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Snowchange is 10 years old. Summer recess is over and Snowchange Co-op activities are updated with more rigour again. in June Georges and Miguel Siuoi from the Huron Nation, Canada visited and successful cooperation talks were held in Äimälä and Selkie. As well the ICE Conference and the visit to Unalakleet have fostered new cooperation steps for future. Eastern Saami Atlas is being prepared for printers and it is expected to come out in November. Another new project has been launched with the United Nations Alliance of Finland. A book will be released in October in English about the impacts of the Lokka and Porttipahta Reservoirs to the Vuotso Saami way of life in Finland. Co-author of this book is Pekka Aikio, the First President of the Finnish Saami Parliament, from Vuotso himself. Partnership with the Indigenous Peoples Climate Change Assessment is proceeding. Sevettijärvi, home community of the Skolt Saami is the pilot Arctic community and summer has been spent there collecting traditional knowledge, by organising a traditional fishing camp on the Näätämö River and preparing for the launching of the Eastern Saami Atlas. The community has started to develop traditional knowledge database. Solar panel project in Sakha-Yakutia proceeds to its final implementation. The solar batteries are being delivered to tundra from India (Barefoot College) and over the Autumn we hope to see first reactions. The Selkie village in North Karelia, Finland has started to digitalize oral histories of the area. The school project with Norya, Udmurtia and Unalakleet, Alaska, USA continues. In early October Snowchange will participate in community-meetings and cooperation talks with our British Columbian First Nations, in Alert Bay, in Victoria and in Vancouver. This newsletter closes with sad news - two of the key community members from Sakha-Yakutia, Russia have passed on - the Honorable Scientist of the Russian Federation from the Even Nation, mr. Vasilii Robbek and reindeer herder, hunter Vladimir Kolesov from Iengra. All the best wishes to the friends and families of the departed. If questions please take contact. Tero Mustonen |
