Other Post How many reindeer does Finland need? 203,700, say ministry experts

[PEMM]

Over the past year, a working group at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has been examining the future of commercial reindeer herding in Finland, including the issue of how many domesticated reindeer there should be in the whole of the country.

Under a proposal submitted by the group on Monday, the number of reindeer should remain at its present level for at least the next ten years. That figure is currently capped at 203,700.

Reindeer are private property in Finland, but the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is empowered to set limits on how many there should be. Owners work together in reindeer grazing associations that cover specific geographic areas.

The current government's programme includes the aim of promoting reindeer herding as a profitable, sustainable, and culturally significant means of livelihood.

In addition, the working group has proposed that individual members of grazing associations should own no more than 500 reindeer. This change is aimed at expanding the number of people engaged in reindeer herding as their main livelihood.

How many reindeer does Finland need? 203,700, say ministry experts

A sustainable future for reindeer herding will require improvements to northern grazing areas.

yle.fi

Very sosialistic thing this reindeer herding.

If cattle farmers had same rules:
- Cattle would be wondering the land, on private and government property
- If they got eaten by wolves, owner would get aid by the government

 

[primer]

They seem to have problems with the foresters who want to chop down the trees but this interferes with Reindeer food. They eat lichen . Amazing.

 

[NebrHogger]

Are wild reindeer hunted there?

 

[muck]

What are their conclusions based on? The fact is, and setting aside the right to goddamn private property, Finland doesn't need any reindeers or a billion. There's no correct number, as far as I can tell.

 

[PEMM]

Are wild reindeer hunted there?

These reindeer are not wild, they are domesticatedish. But wild reindeer are hunted in south, there are some few thousand wild reindeer.

What are their conclusions based on? The fact is, and setting aside the right to goddamn private property, Finland doesn't need any reindeers or a billion. There's no correct number, as far as I can tell.

I was most surprised about the whole 500/person cap. Obviously if you want to make a better living you should be allowed to, instead of capping at some magical number. We could just as well start capping wages.

Apparently the problem is that larger amount of reindeer would start decreasing lichen. So you can choose a stable population, or not have any limits, which would lead to crash in population of reindeer in few years.

EDIT: As a curiosity, seems that there are fewer people than reindeer in Lapland.

EDIT2: Apparently this number is already large enough, that the lichen coverage is decreasing and they actually have to transport it from south... The more you know.

 

[muck]

So they're essentially restricting owners' rights for fear of the environment? Well… that's quite harsh, but at least it makes some sense. The fact is, if you had some 250,000 wild reindeer concentrated the way they are here, you'd start imposing heavy hunting quotas on them to protect the eco-system.

 

[primer]

They bought back wolves and bears. Whom in turn will need to be controlled next to domestic stock.

 

[PEMM]

So they're essentially restricting owners' rights for fear of the environment? Well… that's quite harsh, but at least it makes some sense. The fact is, if you had some 250,000 wild reindeer concentrated the way they are here, you'd start imposing heavy hunting quotas on them to protect the eco-system.

Wild populations would never reach these kind of levels.

After all the herders have hunted reindeers natural enemies; wolves, bear , wolverines and lynx to near extinction. And they also feed them during winter. 100k reindeer are slaughtered every year, btw. These populations would explode otherwise.

 

[muck]

Wild populations would never reach these kind of levels.

Wild populations of reindeer, you mean? Or of any wild animal?

 

[PEMM]

Wild populations of reindeer, you mean? Or of any wild animal?

Reindeer.

 

[primer]

Sami get treated like most first people... no land title no rights. Pretty ironic for 2000 years of known inheritance in a place like Sweden for example.

 

[PEMM]

Sami get treated like most first people... no land title no rights. Pretty ironic for 2000 years of known inheritance in a place like Sweden for example.

It's not much different for Finns or Swedes and their ancient land rights.

You should remember that ancestors of Finns, Sami and Swedes have lived side by side for a very long while:

Recently, the use of mitochondrial "mtDNA" (female lineage) and Y-chromosomal "Y-DNA" (male lineage) DNA-markers in tracing back the history of human populations has been started. For the paternal and maternal genetic lineages of Finnish people and other peoples, see, e.g., the National Geographic Genographic Project[55] and the Suomi DNA-projekti. Haplogroup U5 is estimated to be the oldest mtDNA haplogroup in Europe and is found in the whole of Europe at a low frequency, but seems to be found in significantly higher levels among Finns, Estonians and the Sami people.[55] The original European hunter-gatherers that populated large parts of Europe before the early farmers appeared are outside the genetic variation of modern populations, but most similar to Finnish individuals.

