Indigenous rights in Scandinavia: autonomous Sami law

This book examines the diverse use of Indigenous customary rights in modern landscapes from a multidisciplinary perspective. Divided into two parts, the first deals explicitly with Sámi customary rights in relation to nature conservation in the Nordic countries and Russia from a legal and historical perspective. The authors investigate how longstanding Sámi customary territorial rights have been reassessed in the context of new kinds of legislation regarding Indigenous people. They also look at the ideas behind the historical models of nature conservation. The second part deals with the ideas and implementation of new kinds of postcolonial models of nature conservation. The case of the Sámi is compared with other Indigenous people internationally with cases from Australia, New Zealand, Canada and India. The work investigates how the governance of protected areas has been influenced by the principles of equality and positive discrimination, and how it has affected the possibilities of establishing adaptive co-management arrangements for specific areas. How the legal situation of Indigenous peoples has been recognised in an international context is also investigated. The volume provides a multidisciplinary analysis of how the customary livelihood of Indigenous people has adapted to modern industrialised landscapes and also how postcolonial approaches have contributed to global changes of Indigenous rights and nature conservation models.

Introduction / Lars Elenius -- Nordic legislation on protected areas : how does it affect Sâami customary rights? / Christina Allard -- Conceptions of ethnicity and nature conservation in reindeer herding areas in Sweden and Finland / Lars Elenius -- Rights of the naturised / Tore Andersson Hjulman -- Protecting sacred sites, maintaining cultural heritage, and sharing power : co-management of the SGang Gwaay UNESCO World Heritage site in Canada / Thora Herrmann, Leena Heinèamèaki and Cindy Morin -- Land rights as the prerequisite for Sâami culture : Skolt Sâami's changing relation to nature in Finland / Panu Itkonen -- Nature conservation in Russia : the case of indigenous Sâami rights in the Kola peninsula / Vladislava Vladimirova -- Reimagining governance for 'Yellowstone' modelled national parks in the new era of indigenous legal recognition / Jacinta Ruru -- Engaging with uncertainty : shared governance in indigenous conservation landscapes / Michael Adams -- A space for Sâami values? Sâami reindeer herding and Norwegian national parks / Jan Age Riseth -- International arenas, local space for agency and national discourse as mediator : protected areas in Swedish and Norwegian Sâapmi / Elsa Reimerson -- World Heritage bureaucracy : how it works and how it affects indigenous peoples / Carina Green and Jan Turtinen -- Sâami participatory rights in area protection and management : the influence of the related CBD's programme in Finland and Norway / Antje Neumann -- Contrasting nature, contrasting rights : concluding remarks / Christina Allard, Elsa Reimerson and Camilla Sandstrom

Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Notes on Contributors -- Acknowledgement -- Abbreviations of Scandinavian Legal Sources -- PART I: INTRODUCING AND CONTRASTING -- PART II: THE LEGAL SITUATION FOR THE SAMI -- PART III: SAMI LAW AS A KNOWLEDGE FIELD -- Index -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Themes and Reflections: A Perspective from Canada -- 3 A Comparative Gaze with Aotearoa New Zealand -- 4 Sami Law in Late Modern Legal Contexts -- 5 Some Characteristic Features of Scandinavian Laws and their Influence on Sami Matters