Dismantling the barriers to entrepreneurship in reindeer management in Finland

Byline: Janne Hukkinen, Hannu Heikkinen, Kaisa Raitio, Ludger Muller-Wille We will (1) show that reindeer herders in Finland have a long tradition of entrepreneurship; (2) identify administrative and policy obstacles to fulfilling the entrepreneurial capacities and (3) recommend actions to remove the obstacles to indigenous entrepreneurship among herders. Successful herders in Finland have embraced key entrepreneurial virtues: positioning themselves honestly with respect to their challenges, sparing resources and thinking strategically about the future. Unfortunately, government policy and administration in Finland do not facilitate the full utilisation of the virtues. However, policies and administrative structures can be reformed with carefully designed participatory approaches that rely on the expertise of herders, government officials and researchers of reindeer management. Our data comes from interviews, field visits and workshops organised during a three-year EU project on sustainable Reindeer Management (RENMAN). In addition, we have collected success stories of self-employment and entrepreneurship from four decades of fieldwork among herders in Finland.