Evidence of meeting #127 for Natural Resources in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was norway.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.
We have two witnesses in our first hour. We're doing a study on international best practices and we have our first two international witnesses. Professor Turi is here with us today and Professor Hernes is joining us from Norway.
What's the time difference, Professor? It's quite late there, I believe, isn't it?
Professor Hans-Kristian Hernes Professor, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, As an Individual
I'm six hours ahead of you, so it's 9:30.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
We're very grateful to you for taking the time, especially at that time of day.
The process for the meeting is that each of you will be given an opportunity to deliver opening remarks for up to 10 minutes and then, when both of you have concluded, we will open the floor to questions from around the table.
Professor Turi, since you're with us today, why don't we start with you?
Dr. Ellen Inga Turi Associate Professor, Sámi University of Applied Sciences, As an Individual
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Let me first say that it's an honour for me to appear before the committee this afternoon. I work as a researcher on indigenous knowledge and environmental governance in the Nordics. I'm also indigenous Sami and I grew up in a reindeer-herding family in northern Norway.
I'm looking at your mandate and I've been thinking a little bit about what it is that I can contribute to your work. I'm not sure whether it will be best practices that I'm able to present this afternoon, but rather I believe my presentation will focus on challenges including indigenous knowledge and environmental governance and planning in the Nordics.
My testimony this afternoon represents research and engagement conducted by my fellow scientists and myself, in partnership with both reindeer herders and indigenous leaders over the past decade. I particularly want to acknowledge the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry and the Association of World Reindeer Herders as leading institutions in this work.
I will focus mainly on experiences from the Nordics and highlight challenges that we have identified for engaging indigenous peoples and indigenous knowledge in governance processes and then focusing on reindeer herding, in particular.
I'll give a very brief introduction to reindeer herding for those of you who are maybe not familiar with it. It's the primary livelihood for over 20 indigenous peoples throughout the circumpolar North. It involves more than 100,000 people and around 2.5 million semi-domesticated reindeer in nine nation states. Most of this is focused in Eurasia, but you do also have a small reindeer herd in Canada.
Reindeer herding is a nomadic livelihood, which is characterized by extensive, yet low-impact, use of land. In Norway, where I focus my research, we have some 250,000 reindeer on approximately 150,000 square kilometres, which is equivalent to 40% of all the land area of Norway, yet only about 3,000 people are involved.
Reindeer herding is a very land extensive livelihood, but doesn't involve a lot of people and is not a huge economy. It can be seen as a human-coupled ecosystem that has a high resilience to climate variability and change and it is an indigenous model for sustainable management of marginal areas in the Arctic. A key source of resilience for reindeer herding is indigenous knowledge that has been accumulated over generations.
In this context, what I mean by indigenous knowledge—and this is a definition that I'm borrowing from the work of the permanent participants at the Arctic Council—is:
...a systematic way of thinking and knowing that is elaborated and applied to phenomena across biological, physical, cultural and linguistic systems. [Indigenous] knowledge is owned by the holders of that knowledge, often collectively, and is uniquely expressed and transmitted through Indigenous languages. It is a body of knowledge generated through cultural practices, lived experiences including extensive and multi-generational observations, lessons and skills. It has been developed and verified over millennia and is still developing in a living process, including knowledge acquired today and in the future, and it is passed on from generation to generation.
Within reindeer herding, significant knowledge has been generated over time about both reindeer and the human relationships to them and relationships between animals and the environment. There's also accumulated knowledge of dramatic changes in the natural environment and about strategies of how to adapt to such challenges.
This kind of knowledge still forms the main basis for survival for reindeer-herding peoples. It has not been replaced or suspended by research-based knowledge. It's very much available and it's in use every day, but such knowledge has historically been neglected by research and policy. Based on our research, we argue that perhaps more than ever, indigenous knowledge is now crucial for the future survival of reindeer herding in the face of major change.
As you all know, Arctic areas are undergoing a number of changes, ranging from social to environmental, and these are capable of adversely affecting traditional livelihoods. The extensive and nature-based character of reindeer herding means that it is directly impacted by the so-called “megatrends”, and by that I mean trends such as climate change, loss of biodiversity and land-use change. The impacts of these megatrends are inseparable.
