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Voices

Lithography “Lines II” by Marije Jenssen © Marije Jenssen

Melting polar caps, starving polar bears, forest fires in Siberia: These are images of climate change that are going around the world. In the Arctic regions, the effects of global warming have long been threatening the livelihoods of Indigenous peoples. The Right to be Cold brings together the voices of those who stand up for self-determination and climate justice – in essays, debates and interviews.

Threatened land

The traditionally nature-based lives of Indigenous peoples are disproportionately exposed to the consequences of climate change. Rising temperatures and an unpredictable climate has immediate and drastic consequences on the balance of nature in some regions.

Biology book in North Sámi © Anne Olli

Preserving Indigenous Languages
 The Struggle of a Sámi Biology Teacher

Anne Olli is a biology teacher in Sápmi. Against all odds, she is trying to keep the indigenous language North Sámi alive. In a personal insight, she explains why.
Climate Change – Snowchange and the Landscape Rewilding Programme have partnered to secure Kivisuo, a biodiversity hotspot in Finland. Photo (detail): Mika Honkalinna © Snowchange

Rewilding
Indigenous Knowledge for Environmental Conservation

Our planetary ecology and climate are being wrecked. It is the result of the global misuse of resources over centuries. Tero Mustonen from the organisation Snowchange explains rewilding through the help of Indigenous techniques. 
Reindeer on a farm in the Aldansky District, Yakutia. Photo (detail): picture alliance © Artyom Geodakyan/TASS/dpa

Climate Change in Yakutia
 “Nature Has Ceased to Trust Us”

The lakes freeze over later, less fish is caught and ice roads melt:  In Yakutia, climate change has long stopped being a theoretical concept. Our author Vyacheslav Shadrin on the dwindling relationship between humans and nature.

The thing that has the most significant impact on the traditional lifestyle of the Indigenous people here is the weather

Wjatscheslaw Iwanowitsch Schadrin

Saglek Fjord, Nunatsiavut © picture alliance / dpa

Climate Science in Canada’s North
 Vital Clues About the Future of a Warming Planet

A wave of Inuit political activism in recent years has begun producing serious structural change in Canada’s political landscape, and the scientific landscape may be next.
Small conical hut in the snow Photo (Detail): © Susanne Hætta

Saving Resources
 Leaving No Traces

Not to harvest more than what is needed – that is the basic understanding of the Sámi. How does this fit together with a capitalist society in which nature is increasingly being exploited? Susanne Hætta writes about the threat posed to the Indigenous people by human-made climate change.
Hunting with a snowmobile Photo (detail): Tom Koene © picture alliance

Climate change in Northern Quebec
 “Everything is less predictable now”

Promoting and protecting the art and culture of the Inuit of Nunavik is the mission of the Avataq Cultural Institute in Montreal. In this interview, artists Olivia Lya Thomassie and Nicolas Pirti-Duplessis, who both work at the institute, talk about their life between two cultures.

Environmental Planning
 Indigenous Alternatives for a more Sustainable Post-Pandemic World

Investors and trade agreements play a significant role in dictating what people  produce, cultivate, extract, manufacture and, on the other hand, what is protected. Where such substantial decisions are made, Indigenous socio-philosophies, ecological knowledge and values need to be included to a much greater extent.
The statue of the colonizer Hans Egede in Nuuk, Greenland, smeared with paint. Photo (detail): picture alliance © Ritzau Scanpix | Christian Klindt Soelbeck

Climate Change and Corona
 The Urgency of Everything

The year 2020 brought one disaster after another. Optimism was rare. Nevertheless, the cohesion and willingness to act, especially among young people, give our author Aka Niviâna a positive attitude. An essay about the challenges we are facing and the absolute will to tackle them. 

Forest Fires
 In Summer

The worst forest fires Yakutia has seen in a long time plunged the region into embers and smoke for months. Tatiana Philippova's poem portrays the situation, full of fear and tension. 
 

From a perspective of art

Art and culture can provide valuable commentary on the present, highlight different perspectives and foster a dialogue between population groups that would not be possible at a political level.

Visual Representation of Indigenous Peoples
 Towards the Creation of a Self-Directed Visual Culture

What is culture and how is its resurgence linked to art and digitisation? Svetlana Romanova writes about the critical importance of cultural participation of Arctic residents on the public agenda and the role of Indigenous visual sovereignty in the sustainability of Indigenous identities.
 
Ounasjoki river in October, when the reindeers are taken to the other side of Ounasjoki for the winter © Tanja Koistinen

Letter to the River
 Like the Veins of the Earth

What is it like to grow up next to and live your life in harmony with the river? And how is it changing today? Artist and writer, Tanja Koistinen, has been watching the river in various locations during the summer and wrote a letter.
 

You are like the veins of the earth, roads of the water that our planet mostly exists on. You are a form of energy, movement and freedom.

