Buryats are one of the most numerous Indigenous Peoples living around Lake Baikal in Siberia. Traditionally, they were nomadic cattle breeders and semi-nomadic herders with seasonal movements between permanent winter and summer settlements. Buryats in the Predbaikalia region, which is on the western side of Lake Baikal, have kept shamanism as their main spiritual practice, while Buryats in Transbaikalia, on the eastern side of Lake Baikal, adopted Buddhism in the 19th century. On both sides of the lake some Buryats practice a form of syncretism that combines elements of both traditions.

The western side of Baikal is the Irkutsk Oblast. According to WorldGEO, Indigenous Buryats constitute 3.3 percent, or approximately 80,000, of the total population of 2.4 million. Prior to 2008, the Ust-Orda Okrug (county) existed as an autonomous entity. In 2008, it was absorbed by the Irkutsk Oblast, a region now predominantly inhabited by Russians. Since then, it has retained only a few features of cultural autonomy. Representation of Indigenous Buryat people is extremely limited in public spaces.

One of the ways Buryat cultural autonomy and continuity is maintained is through the organization of cultural and sports festivals dedicated to the celebration of Sagaalgan, a Buryat holiday associated with the beginning of the New Year according to the lunar calendar, and Sur-Kharban, an ancient Buryat sports festival celebrated after spring field work. During Sagaalgan, there are national sports competitions in wrestling, archery, shagai (a game that uses goat or sheep bones instead of dice), and shatar (Buryat chess). Sur-Kharban is an event that brings together all athletes living in the region. Some of its sporting events include soccer, volleyball, table tennis, checkers, chess, and Buryat national sports of horse racing, wrestling, archery, shatar, and shagai.

Youth attend a master class and a shatar tournament in Novonukutsk, Russia.

During Soviet times, the celebration of Sur-Kharban was more of a sporting than a cultural event. It did not include the important elements such as wearing traditional dress, performing traditional songs and dance, and the traditional sports included only wrestling and horse racing. Shatar and archery were introduced into the tournament competitions of Sur-Kharban in the early 2000s, and shagai was introduced about a decade later. In archery and shagai, participants are required to wear Buryat traditional clothing. There is no such requirement for shatar tournaments, but participants have been increasingly wearing traditional attire at the events. It is also becoming more popular to wear traditional clothing on Buryat holidays and at various other national sporting events. In recent years, there has been an increase in interest by youth in European chess; the number of participants in regional competitions has increased by 10 percent annually. However, among national sports, shatar currently occupies an undeservedly small place: there are no shatar clubs or classes in Irkutsk region. Shatar tournaments only occur within the annual celebration of Sur-Kharban and Altargana, a holiday that is celebrated biennially.

The Shatar 38 Project is seizing on this growth in popularity as an opportunity to teach young people to play shatar, as well as to attract new players to this sport. Funded by the Keepers of the Earth Fund (KOEF), Shatar 38 aims to fill the existing cultural gap by promoting Buryat culture through the popularization of the Buryat game. To promote shatar as a tool for intercultural dialogue, Shatar 38 organizes regional tournaments and holds master classes on shatar in chess clubs in the city of Irkutsk during Sur-Khurban and at the Erdyn games. So far, about 500 people have directly participated in the project, and an additional 4,000 people will be informed about the project and shatar through social media, websites, and social networks.

Maria Kuklina, head coordinator of the Shatar 38 Project, works as a chess coach at the Irkutsk National Research Technical University where she has been promoting shatar since 2019. Every year, the University hosts open city championships in shatar where most of the participants have been Buryat students who attend the school. With support of a KOEF grant, Shatar 38 has expanded the reach of the game. So far in 2023, three tournaments and five master classes have been held in Irkutsk and the Nukut district. Project participants also plan to hold master classes in chess clubs in the region and organize a large regional shatar tournament in June. The master classes also serve as space to teach people about Buryat cultural connections to shatar, the history of the game, and how the sport fostered friendship between Peoples. In addition, Shatar 38 is developing a mobile application and is promoting the game on social media using a group created in the messaging app Viber.

Participants proudly wear their Buryat clothing at a chess tournament in a datsan in Irkutsk, Russia.

The organizers of the shatar tournaments encourage participants to wear Buryat traditional clothing by offering a prize for the best traditional attire. Buryat traditional clothing shows the complex history of different eras and the influences of various cultures and tribes across southern Siberia and Central Asia. Traditional dress is an important marker of ethnic identification, and traditional Buryat clothing is characteristic of steppe nomadic herders. It uses sheepskin materials derived from cattle ranching and is distinguished by the cut of the upper garment, the presence of a sleeveless jacket, the finishing of the enger (a special decorative feature on men’s cloaks), and slipperlike shoes called gutals. Women traditionally covered their hair with a headdress and wore temporal and breastplate ornaments made of coral. The clothing of Predbaikalia Buryats differs from that of Transbaikalia Buryats in size, cut, material, character of sewing, and ornamentation.

Buryat communities in the territory of Predbaikalye consist of three main tribes: the Bulagat, Ekhirit, and Khongodor, who fuse their Tungus, Oirat and Turkic origins with Mongolian influence and traditions. Their traditional clothing also changed significantly under Russian influence; under Soviet and, later, Russian colonization and widespread globalization, traditional clothing has been replaced by a more urban style. However, with growing revival of Indigenous identity, traditional clothing is being reconstructed by museums and national centers for cultural heritage, including those with State support, such as the Ust-Ordyn Center of Folk Art. Modern designers are also re-interpreting the theme of traditional Buryat clothing.

The revival of religious practices in post-Soviet Buryat communities is also expressed through clothing. Original shamanic practices are being revived, along with the reconstruction of local shamanic attire. Buddhist temples often serve as cultural centers, and people visit datsans (Buddhist monasteries) wearing traditional clothes. They shop in local stores in datsans that offer traditional clothes, art, crafts, and souvenirs. Fashion design competitions are taking place at different levels including the international Buryat Altargana festival, ethno-fashion contests at Torgon Zam, the international Ethnopodium festival, and many others in Ulan-Ude, Irkutsk, Ust-Orda, and Aginsk, the main centers of the Indigenous Buryat population. Additionally, in preschools and elementary schools, teachers are educating children about the history, appearance, features, and symbols of traditional Buryat clothing while teaching children how to make it. It is also becoming more popular to make souvenir dolls dressed in traditional clothing made by children, professional artists, and craftspeople as a way to showcase Buryat culture.

In shatar, the main principles of chess are preserved, but there are some minor differences. The pawn moves only one square forward; the knight has no right to checkmate; and the queen moves vertically and horizontally, but diagonally only to the adjacent square.

Contemporary Buryats have started to wear traditional dress when attending national and religious festivals and events such as Sagalgaan, Sur-Kharban, tribal taialgans (prayers), and family events such as weddings, anniversaries, and milanguud (children’s birthday parties). The use of modern and traditional Buryat clothing continues to increase the visibility of Buryat culture, proving that it is alive and resurging despite many years of colonization and assimilation.

In 2022, the Shatar 38 Project received a grant from the Keepers of the Earth Fund, an Indigenous-led fund at Cultural Survival designed to support Indigenous Peoples’ advocacy and community development projects globally. Since 2017, we have supported 293 projects in 40 countries through small grants and technical assistance, totaling  $1,496,864.

