Marie Persson Njajta, 45 years old from Storumen in Southern Sápmi, has been preparing for what just might be the biggest moment for the Sami parliament. Finally, since its approval by the Swedish government in November 2021, a Truth Commission will start taking testimonies for the historical abuses against the indigenous Sami people.
“The Sami people have been subjected to human rights abuses for a long time and this ussue has not been solved in Sweden,” she said. Speaking over Zoom, in traditional bright gákti clothes of bright red, blue and green, Njajta is the Chairwoman of the committee.
The United Nations Human Rights Council has condemned Sweden for not ratifying the convention on the rights of indigenous people (ILO 69), despite neighbouring Norway having done so in 1990.
Sweden is often regarded as a country of progressive liberalism. However, in the 20th century it pioneered theories of Social Darwinism which believed that Western Europeans were superior to all other races. Racial experiments were conducted on the Sami.
Njajta says she can see her grandparents’ skulls, their eye colour and their physical measurements in archive registers. Her grandfather, born in 1937, was banned from speaking his Sami language; her father was sent to a nomadic school to speak Swedish instead. “We have always heard that we are not worth anything,” she says. “Our language isn’t worth anything. Not even our Sami names.”
Private testimony hearings for the Truth Commission began February 6, 2023. According to the Sami parliament, it will review the historical policies the Sami were subjected to and the consequences. The final report is expected to be delivered by December 2025, and will propose actions for the Swedish government to work towards reconciliation. In the meantime, the Sami face numerous obstacles to their lived experience today. Do the Sami have a viable future?
The history of the Sami
As Europe’s only indigenous people, there are around 100,000 Sami scattered across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s Kola Peninsula. This region is known as Sápmi and has been home to the nomadic group since time immemorial.
When the Swedish state was founded in 1523, the Sami outnumbered the Swedish population. Gradually the Swedes started to colonise Sápmi lands. For 400 years or so, the Sami paid skatteland (tax lands) towards the State. By the end of the 1800s, the State owned all the land and the Sami owned nothing; the influx of Swedish persons made the Sami a minority.
During the 20th century, Sápmi has undergone clearcutting, lake damming, mining and windmill excursions. Not only does this harm ancestorial Sami territories, but it also denies them the ability to carry out their traditional livelihoods which is dependent on the land.
The importance of the reindeer
Central to Sami culture, is the reindeer. Njajta explains: “The reindeer upholds the Sami connections to land, traditional knowledge, there are so many words in Sami language, which is linked to herding, in how you describe the land.”
Traditionally, the Sami lived among their herd and followed the 200km (124 miles) migration route. From summer in the mountains to winter in the forests, there are eight seasons based on the different stages of reindeer herding. Reindeers were used for various purposes: meat, milk, knives and tools, clothing and even shoes.
There are approximately 20,000 Sami in Sweden, making up just 0.22% of Sweden’s population of nine million. Despite the reindeer being a significant cultural image for the Sami, less than 10% are reindeer herders.
“Most reindeer herders feel like it is a way of life,” says Jon-Mikko Länta, a reindeer herder in Jåhkågaska. He speaks from his kitchen table with a 90s-style stove in the background. Modern inventions- such as electric motor vehicles and helicopters- have enabled the Sami to be semi-nomadic, living in permanent houses for most of the year.
It is a demanding occupation, working with reindeer for hours nearly every day. Länta says: “You have to adapt your lifestyle according to the reindeers…it’s impossible to put up schedules too far ahead.” For Länta, reindeer herding gives him a “sense of purpose”. Children are taught the traditional livelihoods from a young age, so the continuation of the culture is an important factor.
Länta is chair of the Jåhkågaska tjiellde, the economic association (known as a sameby) for reindeer husbandry in his area. He has been fighting for 12 years to prevent the instalment of an iron ore mine in Kallak which will intrude onto reindeer grazing lands.
Kallak is one of many industry developments in the Sápmi which encroaches Sami land and fundamentally cuts off migration routes. Reindeer herding requires huge land areas; approximately 50% of Sweden’s land mass is use for reindeer pasture. A crucial part of herding is the different food reindeer eat on their course: eating flowers and herbs in the summertime, mushrooms in the mountaineer forestry area, then lichen (a fungal-algae organism) in the forest for the long winter.
In March 2022, despite the UN’s criticism, the Swedish government granted British company Beowulf Mining a concession to create an open-air iron ore mine in Kallak, Jokkmokk. Beowulf argue the Kallak mine has the potential to create SEK 1 billion (£73,315,00) in tax revenues and up to 550 jobs. The region has a rich, 71.5% iron content which could be used for making steel, electric cars as part of the green transition.