With regard to the Y-chromosome, the most common haplogroups of the Finns are N1c (59%), I1a (28%), R1a (5%) and R1b (3.5%).[57] Haplogroup N1c, which is found mainly in a few countries in Europe (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Russia), is a subgroup of the haplogroup N (Y-DNA) distributed across northern Eurasia and estimated in a 2006 study to be 10,000–20,000 years old and suggested to have entered Europe about 12,000–14,000 years ago from Asia.[58] [56]

Finns - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

...and that Sami and Finnish languages are from the same language family.

The idea that we have somehow similar situation to lands that had no interaction with the west and were then suddenly colonized by western kingoms is ridiculous due to the common history, language and background that our people share. At one point Swedes didn't really make a difference between Sami and Finns in Lapland; if a person was living in Lapland and was a hunter/fisher, he was a lapp. That lead to interesting situations before new law as people would show that they were recorded as lapps, while they were actually finns, would then claim that they are sami.

War, nobility and land grab were common practices in history and the wars between tribes of Finns, Swedes or Sami are in that regard no different of wars between other Europeans or wars between Native Americans. Or any other groups that live close in same geographical area.

Finns also populated large chunks of Sweden and Norway:

In Sweden, the migration of the Forest Finns was not only well accepted at first, but also masterminded and encouraged by the kings, notably Charles IX (r. 1604–11) and Gustavus Adolphus (r. 1611–32). They did so in order to make the vast border areas of the North, East and West of the kingdom inhabited. Among attractions offered for the migrating Finnish farmers in Sweden were seven years total exemption of all taxation and the prospect of ownership of large fertile plots of land.[1]

The situation would change as an emerging, but primitive, iron industry was growing in the beginning of the 17th century, smelting was powered by charcoal. The Forest Finns with their demanding slash-and-burn agriculture were suddenly considered an economic threat by increasing the cost of charcoal by burning off now valuable timber. The burning of the forests was officially forbidden in 1647 and the Finns were obliged to support the iron factories by providing charcoal at an artificially low price.

By the end of the 18th century, a large part of the descendants of the Forest Finns had become culturally assimilated into the Swedish mainstream population. During the previous two centuries, various laws and regulations had been passed to speed up the "Swedification" process to the Forest Finns, including total banning of the use of Finnish language.

Forest Finns - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

It's a long circle, Sami are now grieving over Finnification and Swedification that happened in 20th century.

Finnish tribes also inhabited large parts of Russia.

If we give credence over old grievances of someone else (I don't consider there is such thing as inherited guilt, so they are not our grievances) and think that land changes should follow them, there is not going to be end to that war.

 

[primer]

Sami strongly prove continual habitation and economic sole use the entire time to today. What else was there, mines with short lives and timber extraction are really only distractions. No doubt there are grey areas but c'mon where there's Same herding there is no other agriculture.

 

[PEMM]

1. Sami strongly prove continual habitation and economic sole use the entire time to today. 2. What else was there, mines with short lives and timber extraction are really only distractions. No doubt there are grey areas but c'mon 3. where there's 4. Same herding there is no other agriculture.

1. Which area?
2. Reindeer herding became a thing in Finland late; around 15-16th century. Hunting and fishing were the main trade among Sami in FInland until the reindeer herding became large scale, which happened as late as in 19th century and was also adopted by large number of Finns at that same time. Before that the herds were small. The tradition came from Sami in Norway where it had been practice for much longer period.
3. Right, except that in many places in Finnish Lapland there were more cattle than reindeer even in 19th century and farming was and is still a thing among Finns and among Sami.
4. Reindeer herding is escercised by both Finnish and Sami

I'd like to also note that in Finnish Lapland sami make up around 5% of the population. They are not a majority in any municipality in Finland.

 

[primer]

Continual habitation. Null and void =classic colonialism.

 

[PEMM]

Please elaborate.

Because I am afraid you don't know about the subject you are talking about. Can you even tell me what your gripe, when it comes to rights of Sami, is exactly?

 

[primer]

So you have as you have explained already in this example, any Sami people living and deriving livelihood from the same land for generations cannot lay claim to ownership said land. That and this is nothing less than colonialism.

