Foreign Correspondent: Oct 20

This week a Foreign Correspondent crew travels for hours across the Arctic tundra to learn about the Samis’ experience.

The Sami people are indigenous to Europe, their traditional lands crossing from Russia’s Kola Peninsula to the north of Scandinavia and into the Arctic Circle.

Surviving decades of assimilation and discrimination, the Sami have fought to keep their culture alive.

They’ve also fought for elected representative bodies to be their voice to governments – known as Sami Parliaments – models that could inspire our own ‘Voice to Parliament’.

“We know what is good for us and we can speak for ourselves,” says Stefan Mikaelsson, the former President of Sweden’s Sami Parliament. “And we don’t want…Swedish state officials to talk on our behalf.”

As Australia debates the merits and model of its own indigenous ‘Voice to Parliament’, reporter Lauren Day travels to Scandinavia to learn about the Samis’ experience.

In this stunningly beautiful film, the Foreign Correspondent crew travels for hours across the Arctic tundra to capture the Sami’s traditional way of life, filming the autumn reindeer corral ahead of the winter migration.

And the crew heads out on Norway’s spectacular fjords with the Sea Sami who traditionally rely on fish for their livelihood.

In Norway and Sweden, Day hears of the immense pressures on Sami lands and waters from a new wave of ‘green’ development sweeping across the Arctic.

The Sami Parliaments are fighting windfarms and major mine proposals to extract resources crucial for the green energy transition.

They’re fearful the projects could disrupt reindeer migration and that tailings from a large-scale copper mine could contaminate the waters of a significant fjord.

“One of the strongest weapons in the struggle is the Sami Parliament,” say Sea Sami fisherman Torulf Olsen.

While there are limits to these Parliaments’ powers – they don’t have the right of veto or the power to make law – many feel they’re a powerful weapon in the Samis’ fight to survive.

“If it should happen that the Sami Parliament stopped existing, then I think it should be much worse for the Sami people again,” says reindeer herder, Nils Mathis Sara.

And Sara has some strong words for Australia:

“If there is someone feeling like they are not being heard then…you should aim for a system that can speak up for you, your group, such as we have here. This would be my advice.”

8pm Thursday on ABC.