(nia14.ru) - The Board Chairman of Project Office for Arctic Development (POAD) spoke about the new initiative of the Project Office at the forum "Public-Private Partnership in the Sustainable Development of Indigenous Peoples", which was held in Murmansk.
It is more correct due to ethnological expertise to talk about the concept of sustainable life support or social impact assessment than about the concept of sustainable development, which supposedly implies some kind of initial “underdevelopment,” says Dmitry Funk, director of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences. He drew attention to the constant monitoring of the territory, the simplest way of which is to survey residents: such data cover a period of 60 years in the United States, the expert noted.
The search for a golden mean between the absence of interference in the lives of indigenous peoples and assistance to them is a challenge for both entrepreneurs and experts, believes Nikolai Doronin, the board chairman of the PORA. The Project Office is creating a unified methodology for ethnological expertise, which can be used for various territories and for various industrial and infrastructure projects, he explained. “This tool will help bridge the divide between entrepreneurs, indigenous peoples and academia. The tool algorithm is suitable both for planned projects, for current activities and for emergencies,” says Nikolai Doronin.
In addition, the board chairman of the PORA spoke about a new ethnological map of the Barents region. A layer reflecting the interests of indigenous peoples will be added to the current interactive map of environmental problems in the Western Arctic (www.barentsmap.com), created by POAD. "The map is a geographic information system that will visually display the places of nomad territory, fishing, collecting wild plants and other important elements of the indigenous peoples’ life. It will allow industrial companies to immediately see how the planned projects affect the territories of traditional nature management," Doronin said.
Today, companies that adhere to ESG standards are more successful in the market. The policy such as cooperation between entrepreneurs and the indigenous peoples has proven to be effective. In particular, some indigenous persons are trained for free in such popular professions as a tallyman or slinger in Taimyr. The company (port) employs workers, and indigenous peoples receive employment, said Grigory Dyukarev, chairman of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Taimyr Peninsula. “Peoples note that the company is taking into consideration their interests, which means that there will be no conflicts with the indigenous peoples in the territory,” Dyukarev explained. However, contractors and subcontractors of Arctic companies should also adhere to such standards, who often implement directly Arctic development projects, believes the chairman of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the Taimyr Peninsula.
Long-term impact is not on the agenda of many industrial companies. Cooperation with indigenous peoples is limited to targeted financial assistance, while it is necessary to assess the long-term impact of companies' work on traditional nature management, believes Irina Samsonova, D.Sc. Economics, Associate Professor at the NEFU Institute of Finance and Economics (Yakutsk). She noted that there are already tools that systematize approaches to assessing the impact of industry on reindeer breeding in Yakutia.
It is necessary to expand the normative concept of ethnological expertise, using a framework approach: it can be a scientific study, or it can be an assessment of the impact of a particular industrial project on a particular community, says Sergey Timoshkov, adviser to the head of the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs. In addition, you need to understand what parameters can be used to make decisions to ban the activities of entrepreneurs in a particular territory, he added.
Funds for compensation and support measures for the indigenous peoples should be included in strategic planning documents, believes Grigory Ledkov, President of the Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia, Far East of the Russian Federation. According to him, today such things are financed on a residual basis, but these costs should initially be included in the production cost of those companies that start operations in the Arctic.
The forum was organized by the Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs of Russia, the Ministry for the Development of the Russian Far East, the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Norinickel company with the participation of the Charitable Foundation for Support of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East.
