The year has started off actively in a number of forums. We are busy finishing “Metsäveri” – the life histories and oral stories of Aslak Ola Aikio (1931-2004), one of the last great hunters of the Sámi people. He was from Utsjoki.

Implementation of the Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment grant for the Skolt Sámi in Sevettijärvi is well underway – first local meetings regarding documentation of observations and co-management of Atlantic Salmon on the River Näätämöjoki have been held in early 2012. They will continue in January-February.

Workshops devoted to the Eastern Sámi Atlas dissemination will continue in Lovozero, Murmansk, Russia in January.

We plan to take part in the UNU Workshop on Indigenous Peoples and Climate Change Mitigation in Cairns, Australia with both Finnish and Siberian delegations in late March 2012. Following this event cooperation talks will be held with the Traditional Knowledge Revitalisation Pathways project and Australian Aboriginals.

In April we will participate in the “EcoCultures” Workshop at the University of Essex, UK as well as the various Arctic events in Montreal, Canada.

Domestically community work on restoration of Jukajoki river proceeds in Selkie as well as the school work, interviews with the old fishermen took place in December 2011 in Pirkanmaa and regular activities continue.

The annual meeting of Snowchange Co-op is to be held January 27th-29th, 2012 in Jyväskylä, Finland.

Take contact if any questions – tero

Mr. Madine, working with the communities as well as the project partners Barefoot College and Snowchange Cooperative documented the events and turns of a very complex international effort to bring sustainable lighting solutions to the nomadic peoples of Northeastern Eurasia. The project was launched in Autumn 2007 and became a part of the Mahinekura Reinfelds Declaration of Snowchange 2008. The project will continue with further implementation and monitoring over the next year as the panels will be used in the reindeer brigades. This monitoring will include community visits, keeping of diaries on the successes and problems of the panels and interviews with the key stakeholders. We as well look forwards to expanding this initiative with our partners.

In October we participated in the RIO + 20 preparatory meetings in
Helsinki, which were EU-wide events getting ready for the June 2012 event
in Rio De Janeiro.

In November Snowchange gave several presentations in Rovaniemi, Finland at
the “Making Marginalized Voices Heard” Workshop which was organised by the
United Nations Association of Finland – thank you to the organisers and
participants for this event. The second edition of Drowning Reindeer Saami
publication was released during the workshop too.

In mid-November Siberian participants of the Snowchange network, mr. Pyotr
Kaurgin from the nomadic Chukchi community of Turvaurgin in Republic of
Sakha-Yakutia as well as the Chief Vyaceslav Shadrin of the Yukaghir
people from Sakha-Yakutia together with Tero Mustonen participated in the
ELOKA Workshop in Colorado, USA. This event was to discuss the recently
launched English homepages of the Snowchange work in Yakutia. These pages
can be accessed here.

As well the Yukaghir people have opened their own excellent homepages at
www.arctic-megapedia.ru – please check them out too!

20th November Alexey Kanichev, the Snowchange coordinator for Murmansk
region, together with the local Saami Yevgeni Kirillov organised a
workshop number 2 devoted to the Russian discussions of the Eastern Saami
Atlas in Lovozero village, Murmansk, Russia. The event was a success with
17 Saami participating.

In December Snowchange will be involved in the following events:

• Preparation of the third workshop for Kola Saami and the Atlas;
• Launch of the “Vaara-Karjalan kulttuuriperintöhanke” – a new project
  devoted to traditions and revitalisation of villages in North Karelia,
  Finland;
• Continued work with the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment;
• Other processes of the Snowchange international work

Please take contact if any questions!

tero

This is a social and cultural atlas that highlights the historical situation of the Nations of the region and documents the changes and events of Soviet rule leading up to the contemporary post-Soviet context. Materials are drawn from early historical and ethnographic documents, explorer accounts, oral histories of the Sámi themselves and contemporary views. Materials here have been collected and produced since 1999. Most of them have never been published before. Over 65 maps drawn and redrawn from several sources portray the region in a clear manner. The Eastern Sámi communities who took part in the work during 1999-2010 have been able to influence the process at all stages of the project, from early contacts for documentation of oral histories to writing the manuscript of the atlas. Using these mechanisms the Sámi have been co-researchers owning their own knowledge. No such book has ever been published about Finnish or Russian Indigenous Peoples.

In short, the main aim of this paper is to investigate the question preliminarily whether some aspects of the Indigenous Sámi siida community governance survive to modern day. This is achieved by producing a brief overview of aspects of land use and Indigenous histories of the Inari (Aanaar) Sámi reindeer herding community which is now emerging (2011) as ”Nellimin tokkakunta” (loosely translated as Sámi Reindeer-herding Unit of Nellim) which is conducting Sámi-style reindeer herding in the area of Nellim, which belongs to the municipality of Inari in Finland. Previously this community has been a part of the state-instituted Ivalon paliskunta system. The community of Nellim reindeer herders is in a state of conflict with the state reindeer-herding unit and is currently emerging as an “Sámi-style” reindeer herding community. The paper discusses pre-historic and archaeological roots of Inari Sámi and Sámi land use and occupancy in the region, traces aspects of historical land use of the area with a focus on the Sámi and ends with a view regarding contemporary situation of the Nellim Inari Sámi based in preliminary informant interviews from 2011. The scientific view of the paper rests on the methods of human geography, investigation of archival and printed materials, fieldwork in the region in spring and summer 2011, and selected initial interview with the key informants in the region in May 2011.

