Last Yoik in Saami Forests?

The conflict between forestry and nature conservation in Finland has been constant during last 20 years, when this invasion has reached more and more of the last remaining wildernesses. The traditional, freely grazing reindeer herding, dependent of the old forest growth , has been losing its resources but complaint and protests haven’t been able to stop this process.

In early 2005 Saami reindeer herders made an alliance with Greenpeace which established its Forest Rescue Station in the wilderness of Inari. The situation got even more dramatic when a group of loggers built their own camp, "Antiterror infocamp," near Greenpeace’s forest station. The international pressure from Greenpeace made Finnish forest company Stora Enso stop buying the wood from conflict areas. And so the Finnish state-owned company Metsähallitus stopped logigng.

In May Greenpeace decided to remove the camp, since it achieved its aim: to stop the logging. However, Stora Enso announced in July 2005 that it will start again buying wood from Metsähallitus. Metsähallitus started logging again in August.

Kalevi Paadar, a Saami reindeer herder from Nellim, lodged a complaint to the United Nations’ Human Rights Commission. He claimed that logging in his home village violated their right to continue their traditional way of reindeer herding based on free grazing. The United Nations asked Finland to stop logging. This continued till May 2007 when Metsähallitus started logging again, this time in the wilderness of Kessi.

This documentary follows the conflict between reindeer herders and loggers and seeks a middle path between preserving the culture of the original inhabitants and the push for development.