Allow me to elaborate.
Future climate scenarios indicate that mean winter temperatures may increase by as much as 7°C to 8 °C over the next 100 years in Sami reindeer-herding pasturelands, and that the snow season may be one to three months shorter. This represents a significant shift, and it is likely that rapid and variable fluctuations between freezing and thawing will increase. Why is this important? Reindeer herding is a livelihood that depends on snow conditions for reindeer to be able to get through to the forage underneath. Warm temperatures and melting snow have periodically created bad grazing years in Sami reindeer herding. Extremely bad grazing conditions, which we in the Sami language call "goavvi", cause starvation and loss of reindeer and subsequently negatively impact reindeer herders' community and organization.
In the last 100 years, goavvi has occurred around 12 times in Guovdageaidnu, but we are seeing in climate projections that the frequency of this type of weather condition will likely increase in the future.
Yet, if you talk to Sami reindeer herders, they will often say they are much more alarmed by loss of grazing land than they are of climate change. Why? A reason for this is that mobility, moving your herd to a different area, is a key adaptive strategy for adverse snow conditions. Access to pasture resources will therefore be even more important under climate change. This has been recognized by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, which points out that protection of grazing land will be the most important adaptive strategy for reindeer herders under climate change.
Loss of pastures is a significant challenge for reindeer husbandry in all places where it's practised, but this has been particularly pronounced in the Nordic countries. Pastures are lost due to all sorts of developments: roads, infrastructure, military activities, power lines, pipelines, dams, leisure homes and related activities that all have contributed to decline in reindeer pastures.
Loss of pastures occurs principally in two ways: first, the physical destruction of pastures; and second, the effective though non-destructive removal of habitat or reduction of its value as a resource. By that I mean the gradual abandonment by reindeer of previously high-use areas due to avoidance of areas that are disturbed by human activities. The numbers are alarming. Studies show that approximately 25% of grazing land in northern Norway is now strongly disturbed, including 35% of key coastal areas. This figure has been estimated to increase to as much as 78% by 2050 if no changes are made in national or regional policies. That means that up to 1% of summer grazing grounds used by Sami reindeer herders along the coast of Norway are lost every year.
A major challenge for reindeer herding is that the majority of the loss of grazing land occurs through piecemeal loss. For example, in spite of Norway having ratified ILO convention 169 on the rights of indigenous people and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Sami reindeer herders have so far had very little influence on land rights and piecemeal development. Despite the fact that reindeer-herding groups and individuals are heard in decision-making processes—for example, through participatory processes—reindeer herders' indigenous knowledge is not included as part of the decision-making foundation.
Our research shows that the challenge of making use of indigenous knowledge in governance relates to more than just a conflict of what is known—i.e. an epistemological conflict—but also to a conflict in the logic of what constitutes appropriate functional and geographical scales of governance and, not least, what constitutes appropriate land use. Sectorial fragmentation in governmental administration leads to a situation in which assessments of the cumulative effects of all projects combined are not part of decision-making. In other words, one ministry is in charge of infrastructure, another is in charge of hydro power development, a third forestry, etc., while reindeer herding, on the other hand, due to its extensive nature and dependence on different types of pastures, constantly monitors and records any changes in land uses.
I argue that failure to integrate these perspectives into governance systems can be seen as a lost opportunity to account for cumulative long-term effects of land use changes in decision-making.
Our research suggests that the process of making use of indigenous knowledge in governance needs to start already at the policy formation stage; that is, when indigenous knowledge is not part of the policy formation process. Waiting until policy implementation to include it will be more challenging, if not downright impossible—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
Professor, I'm going to have to ask you to wrap up very quickly, if you can.
Associate Professor, Sámi University of Applied Sciences, As an Individual
Yes.
