Age, several thousand years ago and long before nation states were formed. Historically their way of life was based on hunting, fishing and reindeer herding. The Sámi traditionally lived and worked in family communities, or siida, which collectively managed land, waters and resources. From the 17th century onwards, the Scandinavian kingdoms and Russia tightened their control over the northern territories. In the 19th and 20th centuries the Sámi faced an aggressive nationwide assimilation policy – children in boarding schools were forbidden to speak their native language, and Sámi culture was marginalised. The turning point came at the end of the 1970s and the start of the 1980s with the so-called Alta conflict – protests against the building of a hydroelectric dam on a river sacred to the Sámi, which united Sámi activists and forced the Nordic countries to recognise their rights.
Governance today
Today the Sámi have no sovereign state of their own; their rights and culture are protected by international law and by special self-government institutions. Democratically elected Sámi parliaments – Sámediggi – have operated in Norway since 1989, in Sweden since 1993 and in Finland since 1996. They hold consultative and decision-making powers on matters affecting Sámi language, culture, education and land rights. The Sámi also have a parliamentary council, a body that since 2000 has coordinated cooperation between the Sámi parliaments of the three countries and also includes representatives of the Russian Sámi. The Saami Council, or Sámi Ráđđi, meanwhile, was founded as long ago as 1956; it is a non-governmental transnational organisation representing Sámi interests in all four countries and in international forums such as the Arctic Council.
The best-known Sámi today
Although this northern people is very small in number, figures of Sámi origin have gained international recognition in culture, music and public life.
The world-famous Norwegian Sámi musician Mari Boine modernised the traditional Sámi form of singing, the joik, by combining it with jazz, rock and folk music. She is one of the most prominent campaigners for Sámi rights.
Fred Buljo is a musician and rapper who represented Norway at the 2019 Eurovision Song Contest as part of the group KEiiO, introducing millions of viewers to joiking and to the Northern Sámi language.
A celebrated representative of the Sámi people is the film director Nils Gaup, whose 1987 film “Ofelaš” (Pathfinder) was the first feature film in the Sámi language and was nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film. His son Mikkel Gaup is a well-known Sámi actor who has also appeared in Lars von Trier's film “Breaking the Waves”.
Sofia Jannok is a popular Swedish Sámi singer, writer and activist who campaigns actively against climate change and the impact of mining on Sámi reindeer pastures. Morten Gamst Pedersen is a well-known Norwegian footballer who played for many years for Blackburn Rovers in the English Premier League and for the Norwegian national team. He has Sámi roots on both sides of his family. In Sweden, meanwhile, the television presenter Renée Nyberg, who is of Sámi descent, is hugely popular.
Sámi culture and the Sámi parliaments also inspired the Disney corporation when it created the storyline about the Northuldra people for the animated film “Frozen II” (Frozen II). Sámi representatives advised the film-makers extensively to ensure a respectful and accurate portrayal of the culture.
Sources: Nordic information websites, Greenpeace International and Sapmi information materials