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Indigenous Peoples and Extractive Industries in the Russian Arctic and Beyond

Nenets reindeer herders
Photo: Bruce Forbes

By Aytalina Ivanova, Vice Dean, Faculty of Law, North Eastern Federal University, and Florian Stammler, Co-lead of the UArctic Thematic Network on Arctic Extractive Industries, Research Professor, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland

Recently the world has seen a certain slowdown in the run for Arctic nonrenewable resources with the sharp decline of oil prices. However, this does not mean that local and indigenous peoples are no longer confronted with industry advancing to ever remoter areas that continue to be important arenas for unique local Arctic human-environment relations.

Ongoing and recently published research by members of the UArctic Thematic Network on Arctic Extractive Industries and the Extractive Industries
working group of the International Arctic Social Sciences Association (IASSA) has highlighted the challenges associated with these developments where relations between
local people, companies and authorities become even more complex.

Information on these issues from the Russian Arctic is not becoming easier to access in politically difficult times. It is even more important to continue with longstanding
research partnerships and joint publications to make sure that evidence can be used locally as well as internationally for advancing the case of research and also for
making industrial development as beneficial as possible locally. In one of the publications we developed a general framework to analyze under which conditions relations
among parties in an Arctic industry project turn into a conflict, into cooperation, or into mutual ignorance.

Using cases from Kamchatka and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug in Russia, we show that with a thorough analysis of five key factors we are able to tell which character industry-state- local people's relations can assume.

These factors are:

  1. The importance of the resource and peoples’ relation to it (ie, how high the stakes are)
  2. Land rights and other regulatory regimes
  3. Power relations that determine how regulatory regimes are (or are not) implemented
  4. The presence, absence and quality of agreements between an industrial operator and local people
  5. The agency of civil society

Checking across cases for these five factors can make research in this field better comparable across cases and countries, as well as potentially help interested parties to handle their relationships better. A cooperative nature of such relationships is a good deal for all parties, but first and foremost it enables local and indigenous peoples to continue a livelihood based on their unique culturally embedded use of natural bioresources in the Arctic (ie, animals and plants), which in turn contributes to maintaining biocultural diversity on our planet.

Table of Contents

  1. Letter from the President

    By Lars Kullerud

  2. Arctic Parliamentarians: Finding Solutions to Climate Challenges

    By Katri Kulmuni

  3. Tourism Safety Is Improved Together

    By Niko Niemisalo

  4. People Coming and Going: The North as a Place of Migration

    By Hanna Snellman and Gertrude Saxinger

  5. International Security MBA – Tailored Safety and Security

    By Jarmo Heinonen

  6. Growth from the North: Education and Competence as Key Input Factors

    By Anne Husebekk

  7. Human Security in the Arctic: Socioemotional Problems as Risks

    By Anna Reetta Rönkä

  8. The Eight Ujarait (Rocks) Model: Supporting Inuit Adolescent Mental Health

    By Gwen Healey and Ceporah Mearns

  9. UArctic Annual Report for 2015

  10. Food and Water Security in the Arctic

    By Arja Rautio and David Natcher

  11. Safety in the Arctic: Insurer’s Point of View

    By Gard AS

  12. Maritime Emergency Preparedness and International Cooperation in the Arctic

    By Odd Jarl Borch

  13. Synoptic Arctic Survey

    By Øyvind Paasche, Are Olsen, and Leif G. Anderson

  14. Northern Ties

    By Leslie Earle

  15. Development and Establishment of a Competency Centre for Arctic Field Safety

    By Hanne Christiansen

  16. Adaptation Actions in a Changing Arctic

    By Thomas R. Armstrong, Lars-Otto Reiersen, and Robert W. Corell

  17. Re-engaging Canada in the Circumpolar World

    By Joël Plouffe

  18. Defence Cooperation Must Be Strengthened in the Nordics and in the Arctic

    By Nicolai Stampe Qvistgaard

  19. Student Profiles

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