Top Russian miner vows supporting indigenous peoples via civic diplomacy

Indigenous peoples’ rights are always the focus of large miners’ ESG efforts, and Russian metals producer Nornickel proactively proves it in practice, particularly in Russia’s North.

On Tuesday, Nornickel welcomed top performing students of the all-Russian educational program ‘Indigenous Peoples of Russia. Civic Diplomacy School’ in its office to share corporate experience and showing its eagerness to talk and work with leaders able to defend indigenous peoples’ rights.

The Civic Diplomacy School should help students become leaders among their peoples, accumulate and represent their point of view, and help people make decisions within established procedures, Nornickel’s vice-president Andrey Grachev said.

“It is our joint project with the Federal Agency for Nationalities, the Russian Foreign Ministry and MGIMO. I think it’s very important. After all, our students are future authorized representatives of the indigenous peoples in the international arena, at the UN and other platforms. So this is significant not only for Nornickel and other Russian companies, but for the entire Russia,” he said.

At the meeting, Nornickel’s representatives told students about the UN-designed Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) procedure for decisions concerning indigenous peoples’ rights, which the company has already applied for the resettlement and development of the Tukhard on the Taimyr Peninsula, as well as within consultations on the planned development of the Kolmozerskoye lithium deposit in the Murmansk region.

“Everyone noted that Nornickel was interested in building the potential of indigenous peoples, despite the fact that the company is well aware that these people may be their opponents in the future,” the school’s programme director, Alexey Tsykarev, said. 

Perhaps, the school’s graduates will be insistent in promoting their agenda in dialogue with the company, he noted. “But nevertheless, the company wants to communicate with legitimate representatives who are leaders of their communities on the ground. And it does everything for it,” Tsykarev said.