The Indigenous Sámi communities in Northern Finland have practiced traditional reindeer-herding for generations where the reindeer depend on old-growth forests and lichen for winter forage. Industrial forestry has for years been destroying and fragmenting these forests, pushing the communities to the limit. Greenpeace has worked with them since 2002 to push back against the forest industry and to protect these forests.
Now they are facing a new threat: A mega-railroad project that is being planned to connect Finland, and its natural resources, to the Arctic Ocean, facilitating the opening of mines on the Sámi Homeland as well as serving the growth of the forest industry. The Finnish government is betting that the melting Arctic will provide a trade route to exploit Saami lands. They want more pulp mills, more logging, more mines. As the Sámi put it: “The Finnish government is trading away our rights and our land. We do not consent.”