The council on ensuring of rights of indigenous peoples is being created under the federal agency

The expert-advisory council on issues of socioeconomic development of indigenous ethnic minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East of the Russian Federation is being created under the Federal Agency for Affairs of nationalities. Its membership will include representatives of public movements of indigenous peoples, federal bodies of the legislative and the executive powers, bodies of the state power of 28 regions of the country, resource-extracting companies, scientific and economic communities, culture, sport and mass media.
The most topical issues on ensuring of rights of indigenous peoples will be widely discussed for the first time on the platform of the Agency. The first meeting is planned for the first half of 2017. This information was given by the deputy head of the Federal Agency on Affairs of nationalities Pavel Semyonov on the plenary session of the forum of indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East in Salekhard. He invited the participants of the forum to participate actively in work of the new council.
As Pavel Semyonov notes, it is symbolic that the forum is taking place in the Year of Ecology. Further improvement of a model of coexistence of man and nature is a necessary condition for preservation of cultural and ethnic identity of indigenous ethnic minorities. Much is being done, but more needs to be done, as he says.
The top-priority tasks include improvement of legislation on fulfillment of rights of indigenous peoples, ensuring of priority access to objects of wildlife and water biological resources. Updating of the list of places of traditional residence and economic activities, social and pension security of indigenous peoples of the North, mechanisms for ethnological expert examination are necessary.
“Your practice, knowledge, advice and suggestions, experience of Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug are very important for us to take right decisions”, as Pavel Semyonov said to the participants of the plenary session.
The Forum “Russia. Indigenous ethnic minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East” is taking place in Salekhard from the 23rd to the 25th of March. More than 600 guests and invited representatives are participating in it. They are discussing issues of interaction between the regions within activity of such organizations as the Northern Forum, the Arctic Council, the University of the Arctic and the Russian Association of Indigenous Peoples of the North, Siberia and the Far East.