Sibirica

This article explores the history of fishing on Lake Baikal in an effort to understand the fish-human nexus, to expand our understandings of the Russian relationship to the environment before the twentieth century, and to think about the colonial encounter in Siberia from an environmental angle. Fishing has long been a crucial, life-sustaining, and culturally important component of life at Baikal; and fish and people have long existed in mutually influential and intertwined webs of relations. Fish populations declined markedly in Baikal from the late eighteenth century on-a drop with which Soviet fishers and policymakers continued to struggle throughout the twentieth century. The fate of Baikal's fish was the result of 1) the tax-farming, market-based economic structures of tsarist colonialism and 2) the new fishing technologies that Russian settlers brought with them to the practice of fishing-both of which were "revolutionary" transformations from the pre-colonial Buriat and Evenk fishing methods and systems. Notably, this massive fish population decrease came about before any industrial change affected the area. Humans, this story shows, do not need to have industrial machines with their extractive capabilities and pollution by-products in order to bring about systemic ecological and evolutionary changes.

This special forum comprises articles based on papers presented at the session “Baikal Issues under Persistent State Care” at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers and serves as an introduction to the economic, social, and political dimensions of a unique natural object.

This article explores and assesses the socio-economic consequences of environmental restrictions in the Baikal region. Different levels of socio-economic development characterize the various governing bodies in the region, and therefore, the impact of environmental restrictions surrounding Baikal varies. This article outlines the advantages and disadvantages of environmental restrictions for Irkutsk oblast and Republic of Buriatiia, summarizes the perceived trade-off between the environmental and economic interests, and proposes alternative environmentally friendly scenarios for local economic development.

After years of financial struggle, protected areas in the Russian Federation have been encouraged to open up to ecotourism in order to become more financially self-sustainable. This article focuses on this transition and examines the challenges of policy-related geographical and social aspects of the development of ecotourism in the nature reserves. The article identifies four main risk factors in the development of ecotourism: environmental, social, managerial, and economic. It outlines stakeholder interests in tourism, the local population's involvement in environment-friendly developments, and the possibilities for ecotourism on the model territory of the Baikalskii Nature Biosphere zapovednik.

National Parks and Nature Reserves serve as key link in the formation of regional and nationwide ecological networks and play a crucial role in the conservation of biological and landscape diversity in Russia. Owing to conflicts over resource use, there is a range of problems in the functioning of the parks as exemplified in Tunka National Park, located near Lake Baikal. Fires, illegal logging and development, hunting and fishing without license, so-called wild tourism, and other types of violations are frequent in the park. The development of ecological tourism is an important prospect for the region.

This article focuses on the ways the urban Buriats in the city of Irkutsk construct the notion of homeland. Based on the analysis of family stories, observations, and interviews with the Buriats in Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude collected between 2006 and 2011, the article investigates how urban indigenous Buriats sustain their ethnic identity in the city through various activities, interactions and solidarity with rural people, and how they use urban resources to maintain their ethnic identity.

Nicole Gombay, Making a Living: Place, Food and Economy in an Inuit Community Amber Lincoln

Marc Brightman, Vanessa Elisa Grotti, and Olga Ulturgasheva, eds., Animism in Rainforest and Tundra: Personhood, Animals, Plants and Things in Contemporary Amazonia and Siberia Michael A. Uzendoski

Sonja Luehrmann, Secularism Soviet Style: Teaching Atheism and Religion in a Volga Republic Mark Calder

Tanya Argounova-Low, The Politics of Nationalism in the Republic of Sakha (Northeastern Siberia), 1900-2000: Ethnic Conflicts under the Soviet Regime Anna Bara

Sarah Mehlop Strong, Ainu Spirits Singing: The Living World of Chiri Yukie's Ainu Shin'y sh César Enrique Giraldo Herrera

Olga M. Cooke, ed., Gulag Studies, Volume 1 Norman Prell

Anne Ross, Kathleen Pickering Sherman, Jeffrey G. Snodgrass, Henry D. Delcore, and Richard Sherman, Indigenous Peoples and the Collaborative Stewardship of Nature: Knowledge Binds and Institutional Conflicts Jan Peter Laurens Loovers

Anatoly M. Khazanov and Günther Schlee, eds., Who Owns the Stock? Collective and Multiple Property Rights in Animals (vol. 5) Germain Meulemans

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