Tengri School of Spiritual Ecology
This initiative will protect the rights of indigenous Altaians to cultural self-determination and protection of their sacred sources of knowledge by engaging the population in inventorying and documenting cultural-historical heritage sites and protecting indigenous use of those sites.
When the initiative was under development, we conducted initial consultations on the theoretical possibility of undertaking this initiative to identify important areas for traditional culture and to establish limitation for their use (determining a specific rights holder controlling those restrictions). So, we initially surveyed local residents and collected information about the aforementioned sites and territories. There has been documentation of the process.
In 1995, Tengri School of Spiritual Ecology (Tengri) was created with the goal of reinvigorating traditional knowledge in Altai by means of a holistic system of activities and actions aimed at facilitating preservation, strengthening, and restoration of the interconnectivity of the people and the Sacred Land.
In 2001, