Applied Ethnology and Ethnoecology in Combining Aboriginal Land Rights with the Preservation of Biodiversity in Russia

Abstract

Discussing approaches to the aboriginal land rights in contemporary Russia, I shall focus on the arguments that have been presented in favor of three major policy options. These options are often labelled as "pro-aboriginal," "anti-aboriginal" and a "compromise" position. Ethnologists who have been deeply involved in the attempts to define legally aboriginal land rights ever since 1991 have themselves been split into the same three interest groups. Thus the controversies over aboriginal land rights and of the so called "traditional economy" (i.e., hunting, fishing, food gathering and reindeer herding in the taiga and tundra) provide excellent illustrations of developments in applied ethnology in post-Soviet Russia.