The Hawaiian culture places great emphasis on the word “Aloha,” which means love, peace, compassion, and charity. Hawaiians greet and bid farewell to their guests with Aloha. Unfortunately, there was no Aloha at this year’s APEC Summit (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) in Honolulu, Hawaii.  Sadly, a local Hawaiian youth was killed on the first day of the summit after scuffling with a U.S. federal agent who was hired as a security guard for the multi-day event. This caused bewilderment and a wave of protests from locals.

Honolulu, normally a peaceful vacation town, was not very friendly during the week of the summit and seemed to escalate into chaos. Roads were closed for world leaders and their entourages, causing massive traffic jams. According to witnesses, just the Chinese delegation alone, arrived with 1,000 members and that was only one of the 21 delegations in attendance. Thousands of armed soldiers and federal agents patrolled the perimeter of the tourist part of Honolulu-Waikiki, where the summit took place. Displaying weapons to cause fear in peaceful people is, unfortunately, a common practice in many countries. The meeting was held on Hawaii, far from the US mainland, where large-scale protests were unlikely. Yet, authorities and the APEC planning committee apparently decided to take special measures in light of recent Occupy Movement Protests in most large US cities.  To give you a sense of how much security was there, the US government spent $44 million to prepare for the summit, including $18 million for police and $10 million for “contingency expenses” such as 700 thousand units of non-lethal weapons, including 25 thousand pepper sprays, and even 3 thousand tasers, all purchased by American taxpayers.

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I think I am one of the luckiest people out there to be doing the work I am very passionate about, being able to travel, meeting some of the most wonderful people around the globe and being able to connect those people in order to make positive change.

I recently traveled to Nome, Alaska for the Beringia Days Conference organized by the Shared Beringian Heritage Program of National Park Service (NPS). The conference was first held in 1997 and since then it alternated between both sides of the Bering Strait. This year it was Alaska’s turn to host the conference. Nome welcomed more than 130 people.  Among them were native people of Alaska and Chukotka, Russian and American scholars, researchers, environmentalists, and representatives of government and non-governmental organizations.

The goal of the conference was to bring together various stakeholders for discussions around issues affecting communities both in Chukotka and Alaska. Some of the major topics covered during the conference were international cooperation, creation of the Shared Beringia Heritage Trans-boundary Protected Area, preservation of culture and language, youth programs, environmental issues including resource extraction, increased shipping, and pollution. Special attention was paid to marine mammal research and impacts of climate change on subsistence resources of indigenous peoples.

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By Rosemary Ahtuangaruak

As an Inupiat who lives on the coast of the Arctic Ocean, I live a traditional lifestyle — hunting, fishing, whaling, gathering, and sharing our traditional way of life as our elders taught me. It is my duty to ensure the lifestyle that was passed down throughout generations continues in the face of multiple threats, including increased shipping.

As sea ice continues to recede in the Arctic, we are seeing an increase in the vessels that travel through our ocean. These ships can harm the marine environment with increased noise and pollution. Currently, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) is developing a mandatory set of regulations for vessels traveling in Arctic waters. However, they are doing it with little input from the people who will be most impacted by increased shipping.

Indigenous peoples who live a traditional way of life have an inherent right to make decisions about regulations that will impact us. I am calling on the U.S. delegation to the IMO, who has an obligation to consult with Tribes, to guarantee our concerns are addressed.

Last week, Pacific Environment successfully concluded one of three annual exchanges that support our programmatic efforts and provide opportunities for our partner organizations from Russia to gain new perspectives and build organizational capacity. The purpose of the exchange was to bring 4 -5 indigenous leaders and scholars working on indigenous issues from Kamchatka and Yakutia to North America to learn about sacred sites protection in the United States. We invited two of our longtime partners from Kamchatka, native Itelmen women Nina Zaporotskaya and Nastya Chukhman, along with Venera Sukhareva, an indigenous Koryak and the chair of the local Indigenous Association. Joining them were two indigenous Sakha peoples; Valentina Dmitrieva, a 20-year veteran of the environmental movement, and Viliam Yakovlev, an ethnographer and a cultural expert.

Our participants met with Native American tribal and NGO leaders in New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and South Lake Tahoe to learn about of the methodology of protecting sacred sites and indigenous lands. During the exchange, our Russian participants convened with their peers from the Navajo, Acoma, Washoe, Paiute, and Hopi nations to share experiences and learn from each other.  Our Russian guests gained first-hand knowledge of how sacred sites and indigenous lands are protected  and managed in the United States.  Participants learned the tools needed to educate members of their local communities about sacred sites protection, how to lead efforts to protect sacred sites in Russia, and how to facilitate intercultural exchanges between native communities in the United States and indigenous communities in Russia.

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This year I had the opportunity to attend the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues which was held in New York City from May 16th – 27th. In addition, my name was put forward by Chickaloon Village Tribal Council members to the Tribal Link Foundation who sponsored their annual three day Project Access Permanent Forum training. I had the honor of attending both the training as well as the first few days of the Permanent Forum.

