Tribal communities need state support

The participants of the working session of the international forum “Indigenous ethnic minorities of the North, Siberia and the Far East of Russia” are scrutinizing issues of preservation of traditional branches of economy.

In particular, they are discussing the legislative base for development of national communities. The delegates consider that for preservation of small ethnic groups in conditions of active development of their natural territories it is necessary that each industrial project would pass through obligatory ethnological expert examination.
Before the sitting the delegates spoke about the difficult situation of tribal communities. In their opinion, today there is no coordination of their activity, no guaranteed right to use land plots for conducting traditional economic activity, there is no special state program, there is no enough qualified personnel.
The President of the Union of indigenous peoples of Primorsky Krai Valentin Andreytsev told about preservation of traditional branches of economy as a basis for economic development of national communities. In his opinion, representatives of indigenous peoples of the North are busy with traditional economic activities not for income but for life necessities. Laws of traditional nature use are so that representatives of these peoples hunt and fish not for sale and income but for their subsistence.
Today traditional economic activity of indigenous ethnic minorities of the North cannot fully ensure sustainable socioeconomic development of representatives of these peoples and territories, on which they live.
The expert of the working session on preservation of traditional nature management Vyacheslav Zhedulev notes that many redundant regulating legislative norms operate on aquatic bio-resources, for example, fishing regulations, they should be simplified: “the form of reporting, which operates today on quotas of indigenous ethnic minorities, is very difficult for tribal communities. Recently amendments were taken in fishing regulations by the initiative of the government of Yamal, and now it needs to present reports yearly till the 20th of January, once per year. It simplifies life of national communities.