Conference:
Abstract: "For more than a century, Sami herders have managed their livelihood by adjusting to Norwegian law and regulations as well as organizing land tenure according to indigenous traditions and practical considerations. In recent years, pastoral rights are being highlighted and discussed for highly different reasons, providing the livelihood with a highly ambiguous and contradictive significance in Norwegian and Sami politics: 1) The current Law for reindeer herding provides comprehensive powers to State agencies and representative bodies. 2) In Finnmark govt. policies and modernization of the livelihood has led to increased pressures on pastures and demands for government policies to counteract what has been defined as a classic case of 'the tragedy of the commons'. 3) With herders being blamed for the 'tragedy', State policies are now enforced on an unprecedented scale. 4) In some recent court cases, herders are questioning the State's right to regulate their traditional practices and rights as Sami pastoralists. Sami customary law and pastoral land tenure, however, are still largely undocumented, remaining a shared practical knowledge among Sami herders. 5) While Sami pastoral knowledge is being challenged by environmentalists and public opinion (Sami and non-Sami), the land tenure of herders are still not without political significance. herders traditional land use and occupancy may provide crucial arguments for substantiating Sami claims for indigenous land rights to Crown land in Finnmark.
"The paper discusses the judgement (November 1993) of the Lower Courts in Alta, Finnmark, where the plaintiffs - a small group of herders - challenged the herding administration's right to annul their formal right to pastures and consequently their right to herd reindeer. The case is important not only because it brings up the principal issue of the first instance where the new regulations of the Law for reindeer herding are being enforced in court. The paper focuses on the issue of Sami customary law as it was discussed in the findings of the court in terms of its significance in the formal system for 'co-management' in reindeer herding. The paper relates the Alta court decision to the recent report of the Sami Rights Committee (NOU 1993:34 'The Right to and Administration of Land and Water in Finnmark'), where the more general notion of Sami customary law was considered. In both instances-but for very different reasons - Sami customary law was not considered necessary to document. These two cases provide a basis for discussing how Norwegian jurisprudence and ideals of participatory democracy in the modern Welfare State constitute specific cultural codes and practices where customary law of Sami pastoralists, their land tenure and cultural knowledge have an ambiguous significance,- where herders' practical knowledge remains implicit, contested, sometimes ignored and silenced."