First published on 02/01/2016, and last updated on 09/06/2018
Snowchange is a non-profit independent organisation based in Finland, with member and partner communities across the Arctic. The cooperative joined the ICCA Consortium at its 9th General Assembly, held in Australia in November 2014. Since then, it has been actively engaged with the ICCA network, reviewing its work and promoting common goals. Finland has the world’s most intensive lumber industry. South of the Arctic Circle, most of the country’s old-growth boreal forests have been logged.
From December 2014 to March 2015, Snowchange worked with the villagers of Selkie, in Finland’s North Karelia, to defend the “Ostola forest lot”. The Ostola forest lot is owned by the Metsähallitus State Forestry Company and constitutes the last remaining old-growth forest in the Havukkavaara area. Other parts of the forest have been protected by local land owners. Snowchange argued for the conservation of this lot of boreal forest so that the hunting rights of the local people would remain guaranteed. For eight years, negotiations on the matter had been going on, without results… It seemed that the lot was soon to be sold or clear-cut… Fortunately, however, a high-profile international campaign, in which the letters of support from the ICCA Consortium played a key role, eventually led Metsähallitus to agree to preserve about 18-hectare of the Ostola lot as a “conservation area”. That will save the core of the forest. Ostola has thus become the first de facto Community Conserved Forest in Finland!
Since this success, Snowchange has been engaging in discussion and negotiations with the local landowners and community members to see whether they would agree to declare the forest the first ICCA site in Finland. Metsähallitus participated in the discussions. It is relevant to mention that Ostola is a non-Saami area, meaning it is the local Finns and not indigenous peoples who support the preservation of the forest… Many Finnish villages with the status of ‘local communities’ are awakening to the importance of their communal areas and demonstrate a growing appreciation for traditional land uses, such as hunting, fishing, and other uses of lakes and forests (including non-consumptive uses such as a simple enjoyment of their beauty). The Ostola experience can serve as a model and help pave the way for a better future in Finland and in the region… and yet, given recent political changes and a significant turn to natural resources policies that dismiss the concerns of the local rural communities, these negotiations have not yet produced positive results.
The story of Ostola shows that, despite being a technologically advanced country, Finland has yet to resolve some basic issues of community equity. “Business as usual” is alive and well in Northern Europe despite its wide scale destruction of old growth forests and communal areas… But Snowchange will continue the work in 2016, with a mandate from the local land owners and community.
Snowchange is engaged in organising with the ICCA Consortium a workshop with a special focus on ICCA sites and communities in the northern parts of Europe and the world (date and location not yet established). The talks will continue in 2016. Snowchange also plans to continue its active cooperation with ICCA partners, such as the Yes to Life, No to Mining initiative of the Gaia Foundation. Last but not least, Snowchange has been supporting Russian, Arctic and other programmes on community rights, biodiversity and climate change, as well as indigenous issues, hunting, nomadic reindeer herding, whale and seal hunt issues, fisheries and restoration of rivers and catchment areas. An indicator of this work is the fact that the US media house “Take Part” wrote a long article on the Snowchange Saami work, which can be found here.
