Rural Regions Development: Conference in Akureyri
Silver Taiga Director Yury Pautov took part in the 4th Nordic Ruralities Conferenceheld on May 22-24 in the University of Akureyri town, Iceland.
The Nordic Ruralities Conference is an interdisciplinary forum for rural research with a particular emphasis on the Nordic countries.
It is a known fact, that the rural communities in many countries have experienced depressed conditions though at different times and in a different way: poor arrangement of labour, lack of roads, remoteness from the cultural centers, different from towns and cities quality of life… All this results in outgoing of the population to the towns and cities. And all Nordic countries have experienced it to any extent. In other words, the crisis is a characteristic feature of many rural communities and rural regions. At the same time, some rural communities have managed to sustain and get used to the changing conditions especially during the period of globalization and urbanization.
What is happening nowadays in the rural areas, what are the possible ways of the rural communities sustainable development nowadays, are there any successful examples of such sustainability and if yes, what are their formula for success – all these issues were discussed at the sections of this grand-scale international conference.
The participants from Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Canada, Russia, Ukraine and a series of countries presented the results of their research work and shared their experience of the local initiatives implementation with regard to the rural communities sustainable development. The subject of the сonference reports varied from the role of Universities in the rural areas development to the landscape management, from the farming methods to the investigation of «rural housing over a distance and in the course of time».
The following current issues and problems were discussed during the conference: «aging of the population in the rural regions», «peculiarities of human resources formation in the north areas», «large-scale projects in the small settlements», «health and human services in a rural area», «local development and a civil society», «rural business in different connections» and many others.
Silver Taiga experience in support of traditional forest use in Komi was presented by Yury Pautov at the section «Model Forests and biosphere reserves as an area development concept».
As it is known, according to a new Forest Code of 2007 forest use rules for business and the local population were changed significantly: municipalities practically lost their rights towards management of forests close to the settlements and other forest areas important for the local population. Under Silver Taiga projects (Komi Model Forest, High Conservation Value Forests, Forest Village) the following initiatives have been pushed forward: public hearings with regard to leasing out of a forest area, creation of Public Forest Councils in the districts, mapping of mushrooms and berries sites and other areas important for the local population, where a special way of use is recommended, etc.
However, the success of all these initiatives depends on the fact if the logging company operating on the given territory is certified according to the international requirements or not and on some other subjective factors. To protect the interests of the forest-dependent local population a special category of forests (social forests) could be introduced. This proposal of Silver Taiga Foundation has been supported by the interregional public movement «Komi Voityr» (Komi people) and has been included into its final documents.
During the conference Yury Pautov also took part in the meeting of the Model Forests’ representatives. The current state of the Model Forests and the sustainable forest management problems that the Model Forests from different countries of the world face were discussed at the meeting.
The next conference will be held in Denmark in 2018.
Here you can look through the talking points of the conference.
