The International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry Director, Anders Oskal and Association of World Reindeer Herders General Secretary Johan Mathis Turi are visiting Yakutsk and Aldan in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in Russia this week. They met with Russian Academy of Sciences Institute of Humanities and Indigenous Peoples of the North today, to discuss the future range of their resepctive cooperation and the creation of a formal cooperation agreement.

"The world has progressed in some ways", said Johan Mathis Turi, "Today we have sent pictures from Eastern Siberia by email to Kautokeino. In 1990 we had to wait 48 hours to make an international phone call from Yakutsk."

Today Oskal and Turi travel south with Maria Pogodaeva (WRH board member) and Mikhail Pogodaeva and others to the village of Aldan, to meet with reindeer herders and discuss among other issues the challenges that are faced by reindeer husbandry in the Taiga. For example the East Siberian Pipeline is currently slated to pass near Aldan (See Reindeer Blog)

This is the second trip this year by ICR and WRH representatives to the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia), the first occasion being the EALAT Information seminar and workshop in Topolinoe.