Environmental and Social Impacts of Industrialization in Northern Russia (ENSINOR)

• Main Author: Forbes, Bruce C.
• Format: Conference Object
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: Heritage and Culture; Indigenous Peoples; nenets; Nenets Autonomous Okrug; Northwest Russia; Yamalo Nenets; Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug
• Online Access: http://library.arcticportal.org/511/; http://library.arcticportal.org/511/1/WRH_2009_bforbes.pdf; http://www.arcticcentre.org/

The overall aim of ENSINOR was the co-production of knowledge that stems from different traditions among both scientists and herders and their respective ways of knowing about contemporary social-ecological systems. The project undertook a multidisciplinary analysis of the social and environmental consequences of energy development in northern Russia. A comparative study of effect of two key federal districts in northwest Russia - Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO) and Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO) - was made with links to the global level on the basis of scientific and local knowledge. NAO and YNAO contain Russia’s most productive proven energy sources for the present and the foreseeable future. The extensive gas and oil fields overlap with the homelands of indigenous peoples whose traditional livelihoods – reindeer herding, augmented by fishing, hunting and gathering – are at risk from changes in land use associated with petroleum exploration and exploitation, in addition to climate-related changes.