Indigenous peoples across the Arctic are experiencing increased pressure from extractive industries on their land. The Finnish Sámi have recently won a victory, but the fight for recognition and self-determination still has a long way to go.
In early April, Irish mining company Karelian Diamond Resources withdrew its claim to explore for diamonds in the Deatnu Valley, following local resistance. The Anti-Mining Coalition of Deatnu Valley sent letters to senior Finnish officials asking them to stop the development. Permissions, they claimed, had been given without the free, prior and informed consent of the Sámi. They were ‘illegal under national and international law, and unsustainable from a scientific and traditional knowledge viewpoint’.
