Statement by Mattias Åhrén, President of the Sámi Council, on the occasion of the 6th Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council in Tromsø 29. April 2009

First the Saami Council would like to congratulate the Norwegian Chairmanship for its able leadership of the Arctic Council. We welcome the new data and reports on observed and projected climate change in the Arctic and the project reports looking into the responses to the climate change. We face many challenges related to the climate change. First, increased access to non-renewable resources in our homelands has created a “race to the Arctic” and a change in land-use. We humbly ask the states that participate in the race to the Arctic to be mindful of that you all base your claims to the resources in the high north on claims to rights to indigenous territories. If such claims cannot be settled in a mutually agreeable manner with the indigenous people in question, you might simultaneously lose your claim to the resources in the Arctic. Second, we see that efforts to mitigate climate change by increased use of renewable resources such as wind-mills and hydro-electric damns intensify pressure on our lands never seen before

South Saami Cultural Landscape Under Pressure

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Relationship to human rights, and related international instruments

This chapter analyses how the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) fits within the broader picture of international legal instruments, with specific reference to related human rights norms. In many respects, the general approach the UNDRIP takes towards indigenous rights is natural. Largely from the very day indigenous peoples' representatives started to address the UN in order to claim recognition of and respect for their rights, the focus of such claims has been on allowing indigenous peoples the possibility to preserve, maintain, and develop their own distinct societies, existing side by side with the majority society. In other words, political rights — or sovereign rights — have always been at the forefront of the indigenous rights regime. In that way, indigenous peoples' rights distinguish themselves from those that apply to minority groups that are primarily individual rights. Thus, when placing emphasis on peoples' rights, the UNDRIP follows in the tradition of the indigenous rights discourse in general, as reflected in Article 3 of the Declaration