Ten years of local and regional development
The theme for this year’s Gargia conference is ecology and sustainable business and community development in the Arctic. This year’s conference will also be a celebration of 10 years of development work among indigenous Arctic peoples and in rural areas.
The Gargia Conference was established in 2004 and has become a meeting place and discussion forum over the years, where academic staff and students at UiT The Arctic University of Norway meet local and regional development stakeholders from the public and private sectors. The event allows all parties – academics, industry and government – to share their expertise and experiences. The aim of the conference has also been to help coordinate joint local and regional development projects and programmes.
“We have taken up many important issues, and have created new networks and projects. We have learned from each other and inspired each other. Each conference has had a consistent theme. This year we will address ecology and sustainable business and community development in the Arctic. And this year, we will start locally and end globally,” says organizer Tor Gjertsen, an assistant professor and member of the university’s Finnmark faculty “We are delighted to have so many good speakers. It will be very exciting to hear the director of the Eyge Environmental Education Centre, Ekaterina Evseyeva, talk about her work on behalf of reindeer herders in Yaktuia, who have been affected by oil pipelines leaks, water pollution from mines and the negative consequences of power development.”
Gjertsen has chaired the Local and Regional Development in the North thematic network under the auspices of UArctic, a cooperative of more than 150 universities, colleges and other institutions that work with education in the north. The network was established in 2006 and has participants from several northern universities, and is also responsible for arranging the Gargia Conference.
“The network has not only developed international cooperation in research, education and development, it has also helped Russian universities to begin to cooperate on this topic. These universities have taken responsibility for continuing to offer development workshops and business establishment schools in their regions. In recent years, the network has given priority to making these offerings available in indigenous communities such as in the Komi and Yaktuia,” says Gjertsen.
Nils Aarsæther at UiT The Arctic University of Norway is also part of the network and will give a presentation at the conference, which will be the last held in Norway. The conference will also feature a presentation by Greg Halseth, from the University of Northern British Columbia, who has studied community development in rural areas and has authored books about the topic. Valentina Semyashkina, deputy director of Silver Taiga, a conservation organization that includes all of northern Russia, will also speak.
Conservation work in Russia is currently very topical, and conference participants will help put the topic firmly in the spotlight.
Ends in Tana
The conference will be held this year in Tana, and not in Gargia in Alta, because Finnmark University College first began its work with local and regional development in Tana. In June 2004, 16 employees went to Tana to offer idea and development courses. Since then, staff at UiT the Arctic University of Norway and members of the thematic network have travelled to other communities in Norway, Canada and Russia to offer similar programmes. The network is a research and development project in which all efforts are directed towards smaller rural areas in the north. Network members hold courses for entrepreneurs, as one example. These kinds of measures are often discussed during the conference.
“You can say that the circle will be closed, because we will end this year in Norway, where we first started,” says organizer Gjertsen.
Now the thematic network will be handed over to the Department of Finance and Economics at NEFU, the North-Eastern Federal University in Yakutsk. The handoff will take place at this year’s conference. The international academic conference on regional development in the north will also be moved from Gargia to Oktemsty, a municipality not far from Yakutsk, the capital of Yakutia. Dr. Oksana Romanova, NEFU’s deputy director and research director, will then take over leadership.
“The network will continue its important efforts in entrepreneurship and development-oriented projects in rural areas. The network has now been invited to hold a special session for social and economic development in indigenous areas in the circumpolar north at the International Congress of Arctic Social Sciences, which will be held at the University of Northern British Columbia in Prince George, Canada, next year,” says Gjertsen, who will continue his work with the network.
Here is an overview of previous conferences topics and dates.
2006: Regional development in the North
2007: Knowledge creation and the management of regional R & D projects
2008: Northern innovation and development
2009: Reconstructing rural communities in a globalized world
2010: Between tradition and modernity
2011: Sports, tourism and local development
2012: Youth, education and rural development
Here are some highlights from past conferences:
Translated by Nancy Bazilchuk
