Sámi Youth Voices: Insights on Cultural Resilience, Identity Preservation, and Shaping the Future in a Transforming Arctic Context

We are delighted to publish the keynote speech delivered at the Arctic Spirit Conference in May in Rovaniemi, as part of the CAP-SHARE project session Building Future Security Together: Transdisciplinary and Intergenerational Capacity Sharing for Community Development in the Arctic.
Keynote:
Perspectives of Sámi Youth on Cultural Survival, Identity Continuity, and Future Building in a Changing Arctic Reality
Niila-Juhán Valkeapää
The Sámi Youth Council, Sámi Parliament, Finland

Buorre iđit. Good morning.
 
My name is Niila-Juhán Valkeapää, and I live in Sápmi—Sámi land. I serve as the Vice Chair of the Youth Council of the Sámi Parliament in Finland. I speak today for my role and that of a generation growing up with ancestral knowledge and urgent new challenges.
 
As many of you know, the Sámi are the only Indigenous people within the European Union. We have our own languages, cultures and traditional livelihoods, all deeply rooted in our land. Nevertheless, today, in our homelands across the North—in Sápmi—our cultural identity, and even our security as a people, face new kinds of growing serious threats.
 
When we speak of security, we do not mean it in the conventional sense of borders or armies. Security means knowing that our culture will survive amidst modern challenges. Our languages will be spoken, and our ways of life will be possible. That our youth will have a future.
 
As Sámi youth, we often ask ourselves:
 
How can our culture survive in a rapidly changing world?
 
What will it mean to be Sámi in the future?
 
These questions are not just abstract concerns; they are genuine and immediate. They touch every part of our lives, from the lands we depend on to the languages we speak.
 
Our cultural continuity is being tested on multiple fronts.
 
One of the most urgent challenges we face is the fragile state of our languages. Some Sámi languages are now spoken fluently by only a few elders. Without substantial and sustained revitalisation, these languages risk disappearing and centuries of Indigenous knowledge, place-based wisdom, and cultural expression with them. Language is not just about grammar; it shapes how we understand and relate to the world around us and is thus a significant part of our people’s identity that would be lost.
 
At the same time, climate change is transforming the Arctic, our home, at a pace that few others experience. In Sápmi, our winters have changed drastically. Crusts form too early, and thaws come mid-winter, making it harder for reindeer to dig for food beneath the surface. What used to be reliable patterns of snow and cold are now unpredictable. These shifts affect livelihoods and disrupt traditional knowledge passed down through generations. For our elders, this is a heartbreaking loss. This unstable Arctic is a new reality that we must adjust to.
 
We are also facing a new kind of threat: one that comes wrapped in the language of sustainability. The green transition, while necessary, often overlooks Indigenous rights. Wind power projects and other infrastructure are being developed on Sámi lands without free, prior and informed consent. When turbines or roads cut reindeer pastures, our livelihoods are compromised, and so is our right to determine our future. Sustainability must never come at the expense of justice.
 
On top of these structural challenges, everyday barriers persist. Complex bureaucratic systems make it harder to maintain traditional ways of life. Discrimination—both subtle and overt—continues to affect Sámi people in schools, healthcare and public life, undermining our safety, confidence and visibility within society.
 
As we imagine the future of the Arctic, we must also redefine what security means.
 
For me, security is knowing that our languages will live not just as subjects in a classroom but as languages spoken at home, online and at the governmental level.
 
Security is knowing that our reindeer can migrate across landscapes that are still intact.
 
Security also means knowing that Sámi identities, with all their diversity and strength, can thrive in a world that respects differences and does not try to erase them.
 
This is what we mean when we speak of cultural survival.
 
Let me be clear: cultural survival is not about clinging to the past. It is about carrying our knowledge forward and adapting it to new realities without losing its heart.
 
To survive culturally, we need healthy land. Without it, traditional knowledge cannot live. When the land is harmed by extraction, fragmentation or climate change, it is not only the environment that suffers; our culture suffers, too.
 
However, we cannot carry this work alone. Governments and institutions must move beyond symbolic recognition. Indigenous rights must be respected in practice. Education must reflect our realities. Furthermore, policies must be created with us, not about us.
 
We are not a minority asking for charity. We are Indigenous peoples demanding our rights.
 
The Arctic is not empty. It is not a frontier. It is our home and has been for millennia.
 
Sámi youth are ready to carry forward the responsibility of caring for the land, our culture, and the future. Nevertheless, we need space. We need support. Above all, we need sovereignty—the right to make decisions about our lives on our terms.
 
Despite everything we face, Sámi culture is not disappearing. It is adapting. It is resisting. It is evolving while led by a generation that carries both the scars of colonisation and the vision of a sustainable, sovereign future.
 
Giitu. Thank you.