The paper is available here.

Work on the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment continues towards inclusion of traditional knowledge of the Indigenous Peoples.

In September Snowchange will participate in the Resilient Regions meeting in Portland, USA as well as co-organise with the Saami an Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment meeting in Sevettijärvi, Finland. Visits will be made to the British Columbian partner organisations and communities in September too.

We are happy to announce that thanks to the efforts of President of the Northern Forum Academy mr. Vasiliev and the community of Turvaurgin as well as the Barefoot College in India the solar panels for the Kolyma tundra in North East Siberia have been delivered. Therefore the project which began in 2007 is coming to its closure.

In order to commemorate this event we have worked with the ELOKA project in Colorado, USA to open English-language webpages devoted to the Kolyma communities. They are available here.

And finally many of the earlier reports are now available in PDF format in the Snowchange pages. Take contact as needed. More news in September-October.

Tero Mustonen, Snowchange

In May new Snowchange webpages were opened and another workshop was held in Lovozero, Murmansk, Russia on the dissemination of the Eastern Saami Atlas. Over the summer dissemination events will continue in Sevettijärvi, Finland (27th June 2011). From July 31st to 4th August the Steering Committee of the Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment will be held in Sevettijärvi, Finland. Take contact if needed and please visit our new shop here (in Finnish)!

All the best
Tero Mustonen

At the moment, you’ll find on the pages the latest and past news from Snowchange, a detailed list of our publications, and links to the webpages of some of our partners. Additionally, you can find out about the Snowchange Archive. We’ll be adding more material to these pages regularly.

3rd February 2011 in Inari SIIDA SAAMI MUSEUM at 15.00.

Connected with this release there will be community workshops

2nd February 2011 Vuotso, Sapmi, FInland
3rd February 2011 Inari, Sapmi, Finland at the Siida Saami Museum at 15.00 – 19.00
5th – 6th February 2011 Lovozero, Murmansk, Russia

to commemorate this event.

The atlas is in English with over 60 maps many of which have never been published in an
international scholarly publication before.

Take contact as needed for orders, press copies and so forth. See below for more of Eastern Sámi Atlas.

The first genocide and destruction against the Sámi peoples and our society began in the 1500s and 1600s. Unless there are dramatic changes in the near future, the Sámi culture will die, disappear in my lifetime… Sámi knowledge is knowledge about how to be with your environment, how to have your relationships with humans and with the world. Therefore, the most effective ways of controlling a people involve destroying the things that comprise the reality of that people. In the North this ancient knowledge has been beaten and destroyed for centuries in order to make the Indigenous peoples forget this knowledge. If there is nothing else to do to stop this, at least we can try to prolong things. To buy us a bit more time to survive. We can try to gather traditional knowledge from the elders who are still holding on to it. We can try to create safe havens of ecosystems, which contain our knowledges – the fjells, forests, and lakes which remain in pristine condition.

– Pauliina Feodoroff, President of the Sámi
Council, Skolt Sámi Nation, Finland, January 2008

This unique publication tells the stories of the Eastern Sámi Peoples. Eastern Sámi Atlas provides a clear view of the histories, land use and occupancy on the lives of the Indigenous societies and peoples in the Eastern part of Sápmi. Book provides a unique basis for discussions and processes related to Indigenous uses of the land. Included are artworks, unique color and black and white photos, poems, songs and other cultural reflections of this region. This book documents changes from prehistory to events of the Soviet rule leading up to the contemporary post-Soviet context. Materials are drawn from early historical an ethnographic documents, explorer accounts, oral histories of the Sámi themselves and contemporary views. Materials here have been collected and produced since 1999. Over 60 maps portray the region in a clear manner. The Eastern Sámi communities who took part in the work during 1999-2010 have been able to influence the process at all stages of the project. Using these mechanisms the Sámi have been coresearcher owning their knowledges. Observations of environmental and weather changes are included.

Internationally renowed experts have contributed essays to the atlas: Paul Fryer from the Department of Geographical and Historical Studies at the University of Eastern Finland – Joensuu, Finland reflects upon one of the migrant communities of Russian North – the Kola Komi, or Iz’vatas (‘People of the Iz’va River’) people. A renowned expert of the Eastern Sámi Leif Rantala tells the story of the Äʹǩǩel (Akkala) Sámi. In “Premonitions of Change: Luujäuʹrr (Lovozero) Home Talk Twenty Years After” researcher Yulian Konstantinov from the University of Tromssø, Norway writes what can be considered a letter from contemporary Luujäuʹrr (Lovozero). The Kola Sámi demographic information drawn from Russian sources over the past decades is explored by Professor Sergey Zavalko from the Murmansk State Technical University, Russia.

The Snowchange Cooperative is an award-winning nonprofit independent research and cultural organisation based in Finland. Tero and Kaisu Mustonen are leading experts on the community-based research of climate and biodiversity changes in the Circumpolar Arctic.