Sámi reindeer herders have been taking their animals to graze on the lichen in Finland’s northerly forests for hundreds of years, but community leaders say their way of life is being threatened by a potential increase in logging.
Logging could rise by more than 30% if a draft revision of Finland’s main forestry certification programme is approved, the ELY environmental protection department said, and unprotected forest in Sámi areas might not be exempt.
“If it’s not against PEFC requirements up there, forests could be cut in Sámi areas, the same way as in other parts of Finland,” said Auvo Kaivola, secretary-general of the country’s Programme for the Endorsement of Forestry Certification (PEFC).
The revision was proposed after some Finnish regions exceeded a sustainability target set by the PEFC, which covers 90% of the Nordic country’s forests.
Under the draft rule, which would be in place for at least five years, logging levels would be decided by comparing tree fells and new growth.
Kaivola said while logging could increase, “it’s good to keep in mind that the growth in Finnish forests is getting bigger every year too”.
Saplings can grow to sequester as much carbon as logged trees over several decades, but many scientists dispute that the carbon balance in the interim is “neutral”, especially when the logged trees are burnt for bioenergy.
Finland needs to expand its carbon sink if it is to meet a target of climate neutrality by 2035.
While some forests in Sámi areas are strictly protected, a logging increase in the order of 30% would be “devastating” for indigenous communities, said Jan Saijets, an activist and former member of the Finnish Sámi parliament.
“Sámi are already pushed up against the wall,” he said. “If forestry intensity is increased that much it would end the livelihoods of a lot of reindeer herders.”
The Sámi are a semi-nomadic people who trace their Arctic lineage back thousands of years. Most of the remaining 80,000 or so Sámi remain in Norway, with no more than 10,000 in Finland.
Finland’s government says Sámi cultural rights are legally protected and agriculture minister Jari Leppa said there were “no plans to increase logging in the Sámi area”.
“No clear-cuts have been made in the Sámi region state lands for decades,” he said, referring to the logging practice of clearing all the trees from a given area.
The Sámi are a seminomadic people who trace their Arctic lineage back thousands of years. Most of the remaining 80,000 or so Sámi remain in Norway, with no more than 10,000 in Finland.
Many have had to take jobs outside reindeer herding since the 1970s, but the activity still provides community jobs for slaughterers, calf markers and market vendors.
"(Without forests) the traditional way of life of following the herd ... is not financially viable,” said Elle Merete Omma, a member of the Sámi Council, a pan-Scandinavian organisation.
She cited the costs of feed and fodder needed for stationary reindeer farms, sometimes worsened by climate change, and the risk of heightened conflict as herders compete for grazing areas.
“It becomes a hard competition for the remaining land,” she said.
Disputes have erupted when Sámi resistance to logging in one area has displaced tree felling to smaller Sámi territories elsewhere.
One squabble that raged over a 2,000km2 area several years ago was only resolved when the larger Sámi group agreed to slaughter much of its herd.
Historically, forced urbanisation and the entry of women into the labour market often followed the disappearance of reindeer herds, removing a platform for teaching Sámi language, customs and traditional knowledge, Omma said.
Saijets described the process as “cultural genocide”.
“We are not able to keep our culture alive when all our environments are destroyed bit by bit,” he said.
Forestry is a pillar of Finland’s economy, making up a fifth of its export revenues and industrial production in 2018 and generating €23.4bn (about R400bn).
There’s a worry of increased demand for northern wood that could be unsustainable. I think the environmentalists are right to be worried.
— Government official
About 10% of the country’s forests are strictly protected, mostly in Sámi areas, but the nationwide area covered by older forests has fallen sharply, according to figures cited by the ELY.
Forest areas more than 140 years old shrank by more than half between 1952 and 2011, it said.
Petra Biret Magga Vars, a reindeer herder from the Sámi village of Vuotso, said while trees still lined the roads in her region, “behind them there is nothing”.
“It’s like a stage background in a theatre,” she said.
The draft revision to the forestry programme comes as Metsa Group, one of Finland’s largest forest companies, plans to open a large “bioproduct” sawmill in Kemi in the north of country, putting Sámi and environmental campaigners on alert.
“There’s a worry of increased demand for northern wood (that) could be unsustainable,” a senior government official said on condition of anonymity. “I think the environmentalists are right to be worried.”
Local protests have had some effect. In Sweden last year, plans to log 700 hectares of ancestral Sámi land, almost 1,000 football fields’ worth, were put on ice after a campaign highlighted by Vogue magazine and climate activist Greta Thunberg.
The plan has not been scrapped altogether, but Sámi groups are preparing a possible court case, collecting examples of rare flora and fauna species in the woodlands and documenting archaeological remains.
“Our entire lives depend on these forests,” said Sofia Jannok, a Sámi singer and climate activist who led the campaign.
“There is no room for further logging ... We will disappear as a people.”
— Thomson Reuters Foundation
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