Update:

        The legal process will be carried out

        Despite the appeal, the landowners issued a summons against Tåssåsen Sami community, challenging the native landrights in the province of Jemtland.

      40 landowners in the county of Berg south of Östersund claims that Tåssåsen Sami community have no native landrights in the area and have brought the matter to court.
      The plight of the native community has been known as well as the fact that their funds got depleted in the previous trial. The landowners therefore wrote a letter this spring where they demanded that the native community should renounce their native landrights, which of course was unacceptable for the native community.
      Representatives for the native community then contacted minister Annika Åhnberg asking for a consultation to discuss the situation for the traditional reindeerherding and asked if it was the governments intention that the reindeerherding should be discontinued in the state of Jemtland. The Sami's also challenged the governments intention to follow the international legislation for native peoples and it's willingness to follow the agendas, conventions and treaties the Swedish governments have been part of creating at international conferences and the United Nations.
      A photo that might become a historical document of a culture lost?
      Image taken in Fjällsta, within Tåssåsen Sami community July 1998 by the webmaster.

      Some background to this issue not presented elsewhere:
      1 A Sami community or "Siida" is a smaller unit than a "tribe", might be translated as "tribal unit" or clan, all South-Sami's together might be considered to be a Sami tribe.
       2Reindeers are transported during the night for several reasons, the truckdrivers want to drive in the night when there's less traffic also to arrive at their destination like a foodindustrial plant in the morning. The loading of live animals are carried out in the evening after the reindeers have been gathered, else they would have to be in the corrall over a full night which for the Sami's are unacceptable since they care for their livestock.
      Yet neccesities like these described have created a myth that the Sami's are selling meat on the black market, the truth is that after the nuclear plant in Chernobyl blew up there isn't much of a market to sell any meat to at all.
       3 The Swedish government does not recognize the native landrights nor the neccesity to protect the native population of the southern part of the Sami nation. The native population of the area is therefore challenged by private interests which take the native rights to court to get total control over the lands, in every instance the native Sami people have lost these trials (last time in 1996).
       4 Swedish legislation does not permit the native communitys to be landowners, the present day landowners are descendants to the settlers who moved to this area during previous centurys and was given the ownership to these lands by the government trough a process called "Avvittringen" in Swedish.

       

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