According to Helena Omma, the leader of the Saminuorra the youth perspective is often missing in these kinds of processes, so there is a need for the youth to explain their own lives with their own words and  how this process affects them and how they believe that they have a future in reindeer husbandry in Härjedalen.

Visit the blog here (in Swedish)

Read the press release from the Saami Council about the case here on the Reindeer Portal.

WSPA urge people to write a protest letter to the Nordic Council of Ministers, highlighting material such as,

Despite legislation to the contrary, the footage obtained by WSPA shows how the reindeer are forced through a process that prohibits their natural behaviour in several ways. The reindeer, used to roaming free in the wilderness with no prior contact with human beings, panic visibly and attempt to flee as they are herded in massive groups of well over a hundred reindeer, by groups of men, some on snowmobiles.

The animals’ distress continues to increase as they are forced into corrals, have their ears mutilated and left to bleed, and in more than one instance visible on film, get mishandled as they desperately resist being loaded onto trucks for transport to slaughterhouses.

See their protest site and video here.

If there is a lesson in this for reindeer herders, it might be to be careful of visitors to reindeer round ups bearing cameras…

Wind turbine at Markbygden near Piteå. Photo: Tom Sullivan / SR International

One of the largest wind farms in the world is being built in northern Sweden but not everyone is pleased about it. The turbines cut across an area used by Sweden’s indigenous Sámi reindeer herders.

An hour’s drive inland from the town of Piteå, a dozen wind turbines tower over the surrounding forest. In the next few years 1,101 turbines will be erected here at a cost of $8.2 billion.

“This plateau has really good wind conditions – that’s the main reason it’s being built here,” said Jonas Lundmark from the local council.

“Also 95 percent of the land is owned by two forestry companies and there has been a steady decline in the population over the last 50 years. People living here are very keen to get more business into the area.”

By 2020, the wind farm is expected to provide about half of the national target for new wind energy – about 12 terawatt hours – that’s roughly the equivalent of two Swedish nuclear reactors, according to the company building the wind farm.

Wind power is a high priority for the Swedish government, and the local power to veto planning applications for wind farms has been removed to pave the way for more of them.

Stefan Lundmark, from the Swedish ministry of enterprise and energy says that the trend across the Nordic countries is to build in northern, more sparsely populated areas.

Sámi reindeer herders losing grazing land

“I think that the wind farms will be bigger and bigger and most of them will be in northern Sweden. In the south it’s more densely populated and there are more competing interests,” he said.

Leaving the wind farm traffic, the only traffic I met on the newly paved road was a herd of reindeer that shot out in front of the car, forcing me to stop. With the low winter sun I almost failed to see them until it was too late.

The new road winds through the Sámi reindeer herding lands, and the local herders say it will limit their movements and endanger their animals. They are locked in a dispute over compensation with the company building the wind farm – they say they were never properly consulted before the building got underway.

Ingrid Inga, president of the Sámi Parliament, says this is just the latest chapter in a longstanding struggle between Sámi reindeer herders and industrial interests.

“We’re not against wind power – but we are against big wind farms like Markbydgen because they affect the reindeer business – the local Sámi herders will lose about a quarter of their winter grazing land. That’s really reprehensible from our point of view,” she said.

Inger says that Sámi herding communities should be consulted before giant wind farms are built, which she says did not happen in Markbygden.

She explains that reindeer herders need to move their herds between seasonal grazing lands – often across long distances – during the year. But increasing demands on the land from other economic interests is making that more and more difficult, and is leading to the closure of traditional Sámi businesses.

National interest versus Sámi rights

“The government can take over land earmarked for reindeer grazing – if it’s in the national interest. You have mining, hydro power, forestry and now wind power – each of them competing for land used by Sámi herders – and it all adds up.

Svevind, the company building the windfarm say that they have consulted the Sámi and that they are willing to pay appropriate compensation.

But Sámi grievances run deep – there is a long history in the region of what is perceived as land-grabbing by government and industrial interest, explained Patrick Lantto, an historian at the Centre for Sámi Research in Umeå.

Although the Sámi are protected by a law which gives them the right to grazing lands across vast stretched of the north of the country, Lantto says its does not add up to much in practice as it’s next to impossible for herders to prove they have been using the land.

And despite some recent court rulings in their favour, it would seem that the odds are against them.

“There’s a strong sentiment that reindeer husbandry could prevent development in the north,” he said.

“In a recent case the environmental court clearly stated that Sweden has a goal of increasing it’s percentage of renewable energy and this is a goal which ways more heavily than protecting the rights of reindeer herders.”

Source: Sveriges Radio

In their complaint the Saami Council argue that the project is socially unsustainable and in breach of Saami rights.

The Swedish government has granted planning permission for the world’s largest land based wind power park to be built in the municipality of Piteå, Sweden, where the Saami community of Östra Kikkejaur have their winter reindeer herding pastures. The wind power park will consist of over 1000 wind turbines, an 800 km road, and extensive infrastructure, which means that reindeer herding in the area will be severely restricted.

