Jokkmokk’s municipality – a part of World Heritage Laponia with strong focus on renewable energies, education and sustainable tourism

The municipality of Jokkmokk is situated at the polar circle. It is the second largest in size of all Swedish municipalities and only slightly smaller than Slovenia. Jokkmokk is a centre for the only indigenous peoples in Europe, the Sami, and their traditional reindeer herding. The area here has for that reason been protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site (Laponia). Tourism is therefore here an important part of the regional economy and sustainability is a naturally part of tourism concepts. Nowadays, questions on how to preserve our climate and how to safe energy become even more important.

At the same time, Jokkmokk is a centre of climate-friendly energy production: almost 70% of households are connected to the biomass district heating and roughly 15% of Sweden’s hydropower (ca 7% of total electricity) is produced here. The municipality is member of a green city-network “Ekokommuner” and has a free-of-charge energy consultancy for households.

Every year, an international forum for young climate researchers - Jokkmokk Winter Conference - is held in parallel to the Winter Market. Besides, Jokkmokk is also a centre for education, trainings and research, not at least also in the area of energy. Together with other municipalities here in the region and with the universities of Luleå and Umeå a lot of courses are offered, partly as distance learning courses.

The municipality is committed to energy and climate issues. An interdepartmental working group on energy and climate has been established and a new energy plan is under development. Development of wind but also solar power is an important issue here