Summary of the practices and events

As the description of the events shows, the conflict in Inari is complex and involves a multitude of actors at international, national, regional and local levels from business, civil society and the Finnish State (Table ). The peak in the escalation of the conflict was reached in 005, when both Greenpeace and forestry-dependent workers took direct action, court proceedings were initiated regarding the forests in Nellim, and new international actors, such as UNHCR and the Saami Council, became involved in the conflict. At the time of writing of this study, the conflict was without settlement. The revision of the Natural Resource Plan had not lead to a joint agreement between Metsähallitus and the allied reindeer herding co-operatives, and the court process regarding Nellim was pending.

Stora Enso had announced that is not sourcing from any of the controversial areas (700 km) for the time being (Greenpeace press release 9..007). Logging, however, had been resumed in one of the controversial areas, Kessi forest, in April 007. Because there was no buyer for the pulp wood, it was delivered to the local heating plant in Inari (Greenpeace press release 8.6.007).

As Linjakumpu & Valkonen (006) argue, the conflict is on one hand about concrete, mapped forest areas in Inari and as such, strongly “placed” locally. On the other hand, it is also about Finnish forest policy at large, and therefore clearly transcends the local boundaries. According to Linjakumpu & Valkonen (006), the conflict has taken place between two distinct coalitions. By building networks with both the environmental movement and with the indigenous peoples’ rights movement, the dissatisfied RHCs have aimed at changing and widening the traditional opportunity structures and positions provided to them in the national forest policy. The international markets campaign driven by Greenpeace, the dialogue between the Saami Council and the ethical investors, and the appeals of the reindeer herders to the UN Human Rights Committee, all show that the conflict has not only local and national, but even international dimensions (Linjakumpu

& Valkonen 006; Lawrence & Raitio 006). The national and international networks have considerably increased the leverage of the reindeer herding co-operatives in the issue.

“It’s a good thing if someone helps us, he says. According to Mr. Lukkari [the chairman of the Hammastunturi RHC], reindeer herders have in vain tried alone to make their voice heard in Metsähallitus, but now with Greenpeace they at least have some chance.” (Newspaper Lapin Kansa Oct., 00, cited in Linjakumpu & Valkonen 006, author’s translation)

Opposed to this coalition has been the coalition supporting forestry. It has consisted of the forest and wood workers and their labour unions, Inari Municipality, Regional Forestry Centre in Lapland, and the Regional Council of Lapland. (Linjakumpu &

Valkonen 006.)

Looking at the practices the Finnish state forest administration has adopted during the past ten years for settling the conflict, it is obvious that considerable resources have been put into collaborative planning processes as part of Landscape Ecological Planning, Natural Resource Planning and in the form of more permanent Provincial and Municipal Advisory Committees and biannual meetings with the co-operatives. A new planning tool was developed specifically for taking the needs of reindeer herding into account, but it was not taken into use once it had become apparent that the pilot projects would not result in settling the dispute.

STATE OR INTERS-STATE ACTOR

CIVIL SOCIETY MARKETS

INTERNATIONAL United National Human Rights Committee

Greenpeace Saami Council

Ethical indexes (Dow Jones Sustainability Index, Nordic Sustainability Index, FTSEGood) European publishing houses and their associations Stora Enso

NATIONAL MOE

MAF Ministry of Foreign Affairs Ministry of Justice Metsähallitus

Nature League FANC

Wood and Allied Workers’ Union Forestry Experts’

Association (METO) The Trade Association of Finnish Forestry and Earth Moving Contractors

Forestry Transportation Union

REGIONAL Lapland Forestry Centre

The Regional Council of Lapland

FANC Lapland METO Lapland Finnish Sámi Parliament

Stora Enso pulp, paper and sawmill in Kemi

Stora Enso pulp mill in Kemijärvi Botnia pulp mill in Kemi

LOCAL Metsähallitus

NHS Metsähallitus FD

Inarin luonnonystävät

Alliance of Inari RHCs Metsähallitus FD VAPO sawmill Reindeer herding co-operatives

Table 12. Key actors involved in the Inari conflict

As with the Kainuu case, one way of analysing the practices of the state forest administration is to ask to what extent the various processes have fulfilled the key features required of consensus-seeking processes (Innes 00; Chapter .5). The processes both at the national (Arbitrator), provincial (Advisory Committee), and local (LEP, NRP, consultations) levels have been inclusive of a full range of stakeholders. Not all the parties have chosen to participate in all the processes available to them, but that has been their own decision. One of the major disagreements between Metsähallitus and the allied reindeer herding co-operatives, on the other hand, has been the task or agenda of the different collaborative processes. Forest management practices for mitigating the dispute have included postponing controversial loggings, timing them so that reindeer can use the tree-hanging lichen from the logging residue, as well as changing the methods for logging and soil scarification. Thinning of mature stands has replaced a proportion of the clear-cuts. Since 000, new forest management guidelines for forest close to forest line have been taken into use. (Piiparinen & Kotisaari 006, 8; Sihvo et al. 006, .) The co-operatives have, however, required that in order for the negotiations to be meaningful, they also need to address redefining the geographical scope of forestry, whereas Metsähallitus has repeatedly maintained that any major reductions to the area of commercial forestry are both outside its authority to decide upon as well as unacceptable from the forestry point of view. The forestry-dependent parties and the Municipality of Inari have strongly supported this view. Consequently, the process has not fulfilled the condition according to which it needs to be self-organising and unconstrained by conveners, permitting all assumptions to be questioned.

At the same time, the attempts of the co-operatives to negotiate with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry have not given any result. To the contrary, in its Action Programme, the Ministry re-delegated the task of reconciliation to Metsähallitus at the local level, although both Metsähallitus and the herding co-operatives had hoped for a political solution. Hence there has not been any process where all of the involved parties would have mutually perceived the planning task as meaningful and the ground rules of the process as acceptable. Both Metsähallitus and the reindeer-herding co-operatives have used positional language, that is, they have formulated their goals in terms of certain positions (“these areas must/not be logged”) instead of interests (“we need to make a living”). This has not helped to move the negotiations onwards, because positional strategies allow for little leeway in looking for win-win situations. Professional facilitators have not been available for the collaborative meetings. An arbitrator was used, but MAF chose not to implement the recommendations she made in her report (Selvitys…00).

To conclude, the parties have entered the negotiations with very different expectations about what a possible settlement could entail. Disagreement about the agenda and the ground rules has plagued the processes and not surprisingly, the processes have not yielded results. Rather than being resolved, the conflict has persisted and even escalated to include direct actions and litigation at national and international fora. From the forestry-dependent stakeholders’ (loggers, forest industry) perspective it could be argued that the situation is even worse now that the timber harvest levels have been dropped, but the dispute remains. On the other hand, reindeer herding co-operatives do not consider themselves winners either, because majority of the disputed areas remain in commercial forestry and will, according to the current Natural Resource Plan, be logged sooner or later.

What is striking in the dispute is the almost total absence of the Ministry of Environment in the debate. The Ministry has communicated that the conflict is about the needs of two local livelihoods and as such, not a matter for MOE to deal with.

How can the obvious inconsistency be explained between the state forest administration’s investment of time and resources to collaborative processes on one hand, and the reluctance to address the fundamental causes of the conflict, on the other? How does the state administration perceive the dynamics of the conflict and its own practices to manage it? What, in fact, is the conflict about? These are the questions to which I will now turn.