”The Swedish state has admitted that the project will destroy at least 25% of the Saami community’s winter reindeer herding pastures, but the state has argued that renewable energy is more important than Saami rights. The financier of the project’s first phase, the German bank KfW IPEX-Bank, has defended their investment by referring to the Swedish state’s approval of the project. But the state planning permission, and thereby KfW IPEX-Bank’s financing,  are in breach of international law because Saami rights are not being respected”, says Mattias Åhrén, president for the Saami Council.

Download the Press Release 1004 Press release Markbygden

Download the Letter of Noticification to the Bank KfW IPEX 1004 Markbygden OECD

Text of the full press release below

German bank finances giant wind power project in breach of Saami rights

Saami Council has today lodged a complaint over the German KfW IPEX-Bank’s financing of a giant wind power project on Saami reindeer herding territories. The wind power project risks making reindeer herding unviable in the area and is therefore in breach of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises. In their complaint the Saami Council argue that the project is socially unsustainable and in breach of Saami rights.

The Swedish government has granted planning permission for the world’s largest land based wind power park to be built in the municipality of Piteå, Sweden, where the Saami community of Östra Kikkejaur have their winter reindeer herding pastures. The wind power park will consist of over 1000 wind turbines, an 800 km road, and extensive infrastructure, which means that reindeer herding in the area will be severely restricted.

”The Swedish state has admitted that the project will destroy at least 25% of the Saami community’s winter reindeer herding pastures, but the state has argued that renewable energy is more important than Saami rights. The financier of the project’s first phase, the German bank KfW IPEX-Bank, has defended their investment by referring to the Swedish state’s approval of the project. But the state planning permission, and thereby KfW IPEX-Bank’s financing,  are in breach of international law because Saami rights are not being respected”, says Mattias Åhrén, president for the Saami Council.

The Saami community has been in contact with the German bank, KfW IPEX-Bank, and highlighted the fact that the bank’s financing of the project is not in line with the bank’s commitments regarding human rights, indigenous rights, and environmental sustainability. The Saami community has also requested a meeting with the bank, but the bank has ignored the community’s request. In their communication with the community KfW IPEX-Bank claim that the bank’s commitments do not apply to projects in OECD countries, and therefore are not relevant to Sweden. The bank argues that they follow Swedish law and the decisions of Swedish public authorities, and that this is guarantee enough that Saami rights are respected.

”The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises apply of course to projects in all countries, and Sweden is no exception. We look forward to a dialog with the German government regarding KfW IPEX-Bank’s investment in this controversial project. It is a myth that Sweden respects human rights”, says Mattias Åhrén, president for the Saami Council.

Sweden has received repeated and harsh international critique from the UN Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the UN Human Rights Committee because Sweden breaches Saami land rights by not regulating resource development activities on traditional Saami lands and does not give Saami communities the opportunity for effective participation in decisions that affect them.

Contact: Mattias Åhrén, President, Saami Council +47 47 37 91 61

Both Finnmark society and the Sami community is entirely dependent on new activity. If one is to preserve the culture and language we are going to have to have new jobs for the youth in the Sami villages. You can not save the Sami culture simply by having Sami kindergarten at Tøyen in Oslo and courses in communities with cafe lattes, it has to happen here,

You can read the rest of the article here on the Reindeer Portal

But warm winters in recent years have forced herders here in the far northern Kola Peninsula to delay for months the rounding up of their reindeer from the vast tundra — at great economic cost.

“We’ve had to move the slaughter forwards from December to February because the lakes haven’t frozen over,” said Vladimir Filippov, an ethnic Komi herder who heads the farm Tundra, the main employer in this remote village.

These reindeer have lost roughly 20 percent of their weight during the extra months spent in the tundra while herders waited for the ice to thicken enough for the forced migration.

“It’s not a small but a huge problem for us and a constant worry,” said Filippov.

With meat sold at 4.34-6.01 dollars per kilogram (2.2 pounds), it can amount to a loss of up to 167,000 dollars per year. “That’s a huge loss,” Filippov sighed.

Over the past decade average temperatures have risen by 0.7 degrees C (1.25 degrees F) and satellite images show melting ice cover on the Arctic pole, said Anatoly Semyonov of the regional Murmansk state climate monitoring agency.

Even though 2010 has been relatively icy, herders who have faced more than a decade of mild winters dismiss the general scepticism amongst the Russian public over global warming.

Climate changes has also disrupted the breeding cycle and made it tough for reindeer to feed on lichen beneath the snow as late thaws and freezing rain create an impervious ice coating, veterinarian Vasili Pidgayetsky said.

At Tundra, global warming is forcing innovation.

Last year, the farm entered a proposal to build freeze-storage sites powered by wind turbines near grazing grounds to avoid the need to cross the vast tundra for slaughter in a grant contest run by the World Bank.

