Indigenous youth abandon their home villages

Problems with electricity, food and water supply and lack of media and communication with other areas is making the indigenous youth reconsider the living opportunities in their home villages, youth participants at this week’s RAIPON Coordination Council’s meeting in Murmansk said. -You may have to wait 1-1,5 months for the plane to [the Sámi village of ] Krasnoschelie from Lovozero, and it costs more than going by train to St. Petersburg, a young Sámi representative said. -Young people don’t want to stay there seeing the way their peers live in cities; they simply have no future there. Small peoples do not mean small problems. In the RAIPON Coordination Council’s meeting representatives of indigenous peoples from all over Russia met to discuss common challenges. RAIPON is the main Russian public organization working for indigenous peoples’ rights. The indigenous population in the Kola Peninsula is also gradually deprived land rights, as sport fishing companies have bought the right to fish salmon in local rivers, and guard the rivers with armed personnel. This means the inhabitants are prohibited from harvesting salmon from their own traditional areas, says Alexandra Artieva from OOSMO, the Public Organisation of Saami People living in Murmansk Oblast. Kristina Henriksen, Adviser on indigenous peoples’ issues in the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, says Raipon’s focus on the indigenous peoples’ in the Kola Peninsula is of big importance. –The small local villages with indigenous populations are in major need of development initiatives, she underlines. Photo and text contributions: BarentsObserver Murmansk