"New Finnish Forestry Act Could Mean the End of Sami Reindeer Herding - Sámi Representatives Call for Swift Support From the International Community", 28 Mar 2016


An unprecedented land grab will threaten the last old growth forests of Finnish Lapland and the homeland of the indigenous Sámi Peoples if a new Forestry Act is approved by the Finnish Parliament this week...The new Forestry Act would no longer require Metsähallitus, the Finnish state-run enterprise which already controls 90% of the Sámi Home Area, to liaise with the Sámi Parliament and the Skolt Sámi Village Council on issues of land management and their potential impacts on indigenous people’s lives...The new Act would affect 2.2 million hectares of water systems and 360,000 hectares of land, mostly in the Sub-Arctic and North Boreal areas of Finland, the Sámi’s Home Area...If the new Forestry Act is passed, Sámi areas in Upper Lapland, including large tracts of boreal old growth forests, will be opened up to a range of economic uses...The preparation of this Act has not been conducted with the Free, Prior and Informed Consent of the Sámi People...

Broadly Finland is not alone with these issues and mining etc as you mentioned and really no recognition of Sami whom in jurisdictions From US and Canada to Chile to Australia ...ex colonies that also restored land rights to the likes of Sami, of whom many had lesser claim are legally recognized as owners.
It is a clearly modern sad land grab.

One lone few day old Squatter in vacant space is apparently given more legal standing in Finland.

 

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[PEMM]

So you have as you have explained already in this example, any Sami people living and deriving livelihood from the same land for generations cannot lay claim to ownership said land. That and this is nothing less than colonialism.

I have not said such a thing. Ownership to lands that families and individuals actually owned (Sami had concept of land ownership, and they marked them down to nature, and those lands were then marked to the official documentation ), they can and do claim. And in those cases where the new land partition (19th century) did not always follow the old records, those should be compensated. But they can't obviously make a claim to the whole area in between, because it belonged to the Swedish crown, later to Grand Duchy (Russia) and later to Finnish state.

Just like the other lands in Finland or elsewhere that were annexed. I mean these things also happened:

Northern Crusades - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

If you think that we should return all lands in which Sami at one point had jurisdiction, then we would have to start the line from Karelia from russian side, take Central Finland and continue all the way up to arctic ocean and then west to Northern Sweden and Norway.

And us Finns should then of course get our old tribal lands back in return, which would run from Western Finland through st. Pete to the shores of Ladoga and Ääninen and following rivers going south and east. You can't cherry pick and say only some groups have eternal rights to their ancestral homelands.

"New Finnish Forestry Act Could Mean the End of Sami Reindeer Herding - Sámi Representatives Call for Swift Support From the International Community", 28 Mar 2016

Sounds a bit exaggerated and apparently didn't happen. When you consider that they are allowed to use public lands for their trade and the number of reindeer is higher than before.

The law states following:
3rd chapter, 6§

Care, use and protection of natural resources controlled by Metsähallitus in Sami home land has to be reconciled (as stated in the law regarding Sami Council (974/1995)) in manner that guarantees that the parctice of Sami culture is safeguarded and also in reindeer herding area in a manner that fullfills the duties set in the reindeer herding law

10th chapter, 39§
Advisory boards

In the government owned lands that controlled by Metsähallitus, there will be local and province level advisory boards to help with decision making and to take into account position of local people.

In a municipality that belongs to Sami homeland in full, there will be advisory board in each municipality that will handle matters related to use of state owned land and water areas.

//We don't live in some wild west with robber barons and such

It is a clearly modern sad land grab.

One lone few day old Squatter in vacant space is apparently given more legal standing in Finland.

No, it's a case in which you have not followed the issue to the end from the initial panic. And it's not a modern thing, these problems with land ownership go back to the great partition.

All in all this is my opinion;
Sami Council wants special privileges when compared to Sami that had to switch language, or who switched to agriculture few generations back and also to Finnish people who have now also lived in the area for generations. Wouldn't it be much more sensible to hear the people living in that area as a whole? It's not in the interest of any people living out there to cut down the old forests or ruin the herding areas

 

[primer]

To a degree that is what they are doing. This is slowest growth forest and slowest recovery on what is classed as infertile land and they are clear felling except for a few of any kind per hectare. If the Sami thought that produced more food, they would have been deliberately burning and clearing it for the last several centuries. There is nothing else that could impinge on their way of life more and the Govt act proved it is not listening by removing the requirement to listen.

Settling indigenous claims are quite normally long duration. Sami have relatively undiminished compelling reason compared to other claimants. In any other jurisdiction mentioned they would succeed. Where else does an indigenous way of life still provide sustainability. Really these stoic herders are very unique and they claim to care more about sustainable diversity.