“If the military doesn’t understand the livelihood, they don’t understand the losses and damage their activities cause to the Sámi, either”

Military activities in the Arctic are intensifying without any real consultation with the Sámi. Despite their rights to these lands, their governance is poorly integrated, threatening a subsistence-based culture such as reindeer herding. Finnish social scientist Laura Junka-Aikio provides some insight in an interview.

In polarjournal.net we recently report on NATO increase of activities in the Northern part of Europe and more specifically on the Russian border, which is also a Sámi land. How Sámi and Military activities are cohabitating ?

Recent geopolitical changes and the NATO membership of Finland and Sweden are increasing military land use in the northernmost parts of the Nordic region. However, it is rarely noted that this cross-border region is also Indigenous territory belonging to the Sámi people.

Military exercises are increasing in this area, especially in Northern Finland. The Sámi region in Finland has been a site for military training in the past as well, but the scale was much smaller, and the activities did not cause significant concerns locally.

Now, the area is increasingly seen as a place where NATO forces from different countries can come to train for Arctic warfare, and joint exercises across borders are also becoming common.

The Sámi area, or the Nordic “High North,” is seen as a new focus for defense due to the Arctic region’s growing geopolitical importance, and because this is an area where troops can train in a cold environment, in a landscape similar to Russia. There is a great deal of interest in demonstrating how effectively NATO can operate in this environment.

According to the article 30 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, indigenous territories cannot be used for military purposes without effective consultations with the indigenous peoples concerned. Unfortunately, this is currently not the case.

In Finland, decisions to join NATO and to sign the Defense Cooperation Agreement with the U.S. were taken without consulting the Sámi, and there is no clear system for consultations prior to military training on Sámi territories either.

Norway has better protocols, but it remains to be seen how well these protocols will work in the future if military activity within the Sámi region continues to rise.

This is an important point: these lands are not only state territory but also Indigenous land, and this dual status must be respected.

How is the governance of the Sámi territory, which spans across the Nordic countries, organized ?

In each of the three Nordic countries, the Sámi are represented by Sámi parliaments whose members are elected every four years. Additionally, in Finland, the Skolt Sámi Village Council represents a particular Sámi minority group called the Skolt Sámi.

On the cross-border level, there is the Saami Council, which is a voluntary, non-governmental umbrella organization that brings together Sámi perspectives from the different countries.

However, none of these bodies de facto governs the Sámi territories, as state recognition of Indigenous land rights remains rather weak in the Nordics compared to examples of Indigenous self-government found in places such as Arctic Canada.

For instance, within the Sámi homeland region in Finland, the state claims ownership of 90% of all the land. The Sámi dispute this claim, and the issue remains unresolved.

The struggle over land is reflected in the formal mandate of the Sámi Parliament, which, according to the Sámi Parliament Act, is limited to looking after the Sámi language and culture, as well as taking care of matters relating to their status as an Indigenous people.

On the other hand, although the act does not mention Sámi land rights, Sámi traditional livelihoods are considered a central aspect of Sámi culture that the Sámi Parliament ought to take care of, and such livelihoods depend strongly on Sámi access to the land.

Therefore, despite the lack of formal recognition of Sámi land rights, the Finnish state has a duty to consult the Sámi Parliament on all land use projects within the Sámi homeland region that may have a significant impact on Sámi livelihoods.

In addition, such consultations are mandatory in light of international human rights instruments such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which the state is committed.

What are the conflicts of interest in land use between Sámi culture and military activities in the Arctic?

The major issue is with reindeer herding. It is the key traditional livelihood of the Sámi. It actually maintains the culture and is vital for the future of the Sámi as an Indigenous people.

Sámi reindeer herding is very dependent on land to remain viable. It is highly threatened by all kinds of projects that keep fragmenting the pasturelands, taking more and more land. Such pastures are getting smaller and smaller. This is part of the historical development that is central to the Nordic colonization of Sámi lands.

Military land use alone, of course, wouldn’t be a big problem – it could be accommodated – but the current increase in military land use comes on top of all the other land uses that are already making it very hard for the livelihood to survive.

In other words, there’s a new land user in town, so to say. The problem is that it clearly follows different rules. When we talk about security and defense, it is easily framed as a matter of emergency, and there is much less room for transparent and public discussion.

However, there should be no exceptions. Also, in the context of military and defense planning, states should follow the legal commitments they have regarding Sámi indigenous and human rights and land use in the Sámi area.

In practical terms, how do military exercises impact reindeer herding?

Last spring, in 2024, NATO organized a large cross-border exercise called Nordic Response, which was conducted across Norway, Sweden, and Finland, in the Sámi homeland region. In that context, it became clear that the ways in which the defense forces take Sámi rights into account across the borders vary significantly.

To simplify, on the Norwegian side, the experience, according to interviews I have conducted on both sides of the border, was pretty good because the Sámi reindeer herders were included in the planning well ahead of the training.

They were compensated for the extra work they had to do to remove the reindeer, and the military helped by providing extra food for the animals. There was a feeling that they were taken care of and fairly compensated.

In contrast, on the Finnish side, such protocols were not followed. There was no proper consultation or participation of Sámi reindeer herders prior to the military exercise. Some of the reindeer herders told me that they were just informed that the troops would be coming.

Proper participation and consultation well ahead would support the reindeer herders’ ability to adjust to the pressure from military training – for instance, by herding the reindeer to those pasturelands where the training was already concentrated before the exercise.

Thus, by the time of the exercise, those lands would already have been used for that winter, the reindeer could be taken to a different area, and the training would cause less harm.

What is also problematic is that, unlike in Norway, in Finland the reindeer herders have still not been compensated for the damage and extra work caused by the Nordic Response 2024 exercise.

Some individuals may have received something, but there is no clarity as to what kind of damage can be compensated, what kind of proof one needs to submit to receive the compensation, and so on.

The fact that there is such disparity in policies across the Norwegian-Finnish border, when in reality we are talking about one Indigenous people and one NATO exercise, is unsustainable.

How could defense and security organizations better work with the Sámi?

The Finnish Act on Defense Forces limits training in agricultural areas to avoid harm to private property and livelihoods, and also regulates the responsibility to compensate for possible losses to the farmers.

To an untrained eye, land in the Sámi homeland region may appear as “unused” or as “wilderness”, but from the perspective of the reindeer herders, all that land is in use and vital for keeping the reindeer safe and alive.

In my view, it is not just laws that are the problem, but the Defense Forces’ more general lack of knowledge and understanding of the particular nature and needs of Sámi reindeer herding.

If the military doesn’t understand the livelihood, they don’t understand the losses and damage their activities cause to the Sámi either. This is why establishing proper policies for participation, consultation, and collaboration between the defense forces and the Sámi would be so important also on the Finnish side.

Such collaboration and a general commitment to protect, not harm, Sámi traditional livelihoods could also benefit the Defense Forces.

For instance, there is much talk about the need to boost society’s resilience in the face of war and as part of military preparedness. In this context, Sámi people, with their nature-based livelihoods and skills at surviving in the Arctic environment even when the infrastructures of modern society may collapse, could be a key asset.

If there is a total breakdown of supply systems or a loss of energy, it is the traditional livelihood that can sustain life. If your work is to improve security and resilience in this area, but you do so by stepping on Sámi rights and as a result end up weakening their livelihoods, you are, in a way, undermining your own goals.