Maria Kuklina (Buryat) and Marina Dagdanova (Buryat) teach at Irkutsk National Research Technical University. Vera Kuklina (Buryat) works as a Research Professor at George Washington University. Together, they coordinate the Shatar 38 Project.

All photos courtesy of Shatar 38 Project.

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The Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition welcomes the European Parliament’s common position on the proposed European Union due diligence rules. The position of the European Parliament supports the full respect for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the new Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD).

Why Does the CSDDD Matter for Indigenous Peoples? 

The EU is one of the largest markets in the world with over 700 million consumers and much of what happens in the European Union dictates how raw materials are sourced, processed, and traded globally. As we transition toward a low-carbon economy, the CSDDD is an important step towards corporate accountability, responsible business conduct, and access to justice for Indigenous Peoples. 

There is a dramatic increase in demand for minerals such as nickel, lithium, cobalt, and copper for renewable energy technologies as a result of the Green and Digital Transitions. As a result, mining is expanding at an accelerated pace. Since Indigenous-managed lands cover more than a quarter of the Earth’s surface and Indigenous Peoples manage 80% of the planet’s biodiversity, increased mining directly threatens their rights, their territories, and the world’s biodiversity. Land is the basis for livelihood, identity, and survival for Indigenous Peoples. Therefore, given their important role and the great risks to Indigenous Peoples in this green transition, Indigenous Peoples must be fully and meaningfully consulted and involved throughout the value chain, and Indigenous priorities must be integrated into decision-making with the full respect of Indigenous-led protocols of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC). 

The following figures provide a glimpse of Indigenous Peoples’ risks:

• Of 5,097 mining projects globally that involve some 30 minerals used in renewable energy technologies, 54% are located on or near Indigenous Peoples’ lands and territories (via Nature Sustainability). 
• In the United States, 97% of nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium, and 68% of cobalt reserves – primary minerals needed for the energy transition – are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations (via MSCI).
• Over a period of 12 years, there were 510 human rights allegations made against all 115 companies involved in transition mineral extraction; this figure represents only reported instances; 49 of the allegations involved Indigenous Peoples (via Business & Human Rights Resource Centre). In 2022, almost 40% of the attacks related to transition minerals were against Indigenous Peoples or their communities.

Indigenous Peoples’ Rights and Biodiversity Protection Are Two Sides of the Same Coin

Indigenous Peoples are stewarding and protecting at least 80% of the world’s remaining biodiversity, their involvement in the transition is not only crucial on its own but also for the health of the planet. 

As expressed in the European Parliament proposal amendment 10, recital 9:

“the General European Environment action programme to 2030, the framework for Union action in the field of the environment and climate, aims to protect, restore and improve the state of the environment by, inter alia, halting and reversing biodiversity loss. 

As Indigenous rights and biodiversity conservation are inextricably linked, we emphasize the importance of respecting both simultaneously. 

Indigenous Peoples’ Call to European Leaders

The SIRGE Coalition calls on European Member states to follow the European Parliament leadership and adopt a CSDDD that guarantees respect for the rights of Indigenous Peoples as stated in the United Nations Declaration on Indigenous Peoples, including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Taking this approach in the coming trilogue in the European Union will ensure a sustainable, just, and no-one-left-behind transition for Europe and beyond.

The SIRGE coalition has advocated and urged for the explicit inclusion of Indigenous Peoples’ Rights as enumerated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the International Labour Organisation’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Convention, 1989 (No. 169), including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent into the European CSDDD. In this frame, SIRGE applauds the European Parliament’s proposed new amendments (detailed below) and asks them to hold these proposals in the trilogues. SIRGE also calls all European Leaders to build further and strengthen these references in the final CSDDD version. 

• Amendment 60, recital 44 c: 

Companies should take appropriate measures to carry out meaningful engagement with affected stakeholders allowing for genuine interaction and dialogue in their due diligence process. Engagement should cover information and consultation of affected stakeholders and should be comprehensive, structural, effective, timely and culturally and gender responsive. […] The information and consultation of affected stakeholders should […] fully respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

• Article 3 – paragraph 1 – point na:

‘vulnerable stakeholders’ means affected stakeholders that find themselves in marginalised situations and situations of vulnerability, due to specific contexts or intersecting factors, including among others, […] indigenous peoples,

• Article 8 d:

Carrying out meaningful engagement with affected stakeholders

1. Member States shall ensure that companies take appropriate measures to carry out meaningful engagement with affected stakeholders that allows for genuine interaction and dialogue in their due diligence process. To this end, the engagement shall cover information and consultation of affected stakeholders and shall be comprehensive, structural, effective, timely and culturally and gender sensitive.

7. […]. Companies shall pay particular attention to the needs of vulnerable stakeholders, and […]fully respect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

• Annex I – Part I – subheading 1 

1. Rights and prohibitions included in international human rights agreements
   
   Point 19a: The rights of indigenous peoples to self-determination in accordance with Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, Article 1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Racial Discrimination, and their right to give, modify, withhold or withdraw their free, prior, and informed consent to interventions, decisions and activities that may affect their lands, territories, resources and rights, in accordance with Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Article 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Articles 2 and 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination;
   
   Point 20 The indigenous peoples’ right to the lands, territories and resources which they have traditionally owned, occupied or otherwise used or acquired in accordance with Articles 1 and 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and Articles 1, 2 and 15 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and Article 5 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination.

• Annex I – Part I – subheading 2 

 The International Labour Organisation’s Indigenous and Tribal Peoples’ Convention, 1989 (No. 169)

SIRGE Members’ Statements:

Galina Angarova (Buryat), Executive Director, Cultural Survival, said, ”We welcome this important step towards securing Indigenous Peoples’ inherent rights. The CSDDD has the potential to transform the EU legal system and move the human rights and environmental due diligence processes from voluntary audits and certification schemes to one of true legal accountability for non-compliance with international and national laws. The CSDDD must safeguard  marginalized communities’ rights, especially Indigenous Peoples’ rights, and guarantee mechanisms for Free, Prior and Informed Consent.”

Pavel Sulyandziga (Udege), President, Batani Foundation, said “This is a significant step in ensuring that the rights of Indigenous Peoples are respected, protected, and fulfilled. The European Union has the potential to set a model for the rest of the world on how to conduct business in a just and non-harming way. As a Coalition we look forward to the final draft of the directive and its full implementation on the ground. ”

Kate R. Finn (Osage), Executive Director, First Peoples Worldwide said, “Incorporating the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a standard for the EU’s proposed Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive gives corporations operating in the global sector a baseline approach to assessing Indigenous Rights Risk, and it provides just and equitable means for rights holders to participate where community impacts are significant. In particular, the directive’s explicit language about Free, Prior and Informed Consent enables companies to understand ground-level impacts Indigenous Peoples face.”  

Christoph Wiedmer, Co-Director, the Society for Threatened Peoples, Switzerland, said “This directive enshrines international conventions and declarations such as the UN  Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention ILO 169 into law, which is necessary to ensure that enterprises are accountable if they violate Indigenous Peoples’ rights.” 

