Voices of the Caribou People is a video-based project to document the knowledge of Indigenous People who traditionally have a close relationship with caribou (called wild reindeer in Russia). The project is being carried out in partnership with Indigenous Peoples of North America who subsist on caribou and identify themselves as "caribou people". Following are the main objectives of Voices project:
- Capture local perspectives on global changes; and their understanding of the impacts
- Document community strategies for coping with changes
- Share knowledge & information:
- test
-With other northern communities
-With researchers
-With greater public
- Take a snapshot of conditions during the IPY as a legacy for future researchers
The fieldwork was conducted to record people's observations of changes that are taking place on their homelands and life style, and how these changes are affecting their traditional culture. Elders, hunters, leaders, and youth were interviewed in each participating community.
Voices project brings indigenous perspectives about human-caribou relations to complement on-going ecological and biological research on caribou during the International Polar Year period (2007-2009). It is a work-in-progress. The video material will be used in three ways:
- All the 97 interviews to be made available in public domain via internet for educational and awareness purpose
- A short-film on each of the participating community
- A consolidated documentary to capture IPY (2007-8) conditions
