| The Society for Threatened Peoples is supporting a land rights claim by the Itelmen, an indigenous group living on Kamchatka in the Russian Far East. In 1998 the Itelmen applied to create a Territory for Traditional Nature Use, the Tkhsanom Reserve, in the Koryak Autonomous Region. with 150 sacred places within its boundaries. However, due to the law on Territories for Traditional Nature Use not having been implemented by the Russian Government (see TN43), they have no protection from industrial impacts on salmon stocks or water pollution due to platinum mining and the Khayryuzovo coal mine. The campaigners have been to the Supreme Court in Moscow, and the European Court of Human Rights and are now appealing directly to President Putin to implement the law. |
