Ingrid Eline Barrabés Gørrissen’s Discussion Reflection 

Hope for an Indigenous future

We have the pleasure and honour of publishing a reflection on the discussion delivered at the Arctic Frontiers conference. The conference was held in February 2026 in Tromsø, Norway. The discussion was part of the panel session organised by the CAP-SHARE project, entitled ‘Intergenerational Capacity Sharing: The Connection Between Nature and Youth’.

The text was originally written in English.

Discussion Reflection:

Hope for an Indigenous future

Ingrid Eline Barrabés Gørrissen

Board member, Noereh

On February 4^th I was part of the CAP-SHARE panel on the connection between nature and youth. My experiences as a young Sámi person shape the way I view the world, nature and the future. I believe it is very important to get several different perspectives when talking about these issues. This is why I am happy to have both been able to partake in this panel, and feel honoured to have shared this space with such amazing young people from all over the Arctic.

What does biodiversity and community resilience mean to you in your everyday life and home region?

Our culture is completely interconnected with the land and nature. Without our lands and waters, we are unable to continue with our culture – both when it comes to reindeer husbandry, traditional fishing in rivers, lakes and the sea and, for example, berry picking and other ways to use the land. I do a lot of duodje – traditional Sámi handicrafts – and work with, for example, reindeer leather.  Without a stable and predictable ecosystem, it is nearly impossible to continue our traditional ways of life. 

We, the Sámi, are resilient, and we adapt. We have made it through the most intense periods of assimilation, and even though the threats we face today are existential, I believe we will make it through this as well. To me, biodiversity and community resilience means being able to practise our culture and carry it on for future generations.

What does a hopeful, just and resilient arctic future look like from your perspective?

We need to stop climate change, stop land grabbing without free, prior and informed consent (FPIC), and treat indigenous rights as legitimate rights – not a hurdle to overcome.

My dream is that Sámi people who are born today will not have to fight for our right to exist. For me, a hopeful, just and resilient arctic future has free prior and informed consent as a natural part of governance. A future where no land is seized without the real consent of the people who live there and use it. A future where the Arctic is not viewed as “the final frontier”, with endless resources to conquer and extract as long as you can find a shiny new excuse. For a hopeful future, cases such as the windmills on Fovsen Njaarkes land, the mine in Riehpovuotna, or the Naŋŋánjárgga hotel can never be allowed to happen. 

We cannot have justice in the Arctic if standard business is “it’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission”.  In addition, the various truth and reconciliation reports need to have real consequences for policy, and not just be left to collect dust in a drawer. 

How do you relate to land and water and how do these relationships shape your identity and sense of the future?

It’s difficult to say what nature means to me and how I relate to it, because I don’t see myself as separate from the nature and biodiversity that surrounds us. That would almost be like asking me how I relate to breathing: it’s just a natural part of who I am. The land gives us life, and in return we take care of it.  It’s as simple as that.

Growing up, I have always been connected to the land; going fishing with my grandparents, picking berries with my grandmother, and playing in the forests around where I grew up. 

When I see how the nature is treated and sacrificed for any slight profit margin, it makes me dread the future our politicians are creating. I have no hope of my children seeing the glaciers I marvelled at growing up. I hope they will not have to watch as the rivers, fjords and lakes they grew up are poisoned by mining waste or other pollutants.

Even so, it also gives me a lot of hope for the future to see that so many people are willing to fight for it. We are thousands of people who are unwilling to accept that we should sit and watch as our homes are destroyed. This gives me hope for what’s to come. 

In your view, how is indigenous and local knowledge currently supported in biodiversity governance and policy processes?

I feel like indigenous people and our knowledge is often seen as no more than a checkmark on a list of bureaucratic procedures and a hurdle to overcome. In Norway, the government has a duty to consult indigenous rights holders if they want to build something, but this consultation often leads nowhere. When indigenous people give their input, saying a specific project will have certain effects, it is often disregarded. Indigenous knowledge is often not regarded as legitimate knowledge. 

