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• destruction of the genetic fund as a result of migrations and birth
rate decline amidst growing urbanization and the emergence of new
medical and socio-medical problems.
Life shows indigenous communities’ high sensitivity to aggressive industrial
and postindustrial development and the likelihood of their consequent
marginalization. Their role in humanity evolution risks being brought down to
that of conserved and protected “relics,” eventually.
Having said that, the prospective expansion of mining operations in Yakutia
and the advancement of high-tech sectors, with the North-Eastern Federal
University among the major R&D contributors, will provide indigenous
communities with vast opportunities for breakthrough. There is a possibility
of creating an economic model that would enhance the financial and economic
foundation for their sustenance and development. A broader scale and variety
of products, services and socio-cultural activities would create a window of
opportunity for expanding the competency range of Yakutia’s indigenous
inhabitants, thereby enriching its social and human resources.
Measures to Preserve Cultural and Linguistic Diversity: Opportunities and
Constraints
International documents 32 adopted on the issue in the past few decades
recognize indigenous communities’ political, economic, and cultural rights
to the preservation of their social, cultural, religious and spiritual values
and economic practices, as well as the rights of property and ownership of
their ancestral lands. All this may be instrumental in helping preserve such
communities’ cultures and languages.
Cyberspace and ICT have created an additional communications dimension
and a new form of existence for languages and cultures. The international
community and Russian authorities should do more to overcome the digital
gap and to expand the use of cyberspace in efforts to preserve indigenous
cultures and languages.
However, such efforts alone will not be enough to counter the processes of
Western culture, values, activities and lifestyles conquering the world. The
domination in the information landscape of major languages, such as English,
Chinese and Spanish, ensures the spread of world powers’ value systems
globally, depreciating the significance of minor languages to their native
32
International Labor Organization Convention No. 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples, Geneva, 1989;
UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (adopted by Resolution 61/295 of the General Assembly,
September 13, 2007); Concept for Sustainable Development of Small Indigenous Peoples of Russia’s North,
Siberia and Far East. Moscow, 2009.
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