Until the Oslo conference, "Saami's" for me was all about reindeers and the legends of Santa Claus. In the conference schedule there was rather a surprise. In the opening plenary session, one of the key note speaker mentioned was "Aili Keskitalo, President, Sámediggi (The Sámi Parliament) ". On the last day, there was also a presentation by Mr. Lennart Pittja, who is the founder and owner of Pathfinder Lapland on "Saami eco tourism in Lapland".
Legends and mysteries were always part of the Saami culture. One of the oldest ethnic groups in Europe, the Saami's are spread across the four countries before the modern boundaries were drawn. They live in Finland, Norway, Sweden and Kolan peninsula of present Russia. Highly tuned to the natural environment, Saami's are known to have led a nomadic life based on fishing, hunting and seasonal migrations of reindeers.
Similar to how the natives were were pushed off their land in the Americas during colonisation, the Saami's have gone through aggressive assimilation of the modern world. According to the speakers, the last forty years have seen kind of renewal of their culture , where they have managed to maintain their language, practices and shamanistic traditions. While Mr Pittja was presenting about how he is running his business as eco friendly as it is possible and how culturally sensitive he is (He is from the Saami community) towards the heritage, there were questions raised from the audiences about the threat such tourism initiatives could be creating to a life style. Some of the questions went unanswered.
Now after reading a bit about exploitation of the Saami Culture, it makes sense on some of the arguments that came up while preparing the draft announcement.
Even though the draft says that "Eco tourism needs to focus on sustainable tourism that entails responsible travel to natural areas and which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.”, wonder when will the local people have a right to say "No" to an initiative in tourism that they are not interested in and might not benefit anything out of it.
Out of the many old threats like mining, logging, dam building and military threats ( bombing bases in the Scandinavian and Russian regions) now tourism seems to be the new entrant!
Similar to how the natives were were pushed off their land in the Americas during colonisation, the Saami's have gone through aggressive assimilation of the modern world. According to the speakers, the last forty years have seen kind of renewal of their culture , where they have managed to maintain their language, practices and shamanistic traditions. While Mr Pittja was presenting about how he is running his business as eco friendly as it is possible and how culturally sensitive he is (He is from the Saami community) towards the heritage, there were questions raised from the audiences about the threat such tourism initiatives could be creating to a life style. Some of the questions went unanswered.
Now after reading a bit about exploitation of the Saami Culture, it makes sense on some of the arguments that came up while preparing the draft announcement.
Even though the draft says that "Eco tourism needs to focus on sustainable tourism that entails responsible travel to natural areas and which conserves the environment and sustains the well-being of local people.”, wonder when will the local people have a right to say "No" to an initiative in tourism that they are not interested in and might not benefit anything out of it.
Out of the many old threats like mining, logging, dam building and military threats ( bombing bases in the Scandinavian and Russian regions) now tourism seems to be the new entrant!
Oslo © GP 2007
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