Veli Pekka Olavi Aikio served as the president of the Sami Parliament of Finland

Sami Parliament of Finland

The Sami Parliament of Finland is the representative body for people of Sami heritage in Finland. The parliament consists of 21 elected mandates...

 for three terms from 1996 to 2008. Aikio's most important cause as a politician was land rights

Land rights

Land law is the form of law that deals with the rights to use, alienate, or exclude others from land. In many jurisdictions, these species of property are referred to as real estate or real property, as distinct from personal property. Land use agreements, including renting, are an important...

. Pekka Aikio is also a member of the Forest Steward Council (FSC) working group and works in close co-operation with the Greenpeace organizations

Greenpeace

Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...

 of various countries,
Aikio is the son of a Sámi reindeer

Reindeer

The reindeer , also known as the caribou in North America, is a deer from the Arctic and Subarctic, including both resident and migratory populations. While overall widespread and numerous, some of its subspecies are rare and one has already gone extinct.Reindeer vary considerably in color and size...

 herder. Having studied biology

Biology

Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 at the University of Oulu

University of Oulu

The University of Oulu is one of the largest universities in Finland, located in the city of Oulu. It was founded on July 8, 1958. The university has around 16,000 students and 3,000 staff...

, he graduated with an M.A. in 1986.