The Permanent Forum is one of three UN bodies that are mandated to deal specifically with indigenous peoples’ issues. The others are the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights and fundamental freedoms of indigenous Peoples.

The Permanent Forum is an advisory body to the Economic and Social Council with a mandate to discuss indigenous issues related to economic and social development, culture, the environment, education, health and human rights.  According to its mandate, the Permanent Forum will:

1)  Provide expert advice and recommendations on indigenous issues to the Council, as well as to programs, funds and agencies of the United Nations, through the Council.

2) Raise awareness and promote the integration and coordination of activities related to indigenous issues within the UN system.

3) Prepare and disseminate information on indigenous issues. (more…)

Nearly 300 years ago, one of the first researchers of the Kamchatka Peninsula, George Stelleronce wrote:

“Kamchatka lives almost solely on fish. If you hit the water with a spear you rarely miss a fish.  Fishing nets or seines are useless in Kamchatka for that reason.  It’s impossible to drag them ashore, they tear because ofthe abundance of fish.”

Many years ago, it seemed that the salmon would last forever.  However, today we know that all natural resources are limited, and Kamchatka’s salmon need protection.  So what is the current state of Kamchatka salmon?  The Kamchatka Branch of the Pacific Institute of Geography has published extensively on the topic. (more…)

I first met Arina Shurygina at the Keepers of the Salmon festival. It was amazing to see how much love she put into teaching about the salmon life cycle, its constitution, and peculiarities. It seemed that there was nothing more important to her than to teach each student how many fins a salmon has and the locations and names of each fin. Later, I learned that containers set throughout the town to collect plastic caps were another of Arina’s initiatives, but not the only one.

It was interesting to learn how it all began. Arina explains that, “One spring, at the outskirts of town, I realized that I was walking on a carpet of garbage. Snow cover was gone and garbage brought from nearby dumps had begun to surface. It was a very unpleasant feeling, but I wanted to fix it. I began to learn about different approaches to the problem that existed worldwide, and the possibilities available in the region. I discovered that in Kamchatka, and Russia in general, there is no general practice of sorting and recycling of household trash. I started to learn more about the issue and wrote articles to newspapers and journals. They were published but the situation still did not change.” (more…)

Today, President Obama announced that the United States will now support the U.N. Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (the Declaration) at the White House Tribal Nations Conference. Though this is a step in the right direction for the United States, Tribes are waiting to see what qualifiers may be added by the U.S. and to what degree the U.S. will implement the Declaration. With 565 Federally Recognized Tribes in the United States (231 of which are in Alaska), the Declaration serves as a minimum standard of Indigenous Peoples rights here in the U.S. and throughout the world, that countries agree to follow.

After more than 30 years of negotiations, the Declaration was adopted by the United Nations in 2007 with only four countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand—voting against it. With President Obama’s announcement today, all four originally opposing countries are now in support of the Declaration. Many of those who were dedicated to ensuring the recognition of Indigenous Peoples rights at the international level have since passed on to the spirit world, but have left the world a better place for their children, grandchildren, and future generations.

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Almost every culture has a celebration to give thanks to nature for the previous year, the harvest, and the supplies stored for the winter. The Itelmen, one of the most ancient peoples of Kamchatka, call this holiday Alkhalalalai which is traditionally celebrated on the last weekend of September.  Recently this holiday has been celebrated in the Itelmen village of Pimchakh, after taking place for many years in Kovran, the spiritual and cultural center of the Itelmen people. This year, Alkhalalalai became an official holiday on Kamchatka’s calendar, a natural move, since the holiday unites all of the peoples of Kamchatka on one field, with no attention paid to population, age, or religious faith.

The celebration’s motto – “Here there are no guests, only participants” – came true from the very first minute of this year’s event. All of the guests were involved in the ceremonial cleansing of the hardships of the past year, and in the ritual feeding of Khantai. Khantai is the aboriginal god worshipped by the indigenous peoples of northern Russia and the Russian Far East. Aboriginals bring gifts to him since he rules the catch of fish.  Then they give thanks to him for the abundant catches.  The spirits were kind to the celebration’s participants and granted them a perfect, sunny day, even though the forecast predicted cloudy rainy weather, and it rained on both the day before and the day after the celebration. (more…)

This past weekend we were fortunate to attend the Golden Springs Festival, which celebrates the creative arts of the indigenous peoples of the North, Siberia, and Far East. The festival took place in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky.

The festival’s gala concert was held in the recently refurbished drama theater. The performers met their guests at the theater’s entrance, and the sound of traditional drums (known as bubins) and songs set a festive atmosphere. The concert opened with a performance by Mengo, a renowned Koryak national ensemble, which has represented the creative arts of the indigenous peoples of the north on some of the most prestigious stages in Russia and throughout the world. It was lucky to see them perform on their native Kamchatka. Mengo delighted viewers with its performers’ sharp movements, perfect figures, and dramatic dances, as well as the beauty of their faces and costumes. (more…)