Eduard Yaungad, a deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Area, gave a presentation at the 22nd session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. He spoke about the development of industry on Yamal, technological progress and traditions of indigenous peoples.

The theme of this year’s meeting is “Indigenous Peoples, human health, planetary and territorial health and climate change: a rights-based approach.” With regard to the agenda, the Yamal deputy suggested reviewing practices and explaining effective approaches to mapping, registration and other aspects of economic organization of traditional lands using state and indigenous peoples’ own mechanisms.

He added that the region had the largest number of reindeer, or 620,000 animals. While indigenous peoples in the rest of the world tend to urbanize and move to big cities, the number of nomads on Yamal is increasing, which makes it necessary to preserve the quality of pastures.

“This requires effective nature conservation activities, as well as additional measures for land management, land registration and the science-based planning of reindeer-grazing routes in order to preserve their food supply,” Yaungad said at the session.

The deputy also noted that forest reindeer breeding had great potential. It was not popular before, but right now forests can provide many reindeer with a new pasture and relieve the existing ones.