Maja Kristine Jåma (Sámi) is a member of the Sámi Parliament in Norway. She grew up in a reindeer herding family, and herding has always been a part of her life. As a former Sámi language teacher, securing rights to language, culture, and reindeer herding are a big part of her work and activism. The following is an excerpt from an interview with Jåma conducted at the Convention on Biological Diversity COP 16 in Cali, Colombia.
As a reindeer herding community in Fosen, we have been working within the court system to stop the construction and development of wind power projects on our lands for over 20 years. Three years ago, a Supreme Court decision said our human, civil, and political rights to practice our culture as reindeer herders are being violated. I have been trying to speak up for the young and future generations at Fosen, as we fear we won’t be able to continue our culture as reindeer herders. The concern over this loss ignited something in me and is one of the reasons I started to engage with the Sámi organizations in the Norwegian Sámi Association (the biggest Sámi organization) and serve as a party to the Sámi Parliament in Norway. I was elected as a Parliament representative from the Southern Sámi area and later got a seat as a governing council member in the Sámi Parliament. Now, I’m working on political issues regarding land use, water, climate, and culture.
In the Arctic, we are very connected to our lands, waters, rivers, and forests. Our life is there. We live with nature and in nature. We are dependent on it, relying on it for food as well as maintaining our culture and language and to pass our Traditional Knowledge on to the next generations. All these connections to herding the reindeer and following them during the different seasons, but also picking berries, plants for medicine, fishing, and being a part of a whole food system—it’s very connected to who we are, our identity. What we do during the year has such a rich language that describes every little detail that is happening. Our language cannot be translated into other activities in the same way.
Maja Kristine Jåma.
For us, the year starts when a reindeer calf is born. That happens in the spring when new life and everything starts. We are hopeful, and we do everything we can to make a good start for our calves because that’s our future, our culture, and also our income. In the summer, we mark the calf’s ear with a knife to know who the owner is. I have my own [branding mark] and my own reindeer. In Sámi, my mark is “garrah namhpe tjiehkie åvtelde, åelkies tjiehkie åvtelde.” It cannot be translated into another language. There are also specific names denoting how old the reindeer is, whether it is female or male, what it looks like, and its different colors in the fur and the antlers.
We see the changes [due to climate change] happening very fast. In recent years, winters have been milder and the weather is more unpredictable. This affects our knowledge and herding practices, since we know different seasons. The reindeer want to go to certain places where the grazing is good. The temperatures are getting warmer, and we are seeing rain in the middle of the winter. This causes significant problems because the grazing land freezes, and the reindeer do not get sufficient access to the land and can actually starve, so we’ve had to feed them ourselves. That makes it difficult to teach the reindeer to forage for themselves. We had this grazing crisis over the last few winters, and we will continue to see it happen more often.
Another concern is that we see different species coming into our waters and out-competing some of the native species. With warning seas, fishing and farming in our traditional areas have become more attractive enterprises, threatening the small fisheries. This has created a problem with the Atlantic salmon, which are disappearing and causing a loss of culture. When there are no fish, this leads to a loss of both livelihood and culture and also causes a loss of traditional knowledge and language.
There are ongoing revitalization efforts for our language and the situation is brighter than before, but we still face a lot of challenges. Assimilation policies by governments in all of the Sápmi (Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia) have had grave impacts. We were not permitted to speak Sámi in school; we were not allowed to have Sámi names, and we were not allowed to buy land in our land. This assimilation process started hundreds of years ago. In Norway, the worst assimilation period from the 18th century to today is documented. A Truth and Reconciliation Committee was set up in Norway that produced a report on the consequences of assimilation. The Committee has gathered a lot of stories from the Sámi people and tried to come up with some measures about what the States can do to repair the damages from forced assimilation policies and how to restore our culture, language, and livelihoods. There is still a long way to go. We need to acknowledge that these assimilationist structures are still here, and we need to change them.
Reindeer are central to Sámi language and culture. Photo by Denis Simonet.
In regards to Sámi rights to the land and waters, there are many “green” projects and developments in Sapmi, such as wind and hydroelectric power projects. Dams and other so-called ‘green’ sources of energy are being put forward as a solution to climate change. These projects are being built on Sápmi land without our People’s consent, in violation of our rights. This is a form of green colonization; for example, the practice of giving companies permission to build when the case against a project is still being litigated in the court system should be stopped. If a case is in court, the project should be paused pending the court’s decision. But these projects are allowed to start or continue if they are already in process. This is what happened at Fosen. The wind farm should never have been built, as the Supreme Court affirmed.
Unfortunately, there are no positive examples of how our rights have been respected in any one project. But we must agree that we cannot have a system that actually contributes to human rights violations. That’s the most basic thing. The fact that we have to talk about and make sure that our governments are respecting our rights to self-determination and Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) is indicative of the current situation with regard to our rights. The State should strengthen framework structures or any proposed development projects on our lands to ensure that our rights are respected.
Top photo: Reindeer herding practices are strongly affected by large scale wind farms as reindeer avoid areas where turbines stand.
Photo by Statkraft.