Tanja Koistinen: "Letter to the River"

Áilu Valle in Sápmi Photo (detail): Marko Vasara

Rap and Tradition
 The Voice of the Oppressed Cultures

When thinking about Indigenous traditions, Rap usually is not the first thing that comes to mind. For musician Áilu Valle, it’s the perfect way to express the struggles of the Sámi and their relationship to nature. 
The Polar Night Embrace © Goethe-Institut

Poem
 The Polar Night Embrace

In this poem by the Sami poet Inger-Mari Aikio, someone talks – in the “darkest of the dark” – to the polar night, in which lives go out like candles. The polar night in which eyes can embrace, the polar night which doesn’t let go until the sun displaces its darkness.

LGBTIQ+ and Traditions
 Sipping Coffee

Poet Timimie Märak is Sámi and a gender queer lesbian. In their poem, Timimie processes the different facets of their identity.
Elle Sofe Sara forms her arms into a dancing pose. Photo (detail): © Susanne Hætta

Sámi Identity in Art 
 The Answer Is Land

People’s connection to nature and the climate crisis are themes in Elle Sofe Sara’s performance at the Arctic Arts Festival. In the video interview, the Sámi director and choreographer talks about how her Indigenous heritage and identity is reflected in her artistic work. 

Art and Cultural Heritage
 From Lines

As an artist, Marije Jenssen feels deeply influence by her Sámi-heritage. In this contribution, she shows her pieces and explains, how her enthusiasm for Arctic landscapes brought her into the arts.
 

Green Colonialism

Ostensibly sustainable energy sources, climate research, optimized profits from natural resources - science and business often exploit indigenous peoples for this purpose. Without a common strategy or dialogue, governments decide over the heads of the indigenous population, and large companies act in an unrestrained profit-oriented manner.

The wind industry is purposely hiding the fact that it is a very invasive industry.

Martina Vetter

A reindeer herd in the Finnmark region in northern Norway. The Finnmark is the largest and also most sparsely populated province in Norway. The majority of the Sámi live here. Photo (detail): Patrick Pleul © picture alliance

Green Colonialism
 “We need a policy for both the climate and nature”

We already have a climate crisis, “we cannot also risk a nature crisis,” Aili Keskitalo, president of the Sámi Parliament in Norway says. For years now, she has been fighting the Norwegian government’s plans to increase the number of wind energy farms. She talks about why in an interview.
Russian icebreaker passes through Arctic waters Photo (detail): NOAA Climate Program Office, NABOS 2006 Expedition

Geopolitics
 The Arctic: A Legislative Abyss?

The melting of sea ice opens unprecedented opportunities for Russian business projects in the Arctic. Author Rodion Vasilievich Sulyandziga has his doubts if they heed the rights of the North’s Indigenous peoples.
A snowy landscape from above, two people wading through the snow Photo (detail): © Ville-Riiko Fofonoff

Sámi Homeland
 A Scarce Resource

The global pandemic forces everyone to lockdown. But so-called progress does not stop. These diary entries by Pirita Näkkäläjärvi deal with innovative ways in which the Sámi are making themselves heard. 
Wind park Photo (detail): Hinrich Bäsemann © picture alliance

Eco-Colonialism
The New Age of Threats to Indigenous Peoples

It is safe to say that land conflicts are nothing new to Indigenous Peoples – indeed, land conflicts may be the one thing that they all have in common. But in the age of the climate crisis, a new type of land conflict has arisen to threaten their livelihoods, cultures and survival.
Demonstration against wind power Photo (detail): © Ingrid Fadnes

Honourable Court
"Let the Mountains Live!"

For the Sámi and their reindeer husbandry, wind power is neither green nor progress. It is just another industry that is gradually fragmenting the Sami cultural landscape, writes Eva Maria Fjellheim, PhD candidate at the Center for Sami Studies at UiT's, in this article.
 


 

¹ The title of the project comes from the long battle of Inuit to have their rights linked to climate change. The book of the same name by Sheila Watt-Cloutier (2015, Allen Lane Publication), testifies of her pioneering work in connecting climate change to human rights with the Inuit legal petition she and 62 fellow Inuit from Canada and Alaska launched to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights in Washington DC in 2005. Inuit leaders and climate change activists use this expression to capture their struggle and hope for political leaders to realize their communities are being severely impacted by climate change. Although the Commission did not go ahead with the Inuit petition they did have a historical hearing on the legal impacts and connections between climate change and human rights. Okalik Eegeesiak, Former Chair of the Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) used the expression in her discourse at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change COP 21 December 3, 2015 in Paris, France: “Climate change is not just an environmental issue it is a human rights issue and the melting of the Arctic is impacting all aspects of Inuit life, therefore, the final text must make the rights of Indigenous peoples operative and keep it in Article 2.2. We have the right to be cold” argued Eegeesiak.

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