DECLARATION
ON PROTECTING THE SOCIAL AND CULTURAL HERITAGE 
IN THE NORTH OF RUSSIA

The declaration has been adopted at I Northern Social and Environmental Congress “Cultural and Natural Gamut of the Northern Territories in Russia”
(Syktyvkar, 22 April 2005)

   The congress participants are at one with the fact that the North of Russia is not only an enormous mine of resources that demand zealous treatment of the natural heritage but also the image of unified multinational Russia where the citizens are the major nation’s cultural property and active participants in creating its happy future. 

According to the congress participants, realizing the deep and indissoluble bond between the natural and cultural heritages of the peoples in the north of Russia is the basic prerequisite of sustainable and environmentally safe social and economic growth of the northern territories. Preserving environment and traditional nature exploitation forms the basis of developing languages, cultures, traditions of indigenous minorities in the North, Siberia, and Far East.

   Historically, Russia has always been a guarantor of preserving the cultural originality of each nation that inhabits it. However, for the peoples in the North, Siberia and the Far East, preserving the unique although harsh natural environment habitat and cultural and confessional characteristics that ensures continuity of generations and unity of people confronted with mutual threats are the two sides of a phenomenon which can be titled as the inseparable right of the people and nations to live.

   The way to understand this indissoluble unity lies in all-out state support of the abstract sciences, natural, social and humanitarian ones, which obtained a strong foothold in the nation’s northern regions long ago and of that type of public education which has been shaping for decades and needs not to be deformed, but to be qualitatively modernized. Only competent civil society based on the knowledge and respect of its history can take the plenitude of responsibility for the future of its land. 

   It was for achieving this aim that the Northern Social and Environmental Congress was established as a standing international forum as well as a high platform for discussing widely and in public the problems related to long-term strategic planning without which it is impossible to protect the natural and cultural heritages in the circumpolar Russian regions.

   We proceed from the fact that each citizen has the right not only to enjoy a free access to any socially significant information, including environmental one, but to be directly involved in strategic planning of the future of his land at all its phases: from the project initiation and decision-taking up to the implementation phase. If all the risks related to the development of the North are burdened with the northerners themselves, it is them who should enjoy all the rights necessary to remove or offset those risks.

Among the basic congress lines of work the following deserves special emphasis:

► Coordinated efforts in studying and protecting the cultural and natural diversity in the North of Russia which faces the prospect of disappearance if clear social and environmental landmarks are not established in the strategies of the long-term northern policies of Russia;

► Promoting preservation and augmentation of the unique experience of centuries-old peaceful coexistence of different ethno-cultural groups in the North of Russia, as part of the single state, and, primarily, the alliance of the Finno-Ugric, Slavonic and other nations that has been and will ever remain as a pattern of high-cultural inter-ethnic accord both for the recent or prospective generations of Russians and the European Union citizenry;

► Expanding the integration trends in the foreign policy of Russia, which relates to the family of the northern countries interested to build up efficient gears for environmentally viable economic cooperation and developing common principles in ethno-cultural policies;

► Participation in creation of a monitoring system of the environment in the northern territories, preservation of cultural heritage of the peoples of the North with the support from the institutions of the civil society;

► Scientific and analytical support for legislative and executive powers on the federal and regional levels with the aim to modernize laws for sustainable development of the northern territories in Russia and to observe the existing legislature. 


   The congress participants believe that the target of gaining the unity of the social and environmental dimensions of the northern strategies in Russia has no other alternative both in defining the goals and challenges of the national social strategies aimed at developing the nation’s physical or spiritual health and in geopolitics. The stability of the basic planetary socio-natural systems depends on the situation in the northern regions. Undoubtedly, the North plays a priority role in preserving the global climate and the globe’s bio-geochemical equilibrium.

   It is deemed to be utterly important to establish an association of the northern colleges of Russia following an example of the established League of Northern Cities. All the problems related to the North would be easier to tackle jointly through the activities of that association. 

   Realizing the responsibilities of the Russian state in protecting the interests of the northern people and preserving life on the globe, the congress participants support the proposal of Coordinating Board for social strategies under the chairman of the Federative Council to develop a national social doctrine which should take into account the specificity of the northern regions and serve as a logical follow-up of the environmental doctrine of the Russian Federation developed by All-National Environmental Forum of Russia with the support of the RF President.

   The participants of the Northern Social and Environmental Congress express their gratitude to RF President Vladimir Putin, RF Government Chairman Mikhail Fradkov, Chairman of RF Federative Council Sergei Mironov and Minister of culture and mass communication Alexander Sokolov for active support of the idea of organizing the congress as well as to the Komi Government and all the domestic, foreign and international organizations, politicians, scientists and entrepreneurs, cultural and religious figures who rendered their assistance in organizing the congress and expressed their willingness for long-term cooperation. Russia should become a leader in making and implementing the global northern policies.