Indigenous people should respect science: Saami leader

Arctic indigenous peoples need scientific researchers, Saami academic and politician Ole Henrik Magga said June 9 at an International Polar Year wrap-up conference in Oslo. (FILE PHOTO)

Indigenous people in the Arctic need to work with scientists, a Saami leader said at June 9 at the International Polar Year-Global Impact conference in Oslo.

“We should do this because it is necessary for the development in our communities and sound development in research,” Ole Henrik Magga told the gathering of 2,400 scientists.

Magga, a professor, has also served as president of Norway’s Saami Parliament and the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Magga has been fighting for Saami rights since the early 1970s. In 1978, he was a leader of a Saami hunger strike in Norway’s capital city, Oslo, called to draw attention to appropriation of traditional Saami lands for a hydro-electric project.

Saami, like Inuit, live mainly above the Arctic Circle, but in the northern European countries of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia where they have traditionally herded reindeer and fished.

As is the case among many in northern Canada, Saami look at researchers with hostility, Magga said.

Saami don’t trust researchers’ motives and say they are only working for their own careers, and that don’t give back enough information to the communities they study.

But Magga said this needs to change.

“A positive development in the Arctic presupposes a mutual understanding and respect between the peoples — indigenous and non-indigenous,” he said.

The attitude of researchers and how research is done has changed, Magga said, so “there is not always reason today to be skeptical to researchers.”

Research, he said, can help Arctic indigenous people develop as they want.

From the 1800s to the early 1960s, Saami were subjected to a policy of “Nowegianization.” Their children were required to attend school in Norwegian, and no Saami could purchase land if they didn’t speak Norwegian.

Thanks to research in the fields of history and law, Saami were armed with a knowledge base for their development and successfully argued for their rights, Magga said.

Research on the northern lights conducted in northern Norway during the first IPY year — in 1881-83 — didn’t end up making a lasting scientific impact, Magga admitted.
But the photos taken of Saami now provide a “unique document” of Saami and show how climate change has affected their land.

Improved communication and cooperation between scientists and indigenous peoples should be the way of the future, Magga said, even if science and traditional knowledge have trouble fitting together.

“The gap should not be insurmountable. After all, science is at its core nothing more than organized common sense. And the local people have first-hand knowledge of fish, animals, birds, the land, the snow conditions and so forth,” Magga said.

Indigenous peoples should also get into research — and studying conventional science can be useful, Magga said — to see things from the outside and the inside, as a member of the community who holds traditional knowledge.

Conference participant Jan Egelund, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs and co-chair of a climate taskforce, said he welcomed suggestions from indigenous people about what the taskforce should look at.

“Indigenous peoples know what kind of information they need to make the right decisions, but it is difficult for them to access the information. Scientists, on the other hand, have a lot of information, but do not know what the indigenous peoples need. So we need you to tell us,” Egelund said.

To see webcasts of the keynote speeches and other events at the IPY conference, held June 8 to 12, go to http://www.ipy-osc.no

Montreal will host the final IPY international science-to-policy conference in 2012, called “From Knowledge to Action,” which will focus on applying and integrating the knowledge gained through IPY research.