Jennifer Krill, Executive Director, Earthworks said “It’s imperative that the EU directive sets a high, legal standard for a company’s responsibility to conduct their environmental and human rights due diligence, so communities are protected and have legal recourse, especially as companies in the renewable energy and transportation supply chain will need to source more minerals to meet the demands for an energy transition by producing technologies like solar panels and electric vehicles. We encourage other nations, particularly the United States, to  follow suit with similar legal protections  for marginalized communities, including Indigenous Peoples, who will be impacted by the increased onshoring of transition minerals.”

About the SIRGE Coalition 
The Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition is a coalition of Indigenous Peoples and leaders, who, along with our allies, champion a just transition to a low-carbon economy. The SIRGE Coalition launched on August 9, 2022, the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. Members of the Coalition include Cultural Survival, First Peoples Worldwide, Batani Foundation, Earthworks, and the Society for Threatened Peoples.

The SIRGE Coalition’s primary goal is to elevate Indigenous leadership through the creation of a broad coalition and the promotion of constructive dialogue. In accordance with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), the coalition will uphold all rights of Indigenous Peoples, including their cultures, spiritual traditions, histories, and especially their rights to determine their own priorities as to their lands, territories, and resources. Indigenous leadership is essential as Indigenous Peoples conserve about 80 percent of the planet’s remaining biodiversity.

The SIRGE Coalition is staffed by an Executive Committee made up of representatives from each organization and is governed by an Indigenous Steering Committee made up of two representatives of Indigenous Peoples from each of the seven socio-cultural regions across the globe along with a global chairperson and the chairperson of the Executive Committee, chosen from Indigenous members.

The SIRGE Coalition is calling for full implementation of the UNDRIP, including the right to Free, Prior and Informed Consent, in all endeavors related to the extraction, mining, production, consumption, sale, and recycling of transition and rare earth minerals around the world.

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The electric vehicle supply chains are neither green nor just — but they are crucial organizing spaces, activists say.

Aglobal boom in the production of electric vehicles (EVs) propelled by battery power instead of internal combustion engines is imminent. Worldwide, around 14 percent of all new cars sold in 2022 were electric, up from less than 5 percent in 2020. In the U.S., electric car sales increased from 0.2 percent in 2011 to 4.6 percent in 2021, and then jumped to 8 percent in 2022. Analysts predict that number could rise to 40 percent or more by 2030.

But the shift away from fossil fuel-powered vehicles, while broadly welcome, raises numerous other questions about the production process behind EVs.

For instance, will the carbon-intensive production of the steel that makes electric vehicles also be decarbonized? Will the rights of Indigenous communities disproportionately impacted by the extraction of critical minerals be respected, including their prerogative to withhold consent around mining projects? Will new jobs respect the rights of workers, including their right to organize into unions?

Earlier this year, a new network called Lead the Charge, comprised of several advocacy organizations, came together to address these concerns and pressure automakers to account for climate and environmental justice, labor and Indigenous rights issues. The goal is to ensure that, from the beginning, the world-defining transition to EVs will accelerate a categorical shift away from climate-destroying fossil fuels and advance goals around basic rights, especially for Indigenous communities and workers.

By focusing on automakers, whose decisions hold immense leverage over the future of crucial global supply chains, Lead the Charge hopes to advance a just and fossil-free future across the entire supply chain — not just around what comes out of exhaust pipes.

“We want to make sure that the transition is not just shifting tailpipe emissions to other emissions and abuses throughout the production side of the supply chain or exacerbating existing issues,” said Erika Thi Patterson, auto supply chain campaign director for Public Citizen’s Climate Program.

In addition to Public Citizen, members of Lead the Charge include the Sunrise Project, Mighty Earth, First Peoples Worldwide, Cultural Survival, Sierra Club, and other groups.

Lead the Charge

Simply put, there’s no way to address the climate crisis without decarbonizing auto transportation. Passenger vehicles account for around 15 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.

Of course, this means moving away from vehicles powered by burning fossil fuel and toward transportation run on fossil-free energy sources. But when it comes to more fully decarbonizing the total emissions released by automobiles and advancing a just transition, that’s just a start.

Electric vehicles are the final link in a vast global supply chain that currently involves the carbon-intensive production of raw materials like steel and aluminum that contribute enormously to global warming, as well as mining that involves practices that often run roughshod over the rights of Indigenous people and workers. According to one report, the manufacturing and supply chain for EVs must reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 81 percent by 2032 to keep at the 1.5 degrees Celsius Paris Agreement goal.

This makes auto supply chains more than sequential lines of production whose end results are vehicles. Rather, they are sites where the battle for climate, racial and economic justice is playing out, making them crucial organizing spaces for anyone who cares about equality, rights and sustainability.

Automakers sell around 80 million cars a year globally. Their production needs to structure entire global supply chains. Steel, for example, makes up more than half of the average vehicle. This gives automakers immense leverage to set terms for purchasing requirements within those supply chains.

For the Lead the Charge campaign, this all adds up to a sense of urgency, not merely to push slow-moving auto giants to ditch fossil fuel-powered vehicles more quickly, but to ensure that, amid a once-in-a-lifetime transition to a new world of electric vehicles, the emerging supply chains respect and protect Indigenous and worker rights, and show a commitment to decarbonization that goes beyond only tailpipe emissions.

The problems in the current auto supply chain are multiple, says the campaign.

The materials that go into auto production — aluminum, steel, batteries — are themselves the end products of production chains with huge carbon footprints. The steel sector, for example, is behind 8 to 11 percent of annual global greenhouse gas emissions, and its production relies heavily on coal-fired energy.

“When mining companies come to the territories of Indigenous people … the resources leave, without any or very little economic remuneration…. But of course, the environmental degradation stays.”

“Electric is really just the start,” said Matthew Groch, a senior director on heavy industry at Mighty Earth, a climate advocacy group and a member of the Lead the Charge network. He points out that steel and aluminum “make up 40 to 60 percent of embodied emissions for motor vehicles.”

“We’ve had conversations with automakers,” says Groch, “where steel and aluminum decarbonization in their supply chain just isn’t something they’re even considering.” (Mighty Earth and Public Citizen have taken action calling on steelmakers to move toward green steel that relies on decarbonized production.)

Moreover, the reliance on mineral extraction — lithium, nickel and cobalt, for example — clashes with Indigenous rights because vast amounts of mineral deposits are located on or near Indigenous lands. The global auto chain also has a checkered record on workers’ and human rights.

With all this, Lead the Charge is making three core demands around how future automobiles should be produced: equitably, with a respect for Indigenous rights, workers and local communities; sustainably, with a commitment to upholding environmental health and biodiversity through the supply chain; and fossil-free, meaning “100% electric and made with a fossil fuel-free supply chain.”

To illustrate their view on how most auto companies are faring — or failing — on these goals, Lead the Charge released a scorecard earlier this year — featured in a Washington Post guide for buying electric vehicles — that rates 18 automakers on a range of metrics tied to “commitments, progress, and concrete action” toward fossil-free and environmentally sustainable supply chains and in upholding Indigenous and workers’ rights across supply chains.

Many of the scorecard results are very low. Scores are weighted toward indications toward “implementation” over mere gestures or promises. (For more details on both of these, see the scorecard’s methodology section.)

“The Industry’s Biggest Climate Laggard”

One of the lower-scoring companies is Toyota, the world’s second-biggest automaker.