“Where I grew up, when driving through in the winter, we’ve seen dust on the snow so it’s black because of the mining,” says Karin Nutti Pilflykt. Raised in the reindeer-herding district Gälivare, near Sweden’s largest open-pit copper mine in Sápmi, Pilflykt recalls the impact of the mine. She says: “What I’ve seen is death on the snow.”
Pilflykt dials into Zoom from her student accommodation in Northern Sweden. She is finishing her master’s in forestry whilst also working as an advisor on forest issues for the European Union.
Mining generates dust containing heavy metals which reduces the air quality, harming the ‘bottleneck resource’ of lichens for reindeers. The last 60 years has seen a 71% decline in ‘lichen-abundant forests’. This food supply can also be limited in warm winters as the transition from melting snow to ice traps lichens underneath.
It is not only the mines that harm the Sami ancestral land and traditional practice. New infrastructure, such as roads for snowmobiles and mountain cabins for families, create problems for reindeer herding and wildlife. It is exacerbated by snowmobiles driving on the snow and turning it to ice. “When the reindeers dig for lichens under the snow, they do it with their hooves,” Länta explains. “Soft snow is easy to dig but once it freezes overnight, they can’t dig there anymore.” As time proceeds, the herd naturally moves day by day.
Sápmi boasts lands of rolling mountains, lush dense forests, and dramatic lakes. For eight months of the year, the landscape is coated with thick, velvety snow. These are the conditions the Sami reindeer herders must try to navigate as they move pastures.
In a press statement, Beowulf said mining can “coexist with reindeer herding” as reindeers can move to different grazing trails as they migrate. It argues mining absorbs only small proportion of land in comparison to the rest of Swedish land mass.
Länta’s voice turns sharply, and he furrows his brow: “That is a very naïve western way of looking at things. You can’t just go to an indigenous people in the world and say, “you can co-exist, you just have to move here.”
He explains herders can’t just move the routes north or south away from the mining area as this intrudes on other Sami reindeer herding routes. “It’s just pushing the problem to someone else,” he says. This restricts the reindeer grazing land and pushing them on narrower routes and restricting their food access. It is not only the mines that harm the Sami ancestral land and traditional practice. New infrastructure, such as roads for snowmobiles and mountain cabins for families, create problems for reindeer herding and wildlife. It is exacerbated by snowmobiles driving on the snow and turning it to ice, causing pastures to freeze. “When the reindeers dig for lichens under the snow, they do it with their hooves,” Länta explains. “Soft snow is easy to dig but once it freezes overnight, they can’t dig there anymore.” This restricts the reindeer grazing land and pushing them on narrower routes and restricting their food access. The effect on the reindeers’ food sources can cause them to starve. Pilflykt says the reindeers can eat industrial food, pellets, instead of natural grazing. However, this is at the herders’ expense and is the long-term health effects on the reindeer are unknown. With the threats facing reindeer husbandry Pilflykt questions what will happen next if the reindeers do not have any food. She says: “What happens if the reindeer disappears that we’re living with and working around the whole year? Then we will disappear as well.” The Sami as a minority
Another obstacle facing the Sami communities is the sheer number of administrative documents that land on the sameby’s tables. Länta says his board alone handles about 500 exploitations every year, large and small. “The paperwork needed to fight all these battles is immense…It is impossible to keep up,” Länta says. Unpaid board members must manage the paperwork, which distracts them from other issues. The sambys do not receive funding on the mining cases: they must rely on donations and fundraising to pay for the legal battles in court. Lanta rolls his head back in despair: “It is a very unjust situation: the government and the exploiters can just keep going, keep trying to make more exploitations. They have unlimited resources, we don’t.” This inequality of resources is replicated at State level. The Sami parliament, the Samidiggi, was inaugurated in 1993 to represent the interests of the Sami in government. Is it effective? Sköld does not think so. He says the parliament has an “impossible mission” in being accountable to the Sami electorate and being an administrative agency under the control of the government. “If that is not solved in a better way than nothing will improve,” Sköld warns. Critics argue it simply reproduces the hierarchical relationship between the Sami and the State as the Samidiggi has no power to create laws or even implement taxation. “The biggest threat facing the Sami?” Sköld says. After a long pause, Sköld says, in a sombre tone: “The biggest threat is that their rights are not respected by the authorities...it’s the same in all three countries.” On the international stage, the power imbalance is intensified. “A lot of [mining] lobbying is done at an EU-level and unfortunately we don’t have those resources [to provide information],” Njajta admits. One of the policy threats is the EU Critical Raw Materials Act. It aims to support Europe create a sustainable supply of metals and minerals against the geopolitical threats of Russian and China. ‘Strategic projects’, based on global supply/demand imbalances, could override public interest and be authorised despite concerns about the environmental impact. This could lead to a fast-track in exploiting Sami lands without their consent. “Maybe there is not one big enemy,” says Näkkäläjärvi, president of the Norwegian Youth Sami Parliament. “But we’re not that many and when there’s all these small things everywhere, the total sum of it is a big threat.” Green colonialism or the green transition?
