On November 19 the republic’s parliament approved in the first reading law on obligatory ethnological examination of the projects that can change the indigenous peoples’ of the North environment.

Members of parliament mean to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples in conditions of growing industrial development of their historical territories. The aim of the examination is to find out how such and such changes can affect the indigenous population’s life, culture and development in order to take timely adequate protective measures.

Besides, the experts will elaborate recommendations for realization of the long-term programs aimed at socio-economic rehabilitation of the local residents. 

The law is pretty strict. According to its clauses negative resolution of the ethnological examination can serve a basis for project ban. In this case works can be resumed only if all the disputable issues are settled and experts passed a positive resolution.

In the North fates of reindeer breeders, fishers and hunters whose lands got into industrial development zones are often tragic – people lose means to do their traditional activities and can’t build different type of life. Despite the fact the companies that came to these territories are rich it’s hard to get proper compensations as the procedure of full-scale assessment of the losses hasn’t been described yet by any law. 

Source: http://www.fishkamchatka.ru