I will end my testimony by giving you a very practical example in the words of reindeer herder Aslak Ante Sara, who has his reindeer in Hammerfest, the northern Norwegian city where Statoil has its LNG plant. He explains his experience with the planning process in Snøhvit as follows:
We were sort of forgotten in the whole process and our perspectives were not focused on. Because the LNG-plant itself was not placed directly on reindeer pastures, we were not fully included in the total process of regulation. And with this start that we got, [when] we were not focussed on, we were continuously lagging behind in the process, not able to follow this up properly.... Due to the development we have seen an unexpected explosion in human activities. We have much more competition for our pastures now.... When you have this kind of major industrial development in Hammerfest, it makes the area around Hammerfest very attractive for other types of development. Also the society of Hammerfest is rapidly expanding because of the development. Now there is talk about several possible projects, and planning has begun. This includes petroleum development, new power lines, windmills, infrastructure development and roads. These are heavy investments driven by independent and influential economic sources, also in part independent of Statoil. We also see increasing human activities in our pasture areas in terms of outdoor leisure activities.
Thank you very much.
Prof. Hans-Kristian Hernes
Thank you very much for the invitation to take part in this meeting. I'm very honoured by it.
What I'm going to talk about is based on research projects here at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway. They are carried out through the co-operation of researchers in Norway, Sweden, Canada and Australia.
I must also say that I've thought a little bit about what Canada can learn from Norway. That was my first silly thought. But I've also been teaching in a joint master's program with a Canadian university and in my own, and I can see that we can learn from very different examples. What I'm going to talk about then is the situation in Norway. I have Norwegian examples, and maybe we can discuss how they can be used in the Canadian context.
Norway is a country very rich in resources, as you may know. I'm not going to go into the petroleum sector, but Norway has been a country rich in energy since about 100 years ago when Norway started to develop hydro power using waterfalls, building dams and using rivers to produce electricity. It was important for the development of Norway as an independent nation. After World War II, it was very important for having an income and developing the welfare state. Today we have a situation in which 95% of the electricity in Norway comes from hydro power.
It is a publicly owned resource, with 50% of the electricity production owned by the state, 40% owned by municipalities and counties, and only 10% owned privately. Today, if you are applying for a licence to build a new power plant, you need two-thirds public ownership and funding of that plant. In Norway there has for a long time been a political struggle for public ownership of electricity and electricity production and for national ownership of the perpetual resource that these rivers and dams represent.
Electricity has been important for infrastructure, for welfare in Norway, for the building industry, for employment, for export revenues and as a source of extra income for municipalities. Currently Norwegian municipalities receive about one billion Norwegian kroner each year in income from concession conditions on this electricity.
Electricity in Norway for many years was managed by the government. It still is. But between the two world wars and also after World War II, the state was the main actor. The state was controlling and the state was trying to control the system.
We got a new energy law in 1991, which changed the system radically, in the sense that the electricity system became market-based. Norway is connected to the Nordic electricity market and later also became connected to the European electricity market. The different producers compete in this market, whereas there is a monopoly on the grids, on the transmission lines, in Norway.
Today's debate is not so much about large hydro power projects. That era seems to be over. What we are debating today is wind and sun, and it's about the development of new renewable energy. Particularly wind farms are under debate as are, to some extent, solar plants. Wind farms are popping up in a lot of places in Norway. The production from wind is increasing. Figures from today, from Statistics Norway, show a 36% increase in 2018, but wind is still only 2.5% of the electricity production in Norway.
Another debate or issue concerns grids or power transmission lines. The goal is to strengthen the power grid in Norway to connect the country. As the first speaker said, that puts pressure on the use of land in different parts of Norway, but particularly in northern Norway with the grazing land for reindeer herders.
In terms of energy and the role of indigenous peoples, there is a history of conflict. In Norway this is mostly illustrated by the conflict between the state and the Sami people over the Alta River in the early 1980s. The state wanted to build a big dam and the Sami said they were not included in the process. The Sami and those who were against this, including those in the environmental movement, lost this battle, but it was the beginning of developing the main Sami institutions in Norway.