This might surprise some readers. Afterall, Toyota is well-known for its hybrid Prius, long imagined as a greener alternative to entirely gas-powered cars. But campaigners with the Lead the Charge say Toyota’s association with sustainability is sorely outdated.

“While many other companies have come out with new EV technologies, Toyota has continued to double down on their investments in hybrid technology,” said Thi Patterson.

“Because they’ve invested so much in their hybrid technology, they’re trying to prolong the transition to EVs,” she said, noting that customers are “often unaware that there are cleaner, zero-emission options out there.”

Toyota scored a dismal 6 percent on the Lead the Charge scorecard.

“Toyota continues to be the industry’s biggest climate laggard,” says Lead the Charge. “It’s among several automakers that have made the least progress on the EV transition: Battery-powered electric vehicles comprised less than 1% of the company’s total sales in 2022.”

All this has significant repercussions. As one of the giants of the global auto industry, Thi Patterson says that what Toyota does can have “tremendous influence over global supply chains.”

Moreover, she says, Toyota is a major anti-climate lobbying group. According to the nonprofit think tank Influence Map, Toyota, despite its green messaging, has had “mostly negative engagement globally on policy mandating the full electrification of the automotive sector.” For example, Toyota has opposed or “appeared to oppose” national policies to phase out internal combustion engines in Canada, the U.K., Japan, New Zealand and California, according to Influence Map, and it did not sign on to a 2021 pledge by several major automakers to phase out internal combustion engine-powered vehicles in leading markets by 2035 and globally by 2040.

Public Citizen and other groups are stepping up the pressure on Toyota, which has a new CEO and is facing growing pressure from investors around climate issues. They sent a March 30 letter to the company demanding that it “phase out internal combustion engine vehicles (including hybrids and plug-in hybrids) in the U.S. and Europe by 2030 and globally by 2035” and that it “require 100% renewable energy use throughout [its] supply chains globally by 2035.”

A week later, Toyota announced an update to its EV buildout strategy, saying it aims to sell 1.5 million battery electric vehicles annually by 2026. Public Citizen called it “a modest improvement for an auto giant that lobbied for decades to delay the EV transition,” and “a mere baby step considering the price we will pay for Toyota’s failure to fully reverse course on the internal combustion engine.”

“Our Fundamental Right of Self-Determination”

One of the lowest-scoring areas among all automakers analyzed by Lead the Charge was around Indigenous rights. Indeed, two-thirds of all 18 automakers scored a zero in this area.

This is alarming, several Lead the Charge partners told Truthout, since Indigenous communities are disproportionately impacted by the shift to EVs, and specifically the transition’s reliance on mining critical minerals needed to make vehicle batteries.

One new study estimates that, among 30 “energy transition minerals and metals” that “form the material base for the energy transition,” more than half of this resource base globally “is located on or near the lands of Indigenous and peasant peoples.” Another study finds that within the U.S., “97% of nickel, 89% of copper, 79% of lithium and 68% of cobalt reserves and resources” — all critical energy-transition minerals — “are located within 35 miles of Native American reservations.”

Kate Finn is the executive director of First Peoples Worldwide, which is part of the Lead the Charge network. A member of the Osage Nation, Finn has written extensively on violations of Indigenous rights by extractive industries mining for energy-transition minerals.

“Indigenous peoples in the U.S. have engaged with mining companies for 400 years,” she told Truthout. “It’s not new what happens when mining companies come to the territories of Indigenous people. Indigenous leaders are often not even consulted about what happens on their lands, and then the resources leave, without any or very little economic remuneration,” Finn said.

“But of course, the environmental degradation stays,” she said.

However, Finn says, “we have an opportunity now to not repeat this pattern in the green economy.”

To this end, a key demand of Lead the Charge is that automakers uphold Indigenous rights and self-determination by honoring the processing of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC).

Spelled out in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, FPIC posits that Indigenous communities have the right to grant or withhold consent around projects that impact their land and resources, and that this decision should come after a substantive, prior period of consultation and dialogue. Indigenous communities can also negotiate the terms of approval for any project and withdraw their consent at any time.

Ultimately, FPIC is a mechanism to protect Indigenous self-determination.

Finn calls FPIC “the global consensus on minimum standards to respect the rights and well-being of Indigenous peoples globally” and “the safeguard of a whole basket of rights” for over 5,000 different Indigenous entities around the world.

Galina Angarova, the executive director of the Indigenous-led nonprofit Cultural Survival and a member of the Buryat people, the largest Indigenous group in Siberia, calls FPIC “a very specific right of Indigenous peoples that flows from our fundamental right of self-determination.”

Cultural Survival is also a Lead the Charge partner, and both Angarova and Finn are leaders in the Securing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Green Economy (SIRGE) Coalition, which helped shape the Indigenous rights’ focus within Lead the Charge.

Angarova says the SIRGE Coalition formed after the Nornickel disaster of 2020 that spilled 21,000 tons of diesel into the Arctic subsoil and waters of a western Siberian region occupied by several Indigenous groups. The spill decimated water and fishing sources and hunting grounds. In the disaster’s aftermath, several groups came together to advance FPIC with private sector and governmental actors and, more broadly, to foreground Indigenous rights, self-determination and leadership in the green transition.

Angarova says the SIRGE Coalition’s goal is ensure that Free, Prior and Informed Consent is “implemented throughout the supply chain for the green economy, from the exploratory stages, to the end of the cycle, the product.”

“Unfortunately,” she says, “the initial Lead the Charge scorecard showed that, across the board, automakers are generally failing to incorporate Free, Prior and Informed Consent and Indigenous rights into their policies and to implement the practice.”

Some have raised frustrations with how corporations can approach FPIC — for example, treating it as one-way pro forma “information sharing” that glosses over Indigenous input and approval, a mere box to check before moving forward with a project.

Angarova stresses that “consultation does not equate to consent” under FPIC. Companies must have a “social license to operate” that can only be granted through the substantive and informed permission of Indigenous communities prior to the beginning of any operations.

She says that even when different actors warm up to FPIC, ensuring enforcement can be “very difficult,” and that the coalition is strategizing about how to ensure accountability. She highlights a range of injustices occurring today — for example, with a new lithium mining deal between Lithium Americas and General Motors opposed by the People of Red Mountain in Nevada.

“Indigenous lands, territories and resources are under direct threat,” says Angarova, because of the booming demand for transition metals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium.

“As the demand for these minerals increases, Indigenous peoples also want to see an end to the climate crisis,” she said. “But this needs to be achieved in a way that respects their rights.”

All this begs the question: In addition to decarbonizing the auto supply chain, might a just energy transition also involve expanding modes of transportation that rely less on extraction — whether fossil fuels or critical minerals — altogether?

A recent report from the Climate and Community Project argues that lithium demand could be significantly reduced without impeding the shift away from internal combustion engines through building out public transportation. A greater role for green industrial policy and public ownership of key infrastructure could allow for planning that’s less reliant on mining the world’s critical energy-transition minerals.

Indeed, achieving a truly green and just transition will likely involve multiple and combined fronts.

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The OECD today launched its newly updated Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct.

