The Sami people's cultural heritage in Swedish EIAs

This paper presents a historical outline of how Sápmi cultural heritage has been taken into consideration in EIAs within the Swedish Sápmi region. Since the first EIAs were drafted in Sweden in the late 1990s, the assessment of Sami cultural heritage has exclusively been limited to tangible heritage. Components, which the Sami people consider vital elements within their cultural heritage, such as traditional knowledge, biological heritage, and oral history, have not been taken into consideration. Since 1998, the Swedish National Heritage Board has allocated funds for the support of Sami cultural heritage with four support programs between 1998 and 2012. These programs focused exclusively on tangible cultural heritage. In 2010, the Swedish Sami People's National Association published guidelines on how Sami land use should be integrated into the EIA process. The document includes a clear presentation of the Sami people's worldview and clarifies what they consider their cultural heritage. The following year Swedish Sami Ragnhild Svonni, representing the same organization at the Swedish National Heritage Board's annual conference, spoke about the Sami people and their cultural heritage. Nonetheless, EIAs nowadays are still compiled with a rigorously objectified and westernized point-of-view with little consideration to the Sami people's worldview.