I'm going to talk a little bit about the three relationship models when it comes to indigenous people and energy. The first one is this Alta River conflict, with a rejection of the energy projects by indigenous peoples. We have conflict, very little or no participation, and continuous struggles between the state or government and the indigenous peoples. In the second model, we have participation, involvement in the decision-making processes, and formal requirements for participation. The third model is the one where I would say indigenous peoples or local communities take ownership of energy production and use it for local development and possibly income.
In my opinion, this third model is not present in Norway for either wind or solar. As far as I know, it is developing a little bit in Canada, but not in the Nordic countries. I can give several explanations for that, but I won't do that here. We do not have impact and benefit agreements, but municipalities that host large hydro power stations are compensated. That's been the model for about 100 years.
If we are looking for a Norwegian model, my suggestion would be the second one, which is participation. I will give a brief presentation on that. For Norway, indigenous rights and indigenous politics have been very much based on, and have had major input from, international law. UNDRIP is an example, but ILO C169 has been the most central. ILO C169 became important for the development of consultations as a tool in the contact and co-operation between the Norwegian state and the Sami Parliament from 2005. The consultation agreement that's currently in use says that the state has to inform the Sami Parliament or other Sami actors about the upcoming cases. The Sami Parliament can then demand consultation, and then they should ideally exchange opinions. The goal is to reach an agreement or consent between the actors.
Where are we today? We have formal processes that are used. The Sami Parliament and reindeer herders are invited in. They do participate. Another observation is that the Sami representatives and the Norwegian state disagree, and they do not achieve the agreement or consent that is the goal of the consultation procedures. If we look at consultations in general, one of the observations that is made is that the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate is a challenging case for the Sami Parliament. They emphasize an energy economy and obligations for more renewable energy before they eventually turn to the question of Sami rights and the reindeer herders' situation.
There are large windmill or wind farm projects, either planned or under construction. The conflicts over them may well end up in the courts. This intensifies the conflict over areas in cases where the local ownership is rather low.
So, if I return to the three models, we may argue that we are currently at the borderline between rejection and participation. Still, the track in Norway is still co-operation inspired by consultations. The government has said that it wants to change how the system of objections by the Sami Parliament can be managed. The question is, however, about making the system more efficient, not necessarily about finding solutions to the conflict. The trouble is to handle both the demand and the pressure for more renewable energy in Europe, and on the other hand to comply with indigenous rights at the international level. At the same time, there are very few benefits for local communities and also for Sami communities, because their energy prices are rather low, so there are very low taxes on the production of energy from wind parks.
Thank you.
Liberal
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It is interesting for us to see an international perspective on how governments either appropriately engage or don't appropriately engage their indigenous peoples on resource development.
We are looking at some of the issues, Ellen, that you touched on earlier. In addition to trying to balance the larger majority state's view of how to develop prosperity in the country with the property rights or the lack of property rights for indigenous peoples, and cultural rights that aren't easily compensated for with money, there are things such as loss of territory for herding caribou, which is very land-intensive, or loss of respect between the cultures.
With this issue of ongoing usage expansion, what would you consider to be the best practice? When should indigenous people be engaged in megaprojects so that we get a better understanding of how to protect these cultural rights and these lesser economic rights that aren't easily accommodated for when people don't take a full view of what the project is going to entail and the other development that's going to come ancillary to the project?
Associate Professor, Sámi University of Applied Sciences, As an Individual
As I said at the beginning of my presentation, reindeer herding is a minor livelihood, involving very few people, and it's perhaps understandable that we cannot win every single land-use case. But my research partners also tell me that if they had been included at a much earlier stage, even before you started drawing anything on a map, you could have, through very small adjustments, taken away the worst of the impacts. In other words, for example, if you're planning to build a new underwater tunnel.... This is a practical example from northern Tromsø. The reindeer-herding family there said that if they had been part of the process at an early enough stage to be able to influence the placement of that tunnel by a difference of only one kilometre, they would have avoided the major impacts. As the plan stands now, they are at risk of losing some very key areas, calving ground areas.
The earlier you engage, the better chance you have to make little adjustments like that.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
You talked a bit about a definition of indigenous knowledge. In Canada we're struggling with this as well, and trying to make sure that we engage indigenous people on their traditional practice and obtain the oral knowledge from them. How do the Sami people collect, codify and use indigenous knowledge in a longitudinal way and apply a scientific method to their traditional knowledge?
