Arctic Peoples

RAIPON Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga">This is anRAIPON Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga"> edited version of an interview with Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North ( RAIPON ) Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga. The original interview by Alexandra Beluza first appeared in the Russian Newspaper “Tribuna”.

Pavel Vasilyevich, recently the [Russian Federation] legislaRAIPON Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga">tors rejectedRAIPON Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga">RAIPON Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga" height="432" style="width: 316px; height: 432px" title=" RAIPON Vice-President Pavel Sulyandziga" /> a bill on ethnological appraisal initiated by RAIPON .

Yes, we did propose that the state should include an ethnological study to find out how a particular business project impacts a traditional life style of an aboriginal community. I can give you an example of such influence from the life of my own people. Until the 1970s, eight ethnic groups of the Udege people existed, while today only half of them are left because the Ussury taiga forest was cut down on the territories where four of them used to live, which deprived them of their hunting grounds and in effect removed the economic basis of their livelihoods from their under their feet.

In my opinion, it is here that the gravest danger lies: depriving the indigenous peoples of opportunities to practice their traditional pursuits on which their culture, language, traditions and customs are based. Many negative developments took place in Soviet times, yet then the authorities supported the traditional economies of Indigenous Peoples. Today the government has practically abandoned any policy regarding the small Indigenous Peoples.

The Law on Guarantees of Small Peoples’ Rights has been so badly mutilated over the past few years that there are practically no rights left. The Law on Territories of Traditional Natural Resources Use of the Small Indigenous Nations of the Russian North, Siberia and the Far East has been in effect since 2001, yet not a single such territory has since been created.

What has been the effect on the life of the small peoples of the Forest, Land and Water Codes?

The Land Code has done us the greatest harm. The term “permanent free use” has been eliminated from Russian vocabulary, with only “lease” and “property” remaining. The small indigenous peoples have been brushed aside. Nobody is going to give reindeer-breeders their millions of hectares of pasture, with huge mineral resources on them. The only alternative left is lease, which is very expensive. Thank God, the regional officials have not charged the indigenous peoples anything as yet – probably due to inertia: they have never done so before. But as things stand, it turns out that the indigenous peoples are using the land illegally. So we are trespassers on our own lands. There have already been two instances – in the Primorsky Territory and in the Magadan Region – of the Federal Forest Service attempting to extract rent for the use of hunting grounds.

Today, there is a huge problem that regional authorities would prefer to keep silent on and the federal government would rather ignore – it is the buying up of lands in the North, Siberia and the Russian Far East. The land grab is going on quietly. The administration of the region invites applications for the lease of hunting or fishing grounds. As the small indigenous communies are in the taiga forest in remote villages, its people know nothing about the contest. But even if they chance to find out and do try to apply, the tender committee will brush them off under any pretext – in most cases by finding errors in the drawing up of the document. Although legally it is the indigenous population that has priority rights to apply for the lease of fishing or hunting grounds, this is only what the law proclaims.

In reality, for example, in the Amur Region, none of the indigenous communities managed to win any of the hunting ground leases on the territory of the indigenous Evenk people last year. All the leases were won by a company whose owner is said to be close to the regional administration. Well, what happened next was that he came to see the Indigenous Peoples and said to them, “Comrades aborigines! The land is mine; go on hunting, but do it for me now. Bring the fur and other things to my office and submit them at a fixed rate. If you refuse to do so, I’ll evict you.” What could they do? Nothing. Those that disagree, if any, are quickly branded as poachers – in full conformity with the law now, for they have hunted without permission on grounds that do not belong to them.

The saddest thing is that the business persons act under the umbrella of the regional authorities and hence totally unabashedly. If the situation is not reversed, this will undermine the foundations of the indigenous peoples’ life and will destroy them.

On the whole, what is your assessment of the Russian aboriginal population’s quality of life?

Life expectancy is probably the best indicator of the quality of life. In our villages it is 48 years. In one of the Evenk villages in the Amur region the average age of the dead was as low as 27 according to the official statistics for the last ten years. The main causes of death were suicides and accidents. I can say without exaggeration that today many of the small peoples are on the verge of disappearance. Out of the 40 indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East, 7 are less than a thousand-strong and 12 peoples number less than two thousand each.

The state, however, believes that it takes proper care of the indigenous population. Last year the budget of the special federal programme titled “The Economic and Social Development of the Small Indigenous Peoples of the North up to 2011″ increased twofold, while it is planned to allocate over 207 million roubles annually in 2007—2008.

Look, the faraway settlements of small peoples are practically the most distant corners of the country. They are separated by enormous distances. So the two hundred million for 45 indigenous nations scattered all over Russia is but a tiny sum…also, the funds are allocated for indigenous peoples, but are spent on everybody else. For example, in a village in the Tomsk Region they bought a bus for a school that has only two kids from a small indigenous people.

When, in response to my appeals to preserve the areas of traditional habitation, I hear officials say that the indigenous people want to capture the Far East coast, I ask them, “How do you see it happen? By military force? My hunters have three old Berdan rifles and their total number is two hundred.” Unfortunately, national issues in Russia are handled by non-specialists. Perhaps, that is why there are so many problems in this sphere. Indigenous population is faced with the negative effects of civilization (like construction, etc.) in any civilized country, yet their authorities do find methods of regulation. It is not until our country begins to take into account the interests of small peoples that it can justly claim to be a really civilized nation.