“We could kill the reindeer in situ in December and carry the meat back to the village by snowmobile,” said Tundra’s director Viktor Startsev.

It is a radical idea that is not without opposition amid the indigenous Saami and Komi-Izhems herders clinging fast to age-old way of life on the peninsula.

“Of course, the older generation says this isn’t right,” admitted Startsev.

The herding crisis began here with the Soviet experiment: Herders were moved from their pastures to Lovozero in the collectivization of the 1930s and forced resettlements in the 1960s to make way for military and industrial activity.

Valentina Sovkina, an expert with the Barents Euro-Arctic Council, was one of hundreds of Saami children who were torn from their parents and placed in dormitories.

“They were tragic years when families were split, mine too. I saw it fall apart,” she said. “I use to live half a year in the tundra… We slept on reindeer pelts but then the authorities insisted each child had to have a bed.”

The Soviet changes led many commit suicide and turn to drink, she said.

Today, many have left Lovozero and few young people in the impoverished village of 3,000 want to take up their forefathers’ profession.

Rubbing his mittened hands in frigid exhaustion, 42-year-old Grigory Khatanzei said he began herding at 16 and recalled how much tougher the job was without cell phones and snowmobiles — using sleighs and dogs.

Despite satellite television and other improvements at bases in the tundra, “My kids, the young don’t do this; they don’t want this work probably because it pays so little,” he said.

The average herder earns 7,000 rubles (234 dollars) a month and lives in the tundra in shifts between March and November.

With less people to mind the herd, squeezed by industrial growth and powerless before armed poachers, reindeer numbers have dropped drastically.

By the end of World War II — during which reindeer brigades transported Soviet armed forces — the Tundra farm had 43,000 animals. In 2010, some 26,000 reindeer are left.

The reindeer and caribou herds are in steady decline across the Arctic, the first global study of their numbers published in 2009 found.

“The vast degree of global change in the north casts doubt on the species’ ability to recover,” study author Liv Vors of the University of Alberta, Canada told AFP.

In the last sprint of the day-long, 50-kilometre (30-mile) rampage over the tundra, herders chase alongside, flapping their arms to spur on reindeer.

When one sinks exhausted into the snow, they swoop in and drag it by the antlers onto wood sleds at the back of their snowmobiles.

“We’re always worried, not only because of climate change,” Filippov said. “I’m afraid that if people don’t pay attention to reindeer herding, it may die away.”

Source: AFP/ France 24

Reindeer husbandry moves between different pastures has been going on for centuries and long irrespective of the nation’s borders. In connection with the border drawing between Norway and Sweden in 1751, there was a need to clarify the relationship to the reindeer herders. This resulted in the so-called Lapcodicil, which was an addition to the border treaty between the two countries, and which provided the basis for the reindeer husbandry – that it still should be able to make seasonal moves. The cross-border reindeer husbandry has since that been regulated by various conventions, the latest convention of 9 February 1972 for grazing between Norway and Sweden. The 1972-Convention ceased to apply in 2005.

The proposal to the Convention has at the present a total of 34 articles with the main provisions of the cross-border reindeer husbandry. Convention’s purpose is to promote and develop cooperation between the countries so that reindeer grazing is exploited in a way that provides a long-term basis for an ecologically, economically and culturally sustainable reindeer herding in both countries.

For implementation of the Convention established two permanent bodies, a body and a review body. One of the Annexes to the Convention is a range protocol, that specifies the locations to be included in the cross-border reindeer husbandry.

Before a new Convention can be implemented, there must be a further follow-up through the signature, internal processes in both countries and ratification. A new convention will probably take effect in 2010.

The position is for 3 months, the salary is 10,000 NOK (1060 Euro)/month and food and accomodation is included.

Source: NRK Sami Radio

Sami should have the same right to kill animals as do Jews and Muslims. So said lawyer Trond Biti when the case of Sami traditions came up against Norwegian law yesterday in the Supreme Court of Norway.

“They have every right to practice their traditions and so should the Sami people” said Biti.

Trond Biti is defending a herder  for killing a  reindeer with a knife stabbed into the heart, although it is contrary to the Norwegian Animal Welfare Act. Norwegian law has primacy over Sami customs, said the First State lawyer Lars Fausa for Troms and Finnmark, after the reindeer owner was fined 5,000 NOK (550 EURO) for having slaughtered reindeer in violation of the Animal Welfare Act. (NRK, SR.se).

More on this story here on an earlier story on the Reindeer Blog

Regeringen har för flera år sen sänkt skatten för bränsle som används i jord- och skogsbruk. Men när det gäller skattelättnader för bränsle i rennäringen så säger regeringen nej. ”Diskriminering”, menar renägarförbundet.

The government has for several years ago lowered the tax on fuel used in agriculture and forestry. But when it comes to tax credits for fuel in reindeerhusbandry the government says no. “Discrimination”, says renägarförbundet.