Norway’s Supreme Court is deliberating on a case that could grant local control over a vast area in the country’s far north — and set a groundbreaking precedent for Indigenous land rights in Europe.
The case will determine whether the largely Indigenous Sámi municipality of Karasjok will get collective ownership over its roughly 5,450 square kilometres of land — the second-largest municipal area in Norway and one of the most productive in terms of natural resources.
The Sámi are Europe’s only formally recognized Indigenous group, with traditional territories spanning the national borders of Finland, Norway, Sweden and Russia. Across traditional territories in four Arctic nations, Sámi communities are already engaged in high-profile conflicts over land as the appetite for industrial projects on their territories appears to be ever-rising.
Why aren’t Basques recognized as inidgenous?
I don’t know. Do they want to?
Very much so. They have been fighting for independence for years.
Ah, mostly Spain and a bit of France. I doubt Spain’s going to budge. If they grant it, Catalans will also want one and no government wants to be the one who loses half the country to minorities.
Yeah, but unlike the Catalans, the Basques have unique genetics and a unique language. There is evidence that their culture and language predates much of the rest of modern Europe.
I wish them well.
Odds are that the Galicians will want it too. And perhaps the Andalusians - because linguistic factors are only a fraction of what creates identity, and even if they speak a variety of Castilian a lot of them keep a separated identity.