For the Next Seven Generations

My people, the Sámi, are an Arctic people. Our whole existence in the Arctic, our culture, our language and our livelihood is rooted in winter, cold, snow and ice. Due to climate change, the climate in the Arctic area is getting warmer four times faster than the global average. The eight seasons of the Sámi have turned into an ambiguous, changeable and disastrous mix of summer and winter, winter and summer, long winters and springs, and long, wet autumns and summers that are warmer and wetter than they used to be. The constant fluctuation of weather and seasons makes life difficult, uncertain, nearly impossible, because climate change and loss of biodiversity mean that our Arctic world is changing and disappearing fast. Without winter, our world does not exist and neither do we.

Over the past 400 years, colonialism and the aggressive exploitation of our lands have caused us to experience the end of the world many times, through overfishing, mining, wind power, forest logging and the pollution of waterways.

We have been living with the climate crisis for over a decade. A layer of ice, a layer of snow, a layer of ice, a layer of snow, a layer of hard ice, then fresh snow followed by rainfall and temperatures dropping below zero once again. This anomaly can be the pattern of a winter’s snowfall with rapid weather changes and temperatures fluctuating as much as 30 degrees, from -20º to +10º within 24 hours. The warming climate and rapidly fluctuating temperatures make reindeer grazing lands inaccessible, while the layers of hardened snow and ice make it impossible for the reindeer to graze. When this happens, our only option is to give them supplementary feed that is labour-intensive, expensive and a further burden to the climate.

Over the past 400 years, colonialism and the aggressive exploitation of our lands have caused us to experience the end of the world many times, through overfishing, mining, wind power, forest logging and the pollution of waterways. Forests, rivers and fell areas are all part of the living environment that is our whole world, our home. Once the living environment in the Arctic area has been ravaged, destroyed or damaged, it can never return to what it once was.

Colonialism has not only destroyed our living environments; we as a people have also been destroyed. The forced assimilation of the Sámi people has led to many of us losing our language, our culture and our traditional livelihoods. Many of us have lost our sense of self. Many of us have lost our lives. Many of us have somehow managed to survive being assimilated into the majority population, but we have not thrived as Sámi people.

We were raised and we live amid the chaos, disasters, crises and general dystopia of colonialism and capitalism, and this is what the future holds for us. Our worlds are currently being destroyed at such a pace that the Earth will soon no longer be able to sustain human activity. The biodiversity of nature is on the point of collapse, and almost half the species that exist today will become extinct by the end of the century. Extinction is forever. The end of our worlds affects everything and everyone.

We are at a critical moment because everything we know, can and do, is under threat. Some of us are able to adjust to life in a world that is ending, but living environments, biodiversity, communities, ways of being, information, traditions, stories and words will be lost. Some will be lost forever.

We know that everything is going to change. With each day that passes, we draw nearer to more difficult times. If we continue at the present pace, no policies will prevent global temperatures from rising more than three degrees and the ecological disasters that will follow one after another. The end of this society is looming, with climate change, loss of biodiversity, collapsing ecosystems, pandemics, financial crisis and the collapse of social structures predicted within three to five decades. Once the basic structures of human life – clean air, water, food and energy – no longer exist, they will be gone forever.

Our visions must be as all-encompassing as the challenges we face, and we must contribute to creative resistance, art and radical disturbance every day, in every way, and everywhere.

Greenwashed solutions won´t save us. The leaders of climate capitalism, both big corporations and politicians, offer quick-fix, colonialist solutions that are essentially fake: the acquisition of indigenous peoples’ lands to produce green energy, or opening new mines to produce battery metals. Genuine sustainability transformation is just and responsible, requiring an in-depth decolonization that permeates the whole of society. Our survival depends on the rate of change in society, and this in turn will depend on the number of people that demand it.

We must be honest about what is effective and what is not. Our visions must be as all-encompassing as the challenges we face, and we must contribute to creative resistance, art and radical disturbance every day, in every way, and everywhere. Alternatives, solutions and means do exist: decolonization, justice that promotes all life, and indigenous self-determination are tools, strategies and goals that we can use to run down the capitalist and colonialist system, as well as support and nurture biodiversity. Let us spell out the real solutions to our radical minds.

The freedom of living a good life means the right to control your life and make decisions about your future. The indigenous peoples of the world must also have this right. The promotion of the self-determination of indigenous peoples and the return of their lands will help to safeguard biodiversity and curb climate change, because we have accumulated thousands of years of experience of interactive, respectful cohabitation with the natural world. It is rooted in our cultures, languages, livelihoods, knowledge, skills and ways of living, and we, the Sámi, along with other indigenous peoples, protect a major part of the Earth’s biodiversity. The knowledge possessed by indigenous peoples are indispensable to the survival of humankind and the biodiversity of the planet when worlds are about to end. We have the solutions, and we are a part of the solution.

Life seeks to perpetuate itself, because the circle of life is the meaning of life: to support, promote, maintain, safeguard and create new life. All living creatures understand the purpose of their lives, but human beings have forgotten what is most important. We must find ways to re-establish our connection with life and listen to what the whole of biodiversity has to say, because our chances of living, as well as those of future generations, are dependent on the well-being of biodiversity. 

Sadly, society has more faith in financial structures than in environmental ones. Our concept of a good life must be readjusted. A good life is connected to the land and requires the land to flourish. A good life means that we love our land, and our land loves us. It is our duty to protect, safeguard, care for and help our land, because without it, we cannot exist. When our living environment is unwell, we feel it. When the land is asking for our help, we are compelled to respond because of our love for it. Hence our actions are not motivated by hope, but by love.

As long as we can imagine an alternative reality and talk about it, we have not lost our power, because an alternative narrative gives us the chance to create alternative worlds.

We remain connected to past and future generations as people who are experiencing the end of the world while dreaming of the future, as ancestors and as future generations. We know there is more than one world and one reality. We know it is possible to create different worlds. If we have a clear vision of alternative futures, these can help us to distance ourselves from the dystopian world view. As long as we can imagine an alternative reality and talk about it, we have not lost our power, because an alternative narrative gives us the chance to create alternative worlds.

We have co-existed with our living environment in Sápmi for thousands of years. And for thousands of years our lives have been guided by the idea of making a good life, not only for ourselves, but for those coming after us. We only take what we need, we use nature’s gifts sparingly and take the future into account. Whatever we do, our actions must not harm our living environment, because we must safeguard the future of the next seven generations to come. Our ancestors are asking where is our love, our courage, our action? And the future generations are wondering, what about the world, what about the future?