Arctic climate amplification and Siberia’s burning forests

Usually Arctic amplification is referred to as the reason why the Arctic is warming faster than the earth's average, as the Arctic's surface gets darker (due to less sea ice and snow), and the surface absorbs more heat.What we see currently in Siberia with the burning forests sheds yet another light on how this affects …

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Prof. Dr. Ulla Johansen passed away

On 14th of February 2021 in her 94th year of life a great person, colleague in Arctic Anthropology and professor emerita of ethnology, Ulla Johansen passed away. Born in Estonia she grew up in a multicultural environment, moved with her parents to Germany, where she studied anthropology after the war in Hamburg. It was her …

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Ysyakh 2020 – solstice festival online

Midsummer, solstice on the 21 June is for many northern peoples and cultures an important holiday. In Finland it's called Juhannus and a state holiday. In Yakutia, where I am now, it's called Ysyakh, and considered the Sakha people's new year day. The 2020 celebrations obviously come in a very different format in comparison to …

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Future Arctic Ecosystems revisited or reindeer herding at the verge of extinction?

30 Oct, 14:00, Rovaniemi, Arktikum, 2nd floor, coffee room. In this Wednesday Afternoon Coffee Chat (WACC) Florian Stammler will have a dialogue session with Aytalina Ivanova from Yakutsk reflecting on Arctic research agendas. What was supposed to be the first trip in a new multi-party consortium on scenarios of a changing Arctic became an example …

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We don’t survive – we live here!

These were the introductory words of Alexandr Ivanov, the head of the Olenek district in Yakutia, in his discussion during our session on indigenous people's territorial governance under industrial development at the Northern Forum for sustainable development in Yakutsk, 25 - 26 September 2019 (full session programme). He thought it is useful to remind researchers …

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Assessing damage to indigenous cultures by industrial development with maths?

I just read an interesting post by the Russian news agency TASS (in Russian) announcing proudly the launch of a new method for assessing damage to indigenous culture and livelihood during industrial development of the Arctic. Russian scholars in this field know that there has been long a discussion about how the only Russian law …

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PhD / MA course extractive industires at the world’s biggest hole

The Uarctic Arctic Extractive Industries PhD programme organises its spring 2016 course, this time also open for M.A. students, eligibility for participation see below. The course is hosted by the North Eastern Federal University, Yakutia, Russia, February 16-22, 2016. Yakutia in Siberia is not a cheap, but fascinating place to go. Interested students can apply …

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