There needs to be a legitimate input of indigenous knowledge. Today, how consultation works is usually that governments have a proposal, ask for input, and then ignore it. This is not cocreation nor legitimate consultations. Indigenous knowledge and people need to be involved from the first moment a project is proposed and be a central part of creating the policies that govern our lives.

Lemet Mihkkal Hætta’s Discussion Reflection

Biodiversity, resilience, and the future of the Arctic

We have the pleasure and honour of publishing a reflection on the discussion delivered at the Arctic Frontiers conference. The conference was held in February 2026 in Tromsø, Norway. The discussion was part of the panel session organised by the CAP-SHARE project, entitled ‘Intergenerational Capacity Sharing: The Connection Between Nature and Youth’.

The text was originally written in English.

Discussion Reflection:

Biodiversity, resilience, and the future of the Arctic

Lemet Mihkkal Hætta

Participant in the Sámi Council's Sáttanuorat programme, Youth Together 4 Arctic Futures Project

When it comes to my view on biodiversity, I like to see it as the foundation that makes safety, culture and community life possible. However; I don’t see this as obvious. A weakened ecosystem affects people’s lives, including livelihood and their sense of security, as well as the possibility to continue ones’ ways of living.

When viewing resilience in a Sámi context, one word comes to mind connected to resilience – Birgejupmi – which means the ability to adapt through changing conditions. This is not only about surviving changes, but also about keeping cultures strong while adapting to new realities. I see a resilient community as one that can continue to speak its languages, use its knowledge, practice its livelihoods and pass on values intergenerationally. It is a very holistic view, but in my mind, that is exactly the kind of view that one has to have, in the Arctic, so as to be able to survive the harsh climate here in the North.

Regarding a hopeful, just and resilient Arctic future, in my opinion as a Sámi and a young person, such a future must be built on rights and responsibility. In practice, this means that decisions affecting our lands, waters, culture, and life futures must be respected, which means that the principle of free, prior, and informed consent must also be respected. I see a just future also as one wherein youth and elders are both participating in decision making. This is because elders carry forward wisdom from their lifetimes and from their ancestors, while youth bear the responsibility of living with the consequences of today’s decisions.

I like to think that I have a relationship to land and water as something which one has to take care of, and not just as something connoting the use of “resources”. The land and the water, for me, are connected to identity and language. One example of this relates to place names in the Sámi languages. Place names carry knowledge about the landscape, uses and stories told about the place in question. All this, for me, goes under indigenous knowledge. And when it comes to Indigenous knowledge in biodiversity governance, I think there has been some progress, especially in the language used by institutions. But the support is still uneven, and too often symbolic. Indigenous knowledge is sometimes integrated into processes without enough attention to ethics, ownership, consent, or how that knowledge will actually influence decisions. There is also a capacity problem: communities are expected to participate, share knowledge, and respond to consultations without the funding and resources needed to do that work properly. When Indigenous perspectives are included only for legitimacy, without real influence, this risks becoming Indigenous washing.

Young people’s opportunities to influence biodiversity protection and environmental decision-making are definitely increasing. Panels like this, youth workshops, and international Arctic forums can create important spaces for young people to speak, learn, and connect. These spaces matter. They can build confidence, networks, and knowledge across regions.

At the same time, barriers remain. Youth participation can also become youth washing if young people are invited in only after the most important decisions have already been made. Access is another barrier. Travel distances, costs, language, time, and funding all affect who is able to participate. Many consultations also happen too late in the process, when there is little room to change the outcome. If youth and Indigenous communities are to contribute meaningfully, they must be involved from the beginning and not only asked to comment at the end.

In conclusion, for me, biodiversity protection is therefore not only about protecting species or habitats. It is about protecting the conditions that allow communities, cultures, and future generations to live well. A resilient Arctic future is one where the land is still able to carry life, and where our people are still able to carry knowledge, language, and responsibility forward.