CRC/C/97/D/172/2022 exploration project on their traditional territory without a proper impact assessment and without obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of their community. The authors requested the adoption of interim measures to halt the exploration works. The Optional Protocol entered into force for the State party in November 2015. The authors are represented by counsel. 1.2 On 17 January 2022, pursuant to article 6 of the Optional Protocol, the Committee, acting through its working group on communications, registered the communication and decided to request the State party to submit preliminary observations on the authors’ request for interim measures within 10 days. On 27 January 2022, the State party informed the Committee that the works had been suspended in response to a request for interim measures issued by the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights in respect of communications No. 251/2022 and No. 289/2022,1 concerning the same Sami siida (small group of kin- or village-based herders). On 15 March 2022, the Committee on the Rights of the Child, acting through its working group on communications, decided not to issue a request for interim measures. 1.3 On 17 March 2022, the State party requested the Committee to examine the question of admissibility separately from the merits. On 7 November 2022, the Committee, acting through its working group on communications, decided, pursuant to rule 18 (6) of its rules of procedure under the Optional Protocol, to examine the admissibility of the communication together with its merits. Factual background 2.1 The authors are three sisters who were aged 13, 15 and 16 at the time of the initial submission. They are members of a multigenerational Sami reindeer herding family from Kova-Labba siida, which is one of the three traditional reindeer herding villages that are part of the Käsivarsi Reindeer Herders’ Cooperative.2 Kova-Labba siida represents Sami reindeer herding culture in Finland, based on the semi-nomadic herding of relatively small herds by small kin- or village-based groups of herders, which have been living there since time immemorial. 2.2 The authors submit that the Sami way of life is being challenged by outside threats to their culture, such as mining, tourism, wind farms and rapidly changing environmental conditions.3 In particular, their family has been forced to start providing additional food to the reindeer, as the winters have varied in terms of snow conditions during the authors’ lifetimes, but providing additional food – with methods more similar to cattle breeding – does not belong to traditional Sami reindeer herding. The authors are nevertheless determined to learn the traditions of Sami reindeer herding, which is a cornerstone of the Sami culture and way of life. Reindeer herding has been the culture, livelihood and identity of their family for centuries. As such, they participate in reindeer herding during weekends and on school holidays. During the summer, they participate in the earmarking of reindeer calves; their father taught them at an early age how to cut their own individual earmarks, and each of the authors has her own distinctive reindeer earmark based on the earmarks used in the family for centuries. The authors are also actively teaching their younger brothers the Sami way of life and reindeer herding and are involving them. 2.3 The authors have also learned from an early age, from older family members, the traditional Sami way of singing (luohti yoik), which is used by women in the fells during their 1 2 3 2 E/C.12/76/D/251/2022-E/C.12/76/D/289/2022. The cooperative is an administrative division of the State party. Referring to the Committee’s findings in Sacchi et al. v. Argentina (CRC/C/88/D/104/2019), the authors mention that the fact that Finland is the fifty-seventh largest emitter of carbon dioxide among all countries in absolute terms, and twenty-ninth per capita, supports the argument that the mineral exploration project described in the present communication violates the Convention in the current circumstances created by climate change. While the authors understand that mitigating climate change requires replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy, they fear that badly chosen forms of transition may have a serious impact on their culture if the transition entails mining (to acquire battery minerals for electric cars and solar panel systems) and the creation of windmill parks on the Sami territory, which is already subject to other great pressures.