The Finnmark Act () of 2005 transferred about 96% (about 46,000 km²) of the area in the

Finnmark Finnmark (; se, Finnmárku ; fkv, Finmarku; fi, Ruija ; russian: Финнмарк) was a county in the northern part of Norway, and it is scheduled to become a county again in 2024. On 1 January 2020, Finnmark was merged with the neighbour ...

county in

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of ...

to the inhabitants of Finnmark. This area is managed by the Finnmark Estate agency. The Finnmark Estate is managed by a board of directors with six members. Three of these are appointed by the

Sami Parliament of Norway Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise n ...

, and three by the ''Finnmark County Council''. The leader of the board is elected by the Sami Parliament and the County Council in alternating years.

Background

The background for the Finnmark Act is the Sámi people's fight for their rights to manage their land and culture. In 1978 the

Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate ( no, Norges vassdrags- og energidirektorat or NVE) is a Norwegian government agency established in 1921. It is under the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and regulates the country's water r ...

published a plan that called for the construction of a dam and hydroelectric power plant that would create an artificial lake and inundate the

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

village of

Máze or or is a village in Kautokeino Municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The village is located along the river Kautokeinoelva, about south of the town of Alta and about north of the village of Kautokeino. The village is made up ...

. This plan was met by a strong opposition from the Sámi, and resulted in the

Alta controversy The Alta conflict or Alta controversy refers to a series of massive protests in Norway in the late 1970s and early 1980s concerning the construction of a hydroelectric power plant in the Alta River in Finnmark, Northern Norway. Timeline *Inhabitan ...

. As a result of the controversy, the Norwegian government held meetings in 1980 and 1981 with a Sámi delegation appointed by the

Norwegian Sámi Association The Norwegian Sámi Association ( se, Norgga Sámiid Riikasearvi , no, Norske Samers Riksforbund), also known as NSR, is the largest Sámi organization in Norway. The association was founded in 1968. Purpose The NSR actively runs cultural, s ...

, the

Sámi Reindeer Herders’ Association of Norway The Sámi ( ; also spelled Sami or Saami) are a Finno-Ugric-speaking people inhabiting the region of Sápmi (formerly known as Lapland), which today encompasses large northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and of the Murmansk Oblast, Rus ...

and the Norwegian Sámi Council. The meetings resulted in the establishment of the ''Sámi Rights Committee'' addressing Sámi legal relations, that proposed among other things the establishing the Sami Parliament, and finally the adoption of the Finnmark Act in 2005. The Sámi rights to lands, waters and resources were strengthened after 1990, when Norway recognized the Sámi as an

indigenous people Indigenous peoples are culturally distinct ethnic groups whose members are directly descended from the earliest known inhabitants of a particular geographic region and, to some extent, maintain the language and culture of those original people ...

by adapting the

ILO convention 169 The Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 is an International Labour Organization Convention, also known as ILO Convention 169, or C169. It is the major binding international convention concerning indigenous peoples and tribal peopl ...

concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. The convention states that rights for the indigenous peoples to land and natural resources are recognized as central for their material and cultural survival. In addition, indigenous peoples should be entitled to exercise control over, and manage, their own institutions, ways of life and economic development in order to maintain and develop their identities, languages and religions, within the framework of the States in which they live.

Purpose

Traditionally the Norwegian authorities had a view that the nomadic Sámi use of land, water and natural resources did not establish any formal legal rights. The basis for the Finnmark act is that "the Sámis, through protracted traditional use of the land and water areas, have acquired individual and/or collective ownership and right to use lands and waters in Finnmark County." The Finnmark act attempts to strengthen the Sámi rights, by giving the ''entire'' population of Finnmark greater influence of the property in the county. However, the act does not cover fishing rights in saltwater,

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the econom ...

, or oil rights. An important element of the act is discussion and recognition of existing rights of use and ownership of land. For this purpose a commission and tribunal have been set up. The foundation of this work is the principles of established custom and immemorial usage. (ibid.)

References

{{Reflist

External links

FinnmarkseiendommenFinnmarksloven
Sámi Finnmark Law of Norway Forestry in Norway Environmental law

Background

Purpose

See also

References

External links