Abstract
I want to raise for discussion questions that trouble me as an observer concerning the talk of a “tragedy of the commons” on the Finnmark tundra, and the consequent intrusion of the state as a very active ‘overseer’ (even in a moral capacity) of Saami reindeer pastoral praxis.1 This may sound as though I deny there is a crisis ‐ but such is not the case; my concern is with how it came to be and, thus, what it is.