Associate Professor, Sámi University of Applied Sciences, As an Individual
Unfortunately, there hasn't been widespread systematic collection of traditional indigenous knowledge in Norway. However, there have been some good examples of how to do this. The Sami Parliament has initiated some minor work to document indigenous knowledge relating to particular topics, but also our experience is that when it comes to planning, for example, resource development projects in a certain area, you have to go to those certain people who are using the land there. Perhaps the best examples we have today are of either reindeer-herding communities themselves or research developers who have chosen to make special impact assessments that document traditional knowledge.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Once that knowledge is collected or used for a particular project, can it then be leveraged for future projects as a starting point? Would it be appropriate, then, to go back to indigenous people to get updated information that's more specific to how a secondary project may have changed versus the first one? Have you had any experience with secondary consultations for indigenous knowledge in the same area, but with different types of economic development?
Associate Professor, Sámi University of Applied Sciences, As an Individual
I haven't had any experience with secondary assessments, unfortunately. The type of indigenous knowledge I've seen well documented that has perhaps been useful in these types of processes has been about historical land use and possible future land use for reindeer herding so that you get an understanding of how that area is actually used. That type of knowledge is, of course, useful for the future, as well, because it doesn't only concern the possible project that is coming.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
Mr. Hernes, maybe you can help me understand a little bit about the history of why Scandinavian countries don't use impact and benefit agreements. Those are things that, in our earlier testimony this week, we heard are great to have in place. The major problems in Canada are when they're not followed. However, they are a cornerstone of any development that impacts traditional rights in Canada.
I'm wondering if you can describe why the legal regime in the Sami-Norway relationship doesn't include revenue sharing on megaprojects that occur on Sami land.
Prof. Hans-Kristian Hernes
The main difference with Canada is that the Sami people don't own their land in Sami. We don't have the types of agreements you have. That's one reason.
When it comes to energy, energy has been seen as a national resource, and the income and so on have been given or transferred to the state. The state has then brought some of this money back. The Sami people, for example, are not involved in direct exchanges with companies or those that are building these new wind parks, for example. The Sami people are involved with the state. It's the state that regulates and takes care of the formalities.
Liberal
Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL
To help me understand the testimony that comes in the rest of this session, maybe you could explain further. I tried to understand section 1-4, “The financial liability of the State”, in the Sámi Act. Could you describe how the state, which I'm presuming is Norway, funnels money back to the Sameting for use in local Sami municipal affairs? If Ellen has a comment on that as well, I think it will really guide our understanding of the rest of your testimony.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal James Maloney
If you could both try to answer that very briefly, we'd be grateful.
Prof. Hans-Kristian Hernes
The state, or the Norwegian national parliament, decides the budget for the Sami Parliament each year. It does not give but transfers money to the Sami Parliament as part of the state's budget. That's how it's done. It's part of its large budget. There is some sort of consultation on the budget, but it's mainly decided by the Norwegian national parliament.
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Continuing with what Mr. Whalen started with, the budget is set at the state level, but does the Sami Parliament have the ability to veto...? I can open this up to either of you. I know you mentioned something, Professor Hernes, in your testimony. It's my understanding that it does not have the power to veto a project. Is that correct?
Conservative
Jamie Schmale Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
You mentioned that the Sami Parliament, if I heard you correctly, had objections to certain projects, for a variety of reasons, and that it pushed its concerns on to the government, and for whatever reason, the process went forward.
Where do you see the shortcomings in this process and the fact that an elected body was there, and its feedback wasn't taken into account, I guess, for lack of a better word. I guess it was; it was debated, but it went in a different direction.
Prof. Hans-Kristian Hernes
In some cases, the state and the Sami Parliament don't agree after this exchange of opinions, and what's been troubling for the Sami Parliament is the processes, during which they feel that their arguments haven't been heard and which they feel the state has done simply because there's a formal requirement to do consultations. I think that has also been one of the challenges, then, related to energy issues.