The Guidelines are the globally leading standard on responsible business conduct and widely applied in public policy and business practice. The Guidelines were last updated in 2011. The 2023 update responds to urgent social, environmental, and technological priorities facing societies and businesses.

“The NCP welcomes the updated guidelines and has provided input to the process. Important changes concern efforts to combat climate change and safeguard biodiversity. The OECD Guidelines will thus remain the leading guidelines for companies that want to act responsibly. The updates also reinforce the role of the National Contact Points and emphasize their importance in ensuring compliance.” – Frode Elgesem, Chair of the NCP

The updated Guidelines are available here.

Key changes include:

• Recommendations for enterprises to align with internationally agreed goals on climate change and biodiversity
• Introduction of due diligence expectations on the development, financing, sale, licensing, trade and use of technology, including gathering and using data
• Recommendations on how enterprises are expected to conduct due diligence on impacts and business relationships related to the use of their products and services
• Better protection for at-risk persons and groups, including those who raise concerns regarding the conduct of businesses
• Updated recommendations on disclosure of responsible business conduct information
• Expanded due diligence recommendations to all forms of corruption
• Recommendations for enterprises to ensure lobbying activities are consistent with the Guidelines
• Strengthened procedures to ensure the visibility, effectiveness, and functional equivalence of National Contact Points on Responsible Business Conduct

The requirement to perform human rights due diligence in the Transparency Act is based on the OECD Guidelines. The OECD Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Business Conduct is now reflected in Chapter 2 of the updated Guidelines. A Norwegian translation of the updated Guidelines will be prepared, and the NCP will provide more detailed information about what is new in the Guidelines.

Media enquiries should be directed to Frode Elgesem, chair of the NCP, via phone: + 47 416 96 089.

About the OECD Guidelines

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct (the Guidelines) are recommendations jointly addressed by governments to multinational enterprises to enhance the business contribution to sustainable development and address adverse impacts of business on people, planet and society. The Guidelines are supported by a unique implementation mechanism, the National Contact Points for Responsible Business Conduct (NCPs), established by governments to further the effectiveness of the Guidelines.

The update of the Guidelines was agreed by the 51 countries that adhere to the Guidelines, including both OECD members and non-members accounting for two-thirds of global trade and investment. The update benefitted from close involvement of the institutional stakeholders Business at OECD, the Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD, and OECD Watch, representing the views of millions of businesses, workers, and civil society members globally. The process also included two public consultations open to interested stakeholders from all countries.

Source

• Indigenous communities with land rights in Brazil’s Amazon not only curb deforestation, but better restore deforested land in their territories than the privately owned and unincorporated lands around them.
• Secondary forest coverage on previously deforested lands grew 5% inside Indigenous territories with tenure over the 33-year research period. This is 23% more growth than directly outside their borders.
• Secondary forests are around two years older on average inside Indigenous territories than outside their borders.
• Some scientists worry that reforestation research and policies are distracting from a much larger issue in the Amazon: the deforestation of old-growth forests. But these authors say policies that support Indigenous land rights can help stop deforestation and restore forests.

Indigenous territories with secure land rights not only reduce deforestation inside their lands in the Brazilian Amazon, but also lead to higher secondary forest growth on previously deforested areas, says a new study.

This new report, published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is off the back of multiple studies in recent years pointing to the efficiency of Indigenous forest conservation in Brazil’s Amazon once their territories gain full recognition by the government. According to the report, these territories support higher rates of secondary forest growth than the privately owned and unincorporated lands around them.

The secondary forests that grow back after clearing of original old-growth help revive biodiversity and capture carbon, combating climate change. Regenerated forests, also known as secondary forests, attempt to mimic the old-growth forest that was once there and act as carbon sinks, explains environmental and natural resource economist Nilesh Shinde, a postdoc at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a co-author on the paper.

“Granting tenure to these Indigenous lands in Brazil is not only a really good human rights policy, but it’s actually a great environmental policy as well,” says political scientist Kathryn Baragwanath, now at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, Australia, and lead author of the study.

Land tenure prevents outsiders from entering territories for logging, mining, setting up crop pastures and land-grabbing, and it protects Indigenous traditional ways of life largely based on forest stewardship. Studies show this form of land protection contains some of the most healthy forests with only 1.6% of deforestation in Brazil from 1990 to 2020 occurring on these protected Indigenous lands.

Researchers found that secondary forest coverage on previously deforested lands grew 5% inside Indigenous territories with tenure over the 33-year research period. This is 23% more growth than directly outside their borders.

They also found that forests inside fully recognized Indigenous community borders were around two years older on average, which the authors attribute to forests being more likely to grow back and less likely to be cut down after recovering inside Indigenous territories.

The authors used remote satellite data from 1986 to 2019 to observe the proportional growth of secondary forest coverage inside and outside of 377 Indigenous territories. Some of these Indigenous territories received tenure within the study window, while others have yet to, allowing the authors to compare before, after or without tenure.

The study excluded protected areas from its scope, focusing on comparing Indigenous management with private and unincorporated lands. Baragwanath says she and co-author Ella Bayi, a Ph.D. student at Columbia University, are now working on comparing secondary forests on Indigenous territories with other types of protected areas in Brazil. Protected areas in Brazil have a comparable deforestation rate to Indigenous territories.

To restore deforested lands, many Indigenous communities tend to take on a holistic approach. The authors provide the example of Rede Sementes do Xingu, a grassroots organization led by Indigenous peoples and local family farmers. Their mission is to promote the restoration of the Amazon through the preservation and distribution of diverse native seeds while honoring the autonomy of Indigenous peoples. They have recovered more than 7,000 hectares (17,297 acres), planting 25 million trees and providing nearly $7 million in income to seed collectors in the local communities.

After 40 years, secondary forests can recover an average of 88% of their species richness, according to a 2018 study in Global Change Biology. As they generate new growth, they can also capture up to 11 times more carbon than old-growth forests, according to a 2016 study in Nature. But, a 2020 study in Ecology found that secondary forests in Brazil uptake only about twice as much as primary forests. It also takes time for secondary forests to grow and meet old-growth forests’ carbon capture capabilities.

Despite carbon uncertainties, regenerating the forest provides benefits to the ecosystem and global climate and also to the local communities who rely on it, says Shinde.

In 2015, the Brazilian government pledged to restore 12 million ha (about 30 million acres) of native vegetation in the Amazon by 2030 as part of the Paris Agreement. But under former President Jair Bolsonaro, deforestation rose by nearly 60%. The lush lands of the Amazon are in high demand for cattle ranching and soy plantations, largely encouraged by Bolsonaro and pro-agribusiness lawmakers, leading to the clearing of forests. In 2022, scientists estimated that more than 13% of the Amazon’s original old-growth forest was gone, a chunk of land bigger than double the size of California.

Now, Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, promised to restore environmental policies, forests destroyed in recent years and the Paris Agreement reforestation goals.

But, “Not all trees are equal,” says Shinde. Plantations with expanses of single native species used for agriculture, like oil palm, also count toward reforestation goals. But their benefits can’t compare to secondary forests, which attempt to mimic the diverse old-growth trees once there, says Shinde.

The authors hope their findings can drive policies that encourage the tenure of Indigenous territories in Amazonia. “If Brazil wants to reach its climate goals, these are actually really good policies to pursue,” says Baragwanath. At the moment, there are 726 Indigenous territories in Brazil covering 23% of Brazil’s swath of the Amazon, while 487 are tenured. President Lula says he is committed to recognizing more territories during his administration.

