Arctic Peoples

by Clive Tesar

Reindeer herders from countries around the Arctic are meeting to trade knowledge and strategies for dealing with warming temperatures. The workshops are one branch of the Ealát Project, an initiative to look at the vulnerabilities of reindeer herders, and conduct research on how herders might adapt to climate change. Anders Oskal, Director of the International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry says,

“Independent of what’s causing climate change, it’s happening now so while others may be discussing the causes, reindeer husbandry and indigenous societies need to work out strategies on how to cope with this issues. This project is supposed to be a contribution to that.”

Oskal hopes that at least six workshops will be held, covering the main herding regions: The Saami region (northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula); the four reindeer herding areas in Russia (Nenets, Yamal, Sakha/Yakutia, Chukotka) and Alaska (United States). The meetings will include people from a variety of different regions, so that they may share knowledge between them.

Oskal says that will present a challenge, as he is not aware of any people who are fluent is translating between the different languages, such as Saami and Chukchi. While many participants will be able to speak other languages such as Russian, some of the traditional knowledge Oskal hopes to find is embedded in the indigenous languages, and may not translate well.

Oskal hopes the workshops not only come up with some useful advice, but also help prove the use of traditional knowledge.

“It’s quite easy to talk about traditional knowledge, but to actually do something sensible with it in real life, that’s something else. What we want to do with a series of workshops is to bring out some quite simple examples of traditional knowledge, and how it can be used to adapt to climate change, from the different regions.”

The Ealát Project has been endorsed by the Arctic Council , and the International Polar Year. Oskal says the final report of the workshops should be ready in time for the Arctic Council Ministerial meeting in 2009. To learn more about the Ealát Project, visit http://www.ip-ipy.org/