Legal and political challenges in governance of Northern natural resources

• Author: Øyvind Ravna
• Pages: 1-3

135

[start del]

Legal and political challenges in

governance of Northern natural

resources

Øyvind Ravna

e governance of natural resources in t he northern areas ra ises many questions

and force politicians to prioritize a nd weigh the pros and cons. Recently, oil sands

extraction by Norwegian Statoil in Canada has aroused reactions among politi-

cians, environmental activists and professionals national ly and internationally.

Locally, spring hunting in some Sá mi areas is discussed and defended on the basis

that it is an indigenous custom that requires protection in accordance with ILO

Convention No. 169, although this ki nd of hunting may threaten the reproduction

of certain vu lnerable bird species.

Are natural resources i n the North – on the tundra, in forests, on the ice or in

the ocean, going to be managed i n a sustainable way or will short-term prot pre-

vail? is is a core question in governance. Anot her question of huge importance

is that of whether nature will be governed as a collective resource for the benet

of the community as a whole, or if trad itions and customary law according to the

locals wil l be of key importance in the resource governance.

When the Finnmark Act was adopted, the decision-making politicians chose

to prioritize the Finnmark community – or the community as a whole, rather

than the local villages of the county, refusing to support a proposal for a local

governance model with independent boards, arg uing in that the nature resources

should be managed uniformly. According to the legislator’s opinion, local govern-

ance might imply that the overv iew of the total use of outelds disappears: “is

could damage a desirable and appropriate alloc ation of resources in their entirety.

Concerns for a proper and sustainable management of resources, means t hat out-

lying elds must be managed as a whole.”1 us, locals in Finnmark were cut o

1. Ot. Proposition. No. 53 (2002–20 03) [e Finnmark Act] p. 98–9 9.

Arctic Review o n Law and Politics, vol. 3, 2/2011 p. 135–137. ISSN 1891-6252