Reindeer Husbandry and Barents 2030

INDIGENOUS INFLUENCE ON DEVELOPMENT

In spite of the ILO-convention 169 on the rights of indigenous peoples and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the indigenous peo- ples of the Barents Region have had little influence on land rights and piecemeal development. One of the main problems is the sectored management of grazing land, where one ministry is in charge of in- frastructure, another of hydropower development, a third of forestry, etc. This management regime has left no room for an overall policy to secure at least a minimum of grazing land for reindeer herding. De- velopment plans are often supported by economic powerful interests, which are difficult to withstand for small, family-based occupancies like reindeer herding. On the county level, a recent investigation by the Of- fice of the Auditor General of Norway found that rein- deer herders some possibilities to influence or modify general municipality plans (Riksrevisjonen 2004), al- though most plans end up as a compromise between developers and other interests. In the case of rec-

reational cabins, only 12% of the municipality plans restricted new construction of cabins after protests from reindeer husbandry interests (Lie et al . 2006). However, the largest challenge for reindeer husband- ry is the vast number of separate development cases that are raised in addition to the general county plans, which are time and resource demanding and leave little room to concentrate on the overall grazing land situation. Reindeer herders have fewer possibilities to influence the outcome of such separate cases than the general county plan process. Illustrating this, 400 new cabins are allowed built in Norwegian reindeer grazing areas each year as separate development cases, in addition to general municipality plans. Only 7% of these are stopped as a result of protests from reindeer husbandry interests (Lie et al . 2006). Also, in 86% of the separate cases of development on their lands, they are not informed by the county of the final decision in the cases, making it difficult to raise a final legal objection. Hence, in real life, the herders have only a marginal influence on the development of their own traditional lands.

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

The solution to the future of the Sámi people does not appear to lie within a single stakeholder, but must likely include a range of actions. Government agen- cies seem to have little coordination of development activities as no overall goal on preservation of range lands and reindeer pastures exists, while Sámi herd- ers seem to have had limited success in collaborating

both within countries and across borders to present a common policy and plan of action against the de- velopment. First of all, definition of crucial ranges should be critical, given of course, that such step will not simply accelerate development elsewhere with- out providing the necessary legal protection of the critical ranges.

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