With the existential risks of climate change, transitioning to a self-sufficient resource economy is a priority for Europe. Under the Green Deal, European countries are legally obliged to reach cut emissions by 55% by 2030. The iron ore mines (like Kallak and Kiruna) could provide the materials essential to the transition in making steel, electric cars, and phone batteries. The EU’s path to decarbonization promises to move to net-zero without compromising prosperity. However, many Sami dub this as “green washing.” They see the drive for continued growth as unsustainable and ignoring the environmental damage in the process. To Pilflykt, the time scales are disproportionate: “When you’re comparing 15 years [of productive mining] to reindeer husbandry that’s been since immemorial, for a thousand years, what is sustainable?” From childhood, Sami are taught they cannot take more from nature than what grows back. Näkkäläjärvi explains that in Western societies there is a distance between humans and nature. “For [Sami], it’s like we are nature,” she says. “We don’t even own the land, but we are part of it.” On February 27 2023,Näkkäläjärvi blocked the entrance to the Norwegian Prime Minister’s office to protest the Fosen wind turbines. Despite the 2021 Norwegian Supreme Court ruling the wind farms violated indigenous rights under international laws, the 151 turbines remain in operation in the Sami’s Fosen Penninsula.
The Norwegian Energy Minister Terje Aasland apologised for the wind farm permits violating human rights, however he still believed there could be a solution for co-existence. The turbines could power up to 100,000 homes. It is estimated if the wind turbines are demolished, electricity prices could increase 10NOK (£0.72) per kilowatt hour over the next three years, adding 200NOK (£14.53) to Norwegian household bills.
Not mincing her words, Näkkäläjärvi labels the green transition as “green colonialism” and putting “capital in front of human rights.” Her hair is tied up neatly in a bun, with her bangs framing her 22-year-old face. “The colonists think they know what’s best for us. That’s been going on since Social Darwinism times when we were researched on,” she says, matter-of-factly. This breath-taking statement reveals the generational trauma from historical State discrimination. “Now it is: “We’re in a climate crisis and you won’t survive either unless we do this project,” she says. Norway is expecting the conclusion of its Truth Commission to be delivered by June 2023. Näkkäläjärvi says she is anxious about the results and that it is very hard to think about reconciliation when there is such an enormous abuse of indigenous rights. The lack of trust between the State and the Sami only frustrates the opportunity for an open dialogue. “The problem is they don’t listen to us,” Näkkäläjärvi says. “They don’t give us the room to say what’s best for us and our lands.” The fight for human rights
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in December 2020 issued a legal opinion that Sweden does not grant Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). This gives indigenous people an autonomous voice over decisions that may affect them. The CERD concluded international human rights allows Sami to use their ancestral lands for historical cultural practices (like reindeer herding) overriding State legislation. In response, the Swedish government said it is working towards ratification of the convention to strengthen Sami rights but the decision is ultimately a matter for the Swedish parliament. To stress, FPIC should be granted because of the Sami heritage and traditional livelihoods in connection with the land. Pilflykt is visibly irritated as she talks about FPIC, rolling her eyes to the ceiling: “[The government] think it is a principle but it’s an international human right in law.” Lars Trägårdh, Professor of History at Uppsala University, argues that Sweden tends to operate under a unique paradox of individualism-collectivism where social cohesion is prioritised over self-expression. In the Kallak case, FPIC was not afforded to the Sami communities. the Swedish government weighed mining interests (employment, extracting raw materials, the green transition and development opportunities) against reindeer herding. It concluded the socioeconomic benefits of mining were greater and that it would not prevent Sami communities engaging in the practice. Accordingly, in the eyes of State, fixed minority rights could threaten liberal individual freedoms. The Minister for Energy, Business and Industry Ebba Busche, in a press statement for opening a mine in Kiruna, said: “Politics must give the industry the conditions to switch to green and fossil-free production.” Indeed, this is reflected in the Sweden’s policy for expansion as the number of mining exploration permits in increased from 587 in 2021 to 649 in 2022. As Western values are mostly based on capital growth, Sami rights are often limited to an economic perspective over human rights. The Truth Commission aims to raise awareness and increase knowledge of the Sami. Njajta says she cannot talk about reconciliation if there is no change. “The truth first and then changes,” she says. What does Njajta hope to see from the commission? “I just hope that we cannot go back from here,” she says.
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