But some argue that secondary forests are taking too much of the limelight. The study’s emphasis on secondary forests neglects the real issue at hand in the Amazon: stopping deforestation, says biologist Philip Fearnside, head researcher at the National Institute for Amazonian Research who was not involved in this study.

“This restoration in different deforested areas is a glorified detour,” says Fearnside. “You’re doing something but not actually facing the deforestation problem.” But, he says, reforestation is a more appealing solution than protecting the old-growth forest still there.

“If you restore a few hectares of forests, you can go and make a video clip of trees with smiling children and so forth,” argues Fearnside. “You have something to show, whereas if you’ve done something that changed the policy that has produced deforestation somewhere you don’t have anything concrete to go and show for it.”

Baragwanath agrees that deforestation should be the first and foremost concern, pointing to her 2020 publication on the value of Indigenous territories in preventing deforestation. But she says this recent study, among others, shows the important role secondary forests also play.

“If you can enact one policy that does both things at the same time, that’s even better than doing a policy that only does one thing,” says Baragwanath. “What we’re doing in the second paper is actually measuring even other positive effects of granting tenure, which hasn’t been considered before, but actually are quite sizable as well.”

Shinde also agrees that deforestation is a top concern and that restoration and stopping deforestation can go “hand in hand.” “Even small patches of secondary forests can help combat climate change and improve biodiversity,” says Shinde, referencing this 2019 study in Global Change Biology.

“But I totally agree that if you were a policymaker, and you had a budget, you would 100% first want to focus on policies that target deforestation,” says Baragwanath.

Source

 In 2022 , the Covid-19 pandemic narrative which dominated headlines throughout the last two years was overshadowed by the Russian government’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine (also known as “a special military operation” among Russian circles).

The ongoing war has a knock-on effect beyond the two nations; it caused the fastest-growing humanitarian crisis in Europe since the Second World War, a shakeup of global trade blocs due to unprecedented sanctions imposed against Russia, reinvigoration of the transatlantic alliance, to name a few. The conflict has also triggered a major turmoil across Russia’s public itself by stirring up tensions between different society groups including the most invisible one – indigenous communities.

The Russian invasion influenced the country’s indigenous peoples on a range of fronts: through division and disruption of indigenous movement, censure and silencing of indigenous representatives who oppose the war, putting Arctic cooperation and partnerships in many critical spheres in jeopardy, etc.

As the Ukraine War rages, the following questions are being raised: How will the conflict play out for Russia’s/Arctic indigenous communities?What impact will it have on the state’s approach to indigenous peoples, and, more importantly, on the Arctic Council which has been perceived as the last of the major international platforms still functioning in which the Russian Federation remained an important partner?

“Arctic exceptionalism”- a mirage?

The Arctic Council is the pan-Arctic organization that includes the Arctic Eight, six indigenous organizations (known as Permanent Participants) and over 30 non-Arctic observers. The Council was once seen as an exceptional space for cooperation with the Russian Federation, removed from the pressures of great power politics, and has been in particular frequently described as a largely successful and unique model of governance where indigenous peoples are granted with equal rights together with the states.

What has changed?A week after Russia’s invasion of its neighboring country, the seven Arctic states (the US, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) announced a “pause” in its work. Later it was announced the Council would ‘implement a limited resumption of work on projects that do not involve the participation of the Russian Federation’. In the meanwhile, Russia who ironically holds the council’s two-year rotating chairmanship, will continue to do so in complete solitude until May 2023 when the position is expected to be passed to Norway.

Notably, decision to boycott the Arctic Council was taken by the seven states without consultation with the six Permanent Participants. For organizations representing the indigenous peoples of the Arctic, it can signal a tectonic shift in regional governance and put a hard-won prominence of indigenous voices in Arctic order in jeopardy.

Russia’s attack to Ukraine provoked a split among Arctic indigenous organizations themselves with the two-decades efforts to build up and strengthen relationships being torn down overnight. RAIPON, Russia’s indigenous non-governmental umbrella organization, openly aligned with the government and supported Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine. In response, Saami Council, a cooperation body that brings together Russian, Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish Sámi, suspended formal relations with Russia’s organizations—the Kola Sámi in Murmansk Oblast. At the moment, Russian government turned Council indigenous agenda into the platform for aggressive propaganda under RAIPON flag.

Background

Although the present conflict is not the outcome of centuries old hatreds but a war of choice and decision of one man, the signs of Russia’s rapid transformation into a pariah state were seen long before 2022. Country’s indigenous strategy approaches need to be therefore analyzed closely in relation to and as a part of a general trend of centralization of Russian policy. During the first two decades of the new century, dozens of new laws were adopted to strengthen the power vertical, control on society, mass media, non-governmental sector, etc. In varying degrees, it has affected all civil society sectors, including human rights’ defenders, ecologists, journalists and others. New regulations curtail freedom of press, criminal prosecution of organizations or its members, judiciary loses independence. The result of this transformation became a policy targeting economic modernization in the strong paternalistic state with focus on national interests and intolerance towards a critical civil society.

Since 2000, the power structure between the federal center and regions has shifted dramatically. Vladimir Putin and his elite initiated a series of reforms designed to (re)strengthen the position of the federal government vis-à-vis the regions. Under the firm rule of the newly created national political party United Russia, some autonomous areas were decimated or merged with bigger regions with idea to strengthen the controllability of the regions. Coupled with diminished political control of region, districts have not avoided changes in economic incentives neither. The federal government centralized the distribution of revenues from mining operations to tax away natural resources profits from the regions. Another feature of Putinism in line with weakening of regional powers is a growth of the political influence of big business and the rise of oligarchs (or oiligarchs as Etkind refers to them). Skyrocketed demand for natural resources has enabled a rapid advancement of the so-called “resource colonialism” defined as the rhetoric of development that benefits the extractive communities and “understood as economically driven discourses, programs, and policies promoting extractive activity” into the resource-rich Arctic region. Under Putin, strategic companies were subdued, many enterprises have become concentrated in the hands of the state, while control over strategic companies has been passed to a small number of people who had close ties to the President. Increased centralization and the reduction of regional powers have forced the governors to search strong economic partners who would compensate for their loss of economic and political resources. Big business, in turn, has come to rely on the support of the “friendly” governors to guarantee the preservation of their regional properties and provide then with preferential treatment. In 2004, the elections of governors were replaced by presidential appointments forcing business to create new forms of lobbying and channels to access to regional politicians. Powerful lobby of extractive industry and business representation in political structures are typically found in those regions where there are important business assets and where governors rely to a significant extent on the economic support of large enterprises. In this context, Arctic region has become the main platform and the backbone of big business.

During the turbulent 1990s indigenous activism was rather successful and was developing in line with the global trend of indigenous empowerment. Yet, somehow, 30 years later, as indigenous peoples were seemingly in control of their fate, they came to be, once again, outsiders, both politically and economically. After a brief moment of democratization in the 1990-2000s, indigenous hopes have been shattered by the government of Putin and thirsty-for-profit industries. The twenty-first century brought deforestation, pollution of water with industrial wastes, degradation of reindeer pastures and put Arctic diversity at risk. After dissolution of the USSR and transition to a market economy, Soviet laws lost the power and became ineffective, yet, with challenges multiplied, no alternative approach has been proposed either. In realities where the federal government does not deliver, regions are losing power, companies depend on authorities, indigenous population of the country finds itself alone. And although indigenous peoples and their lands and rights are often easily manipulated, their challenges are often left on the shelf.

