August is here and with that we are only four weeks from the 4th Festival of Northern Fishing Festival! Summer enabled over 400 hectares of pristine and restoration peatlands to be added from Ranua, close to Arctic Circle and Arctic forests in Sodankylä, Northern Finland. We said goodbye to Theresa Neel and Kalevi Veko, two Elders of Snowchange network and look forwards to a busy Autumn.
Snowchange is excited to welcome over 30 international subsistence and artisanal-professional fishers to the fourth Festival of Northern Fishing Traditions in early September! Delegates from the Ahousaht/Nuu-chah-Nulth (Canada), Inuit from Western Greenland, Indigenous fishers from Taiwan and Pacific Islands and fishers from Alaska, and other parts of the North will come together in Tohmajärvi and Ilomantsi in early September. Enabled by the Endangered Landscapes and Seascapes Programme and other funders, this years Festival will focus on the role of fishers and their knowledge on the aquatic restoration and renewal.
In late June we were able to have over 400 hectare large peatland complex in Ranua, close to the Arctic Circle, join the Landscape Rewilding Programme. These Ellala peatlands are important adjacent to Litokaira, over 33,000 hectare protected area, largest of its kind in southern Lapland. Additionally more than 170 hectares of northern boreal OGF forests joined the LRP in July in Sodankylä. This Hämäläinen forest enables direct ecological connectivity between over 90,000 hectare Pomokaira Protected Area and Koitelainen Protected Area – magnificent example of boreal forests central to reindeer herding.
On the Altto-oja ICCA Sámi forest we are having a large week in mid-August with first enabled burns planned and ecological monitoring. The Sámi teams have built traditional shelter on the site and collected Indigenous knowledge of the site for the whole summer. Altto-oja is the first Indigenous protected area ever from Sámi area under the UN registry.
Theresa Neel from Canada and fisher Kalevi Veko, at 90 years, passed away during the summer. Both Theresa and Kalevi have been contributing to Snowchange for over 22-25 years. Kalevi’s work was featured in a science article in the 2020s. We say goodbye to these knowledge holders.
Check back in mid-August for updates on the Festival and other developments.
