Best of 2012 from Snowchange Cooperative!
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
Chris Madine, associated with the Arkleton Trust, UK, has completed the international monitoring mission, phase 1, regarding the solar electrification project of the Snowchange partner communities in Lower Kolyma, Sakha, Siberia. The report is available here.
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.
Snowchange organised together with the IPCCA the Indigenous Workshop on
Climate Change in the Skolt Saami village of Sevettijärvi together with
participants from Panama, Peru, India, Thailand, USA and others. The
declaration from Sevettijärvi is available here.
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:
Please take contact if any questions!
tero
The Kalevala Association, the most important organisation in Finland devoted to the study and understanding of traditional culture in Finland has decided to give this years ”Kekrinpäiväpalkinto 2011” – “Best National Work on Traditions 2011″ to Tero and Kaisu Mustonen from the Snowchange Cooperative based on the work of Eastern Sámi Atlas which was released in February 2011. The IPCCA Grant for 2010 to the Eastern Sámi made the publication of this Atlas possible. The Award is 1000 Euros. Coinciding with the Prize will be large media coverage and this annual Prize is considered a very powerful statement in society, it has been given out since 1965. This unique publication tells the stories of the Eastern Sámi Peoples. The book is the result of eleven years of research in Kola Peninsula. Its aim is to provide 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 homelands and also share their contemporary views. It provides an important and unique basis for discussions and processes related to Indigenous uses of the land. Included are artworks, unique photos, poems, songs and other cultural reflections of this region. No such book has ever been published about the Eastern Sámi with the Eastern Sámi.
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.
On 25-30 September 2011, representatives of indigenous peoples’ local assessments carried out in China, Ecuador, Finland, India, North America, Panama, Peru and Thailand under the Indigenous Peoples Biocultural Climate Change Assessment (IPCCA) initiative met in the community of Sevettijärvi, located in the boreal forest of North East Finland. The meeting was hosted by the Skolt Sámi Nation and Snowchange Cooperative. IPCCA members shared emergent findings from their local assessments and discussed adaptation and mitigation options for indigenous peoples, integration of biocultural dimensions in assessments, and approaches and strategies for addressing climate justice. As a result, recommendations for future actions were developed. Here you can see the Declaration from Sevettijärvi.