Russian Chairmanship: Expectations and Unsolved Problems

In 2020, while countries around the world were fighting against the Covid-19, Russia’s apparatus was bound up in tactlessly changing its 1990s constitution. Indeed, for Kremlin, 2020 was a busy year to say the least: protests in Khabarovsk; the attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny; deteriorated relations with the European Union; unrest in neighboring Belarus, uncertainty relations with the USA under the incoming Biden administration. The economic impact of the pandemic compounded by a decade-long period of near-zero growth and stagnation added the final flourish to the Russia’s 2020 outlook. And, against the background of growing social inequality, the government (yet again) praises Arctic programs to save the day. By fiercely pushing forward Arctic projects amid hopes of becoming the engines of national economy, Kremlin launched a series of measures targeting its indigenous peoples and Arctic region’s development:

• Registry of Indigenous Peoples in Russia (January, 2020)

• Federal Law On Government Support for Business Activities in the Arctic Area of the

Russian Federation (July, 2020)

• Decree on Compensation for loss or damage to indigenous environment (September, 2020)

• Standards for Arctic residents’ responsibility to indigenous peoples (September, 2020)

• Strategy for the Development of the Russian Arctic Zone and Provision of National Security Through 2035 (October 2020)

In 2020 Russia was preparing to assume the two-year chairmanship of the intergovernmental Arctic Council; hence, the following initiatives were rushed through in record time and were mostly centered around environmental protection, sustainable development, and the “human dimension” as the priorities of the upcoming 2021-2023 Russian Chairmanship.

At a closer look, the “Strategy for the Development of the Russian Arctic Zone and Provision of National Security Through 2035” adopted in October 2020 essentially announces Arctic the platform and the backbone for big business. Support of the resource-based economy – a motto of the Strategy – effectively requires development of the regulatory system aimed at giving primacy to thirsty-for-profit industries whereas environmental and social costs of this priority scheme are largely omitted from the document. Although indigenous peoples were given a passing mention in the document on different occasions, no separate chapter dedicated to their specific development and rights has been included either.

Nonetheless, in order to comply with largely declarative yet necessary-for-international- approval standards for indigenous peoples’ wellbeing and demonstrate “adherence” to indigenous rights implementation, several decrees targeting indigenous groups in Russia were   adopted   this   year,   including   Decree   on   Compensation    for loss   or    damage to indigenous environment (September,   2020),   Federal   Law On Government   Support for Business Activities in the Arctic Area of the Russian Federation (July, 2020) and its article 28 on indigenous traditional activities in particular, Registry of Indigenous Peoples in Russia (January, 2020), etc.

Decree on Compensation for Loss or Damage to Indigenous Environment adopted in September 2020, was hoped to clearly define the process of calculating damage that an industrial project would potentially inflict on the native habitats of indigenous group including social, economic, environmental, and cultural costs (impact on language, way of life, etc.), compensation that should be paid, and, finally, lead up to the adoption of the federal law on ethnological expertise. Yet, the document turned out to be vague on who determined the damage, what was the established procedure, how and on what grounds the loss and damages were assessed. Rather successful regional experiences (the Law of the Republic of Sakha Yakutia “On Ethnological Expertise” adopted already in 2010) were left ignored.

As the Decree reads, compensation for loss is made based on the agreements to be signed between companies and regional councils of representatives of indigenous peoples. In practice, it means that authorities (in tandem with business) will play a key role in managing and allocating the benefits. While the state is the principal duty-bearer in relation to human (and indigenous) rights, its duty to protect against abuses of rights by third parties, including by business entities, has received limited attention in Russia. Instead, even when companies are required to pay compensation to indigenous inhabitants, negotiations are rare and limited in scope. If past experience is any guide, backed up by authorities, businesses are at liberty to weaken protection of indigenous rights to participate in decision-making and usually take full advantage of their position of strength in negotiations. Aspects of infrastructure and welfare are, hence, presented as gifts or limited to “ribbon-cutting” ceremonies while a desired support targeted at long-term sustainable development for the community is not even on the table. Instead of developing ground for responsive change and delivering sustainable economic benefits to indigenous communities, state policy reinforces their dependence on companies/patronage networks, whereas their basic and inherent rights are equated with charity.

Numerous amendments to indigenous laws and business exemptions initiated over the past decade reflect an increasing influence and powerful lobby of extractive industry in the country. To this day, in Russian realities revenue sharing from the industrial activity for negative effects of extraction on indigenous communities leaves a great deal to be desired.

Ultimately, the Decree hides a far bigger problem for country’s indigenous peoples: absence of land rights to their traditional territories. Land is owned by the state, and may be leased to companies and other users. While resource extraction has severe impacts on indigenous environment and livelihoods, no real protection is afforded by legislation.1 The preservation and revitalization of indigenous cultures depends on access to and control over their traditional territories; without land rights, indigenous people find themselves stuck in a legal, social and cultural limbo. These kind of legal provisions, in essence, extinguish original indigenous title to their territories and force communities to accept questionable monetary payouts for their unrecovered land, sell off nature, territory and potential for development, and finally surrender their rights as indigenous peoples.

Another long-awaited initiative, the Registry of Indigenous Peoples in Russia was intended to protect indigenous rights, make indigenous people eligible to receive state support, minimize corruption, stop misuse and reduce the number of fraud and abuses of the benefits’ and entitlements’ system.2 The need of a simple process to define and prove indigenous status was voiced repeatedly by numerous indigenous advocates and organizations in previous years. However, current measure was criticized for a complexity of documentation to be submitted and, more importantly, limitations by place of residence and occupation. As the current law reads, to enter the register, indigenous person must live within the confines of places of the traditional habitation (List of the places of traditional residence and traditional economic activities of Indigenous small- numbered peoples of the Russian Federation, 2009) and lead a traditional lifestyle (List of the types of traditional economic activities of Indigenous small-numbered peoples of the Russian Federation, 2009) while no other sources of income other than traditional activities are permitted. Exclusion of indigenous people who pursue ‘non-traditional’ employment is a matter of obvious concern; in addition, many indigenous homelands where indigenous peoples live and work are not included in the official list of the traditional residence.

In general, when discussing issues of indigeneity, it can be observed that in Russia indigenous legal framework shapes indigeneity rather than the reverse. Indigeneity is factually dictated by country’s own version of “indigenous” politics and artificial bureaucratic circumscriptions. To start with, the Russian law does not employ a concept of “indigenous peoples”. Instead, it proposes its own definition of “indigenous small- numbered people” not known internationally and grants the status of “indigenous” to those groups numbering fewer than 50,000 and maintaining their traditional way of life.

What is most remarkable is that the decrees such as the law on Registry of Indigenous Peoples is a clear reflection and continuation of the state policy of paternalism. The government itself decides for the indigenous peoples what they should do and where to live, takes on the task of deliberately confusing already complex and multilayered indigenous identities, ruling whether they are “incomplete” and necessarily causing a conflict between recognized and unrecognized groups. As a result, what we have now is a highly problematic indigenous identity that is inherently contested and devalued.

Not only that kind of policy facilitates the cultural rupture of Russia’s indigenous peoples and degrades indigenous voice, erosion of indigenous Self also plays into hands of politicians and business who use laws and affirmative action measures to render indigenous claims secondary. Permitted to celebrate solely cultural markers of their identity and confined in a certain “traditional” lifestyle”, indigenous peoples are not seen as a source of rights and political voice (even less – as rightholders), but as objects of outland exotic cultures and recipients of state support.

This is not to mention the irony of the law’s limitation by residence clause. It is notorious that the main reason why indigenous peoples do not live in their homelands is connected with the fact that for centuries indigenous peoples were deprived of the access to their traditional lands and resources; indigenous land loss is a cumulative impact and the result of systematic pressures and state policies, forced relocation, and environmental destruction by industrial development.

Lastly, Registry tracking process was given into hands of the Federal Security Service on the pretext of helping to fight extremism. Indigenous rights advocates fear, however, that these measures are intended to strengthen control on indigenous activists. In the light of a general trend of centralization of Russian policy, all civil society sectors are becoming a target for a closer state watch; during the first two decades of the new century, dozens of new laws were adopted to strengthen the power vertical, control on society, mass media, non-governmental sector, etc. Since the assertion of indigenous rights to ancestral land, territories and resources essential to their survival, is increasingly seen as a threat to Russia’s national resources development, indigenous peoples have currently been operating under the special attention of the intelligence services and state-controlled media.

What is missing?

Indigenous peoples comprise 15% of the total population of the Russian Arctic. Therefore, matters of region’s future cannot be discussed without their direct participation. Region’s indigenous communities should, by all means, have the same possibilities to decide on their development as all Arctic residents.

Reconciling indigenous and non-indigenous legal traditions in the country is a complex yet critical step in realization of indigenous rights. Instead of “fitting” indigenous peoples into existing system, this step inevitably requires the change of institutional arrangements and a control transfer from mainstream structures to indigenous institutions and actors. By constantly attempting to “upgrade” and “upscale” indigenous self- sufficient initiatives into its own version of “indigenous” politics, government apparatus tends to treat indigenous claims as something that only needs to be partially considered, without giving it any actual power or force in its own right. Legal framework must, hence, accommodate, advocate and even take on indigenous forms instead of getting in the way of implementation basic rights. The practice of indigenous rights’ must be in the control of indigenous people themselves.

For that matter, it is crucial to reframe the ways in which indigenous issues are discussed and handled. Governments and public institutions have failed to see that many social challenges experienced by indigenous peoples are often not about individualized failure but monumentally a legacy of government policies of displacement: physical (when they were denied access to their traditional territories), social and cultural (when they were forced to abandon traditional values), political (when they were forced to participate in structures, procedures and legal systems that are not of their own making). Repeated assaults on the culture and attacks on collective self-determination of indigenous groups targeted whole generations and weakened the foundations of indigenous society. That is why affirmative actions alone isn’t sufficient to counter all the wrongs of the past centuries. What is most urgently needed are rights.

Then, there is always a concern about the extent that governing structures within indigenous groups truly reflect the interests and concerns of the communities being governed. The implication is that the state must engage not only with formal indigenous representative bodies but also with grassroots community members in order to avoid cultivation of pro-government indigenous politicians and ensure representation of indigenous interests. To magnify indigenous voices, support of human rights and other justice organizations ready to stand up as an ally with indigenous people and advocates is also essential.

Conclusion: The False Promise of the Arctic Dream

Based on numerous legislative acts adopted in 2020-2021, it is actually hard to tell what exactly Russia’s current indigenous policy is being aimed at. While seemingly aimed at the conservation of certain elements of indigenous cultures and symbolic markers of national identity (folklore, museums, language, food, etc.), it takes the focus away from more substantive discussions regarding the reclamation of indigenous territories, livelihoods, natural resources, and self-government, and most importantly, from the discourse of rights per se.

Inclusiveness and empowerment has to be systemic, from the bill draft on down in order to be successful. Instead, indigenous issues are handled in the usual paternalist manner in hopes that the solution lies within short-term remedial provisions or ribbon cuttings. In no case will anyone expect that by narrowly framing indigenous rights and enacting laws focusing solely on a small fraction of what lies beneath (such as the state support on traditional cultures) would ensure equality or magically fix the actual challenges of indigenous peoples who have been structurally deprived of rights, power, privilege, voice and, on top of all, capacity to fight back.

Whereas before February 2022 country’s strong paternalism was tempered by the presence of international actors in the region, now the Russian state is relentlessly nullifying any progress made through deregulation and reassertion control over indigenous lands and resources. Under the circumstances, indigenous agency has found itself in organizational void and institutional capture incapable of developing self- defense mechanisms. The laws themselves have become yet another site that obstructs indigenous agency. Approved by the state with the aim to control, manage, and contain indigenous communities in designated areas, recently adopted laws render indigenous assertions of difference unsubstantial.

Delineation of indigeneity boundaries in Russia has become an entirely political process and is inevitably tied to benefits and who can access them. Instead of beginning to build (once again) a solid foundation to indigenous rights legal framework thoughtfully and wisely, country’s laws are finalized in a slapdash and at the end, remain unfulfilled promise but with more damage done. And of course, even the best articulated and detailed legislation becomes futile when the ability and intention to fully or even partially execute them is uncertain.

Both West and Russian observers tend to view the Arctic as a source of the Russia’s strength; in practice, it is more of a country’s blind side. The Arctic is threatened on all fronts, from climate change, toxic contamination, plastic pollution, and extractive industries’ projects.3 In response, Kremlin has cemented Arctic future with oil and gas. Condemned to remain a mere raw material colony, whose greatest treasure isn’t its residents, but resources, what Arctic (and the whole country) needs now in the absence of a powerful counterweight to state propaganda is better protection and, critically, bold politicians.

With Russia’s absolute certitude about the raw material extraction as the Arctic’s only

viable option, what will the future of the region look like?

Today (and for quite some time already), indigenous peoples’ rights in Russia is a sinking ship. Playing the role of the only source of Kremlin’s self-confidence, the Arctic’s and indigenous peoples’ (if not the whole country’s) fate looks merciless: identity devalued, wealth stolen, lands in peril, rights at an endless stalemate, freedom under assault and equality in retreat.

What is known today is that the Arctic is heading into dark times. The region lost its status as a space immune from political tensions and matters of security and militarization. Arctic Council lost one member and is currently considering how to adapt its work to the new reality. The Russian Federation lost its place in the Arctic Council and the partner status in a number of strategic spheres. Permanent Participants are losing their collective voice and a hard-won seat at the table. Russian indigenous peoples lost an important platform to address international community while RAIPON lost the legitimacy to represent indigenous voices of the country at all.

With the Arctic cooperation on shaky ground due to the Russian-Ukraine war – doubts are now being raised about what progress the Arctic Council can actually claim and even the organization’s right to life. A turning point that will determine the fate and the future trajectory of the Council including Permanent Participants and the whole Arctic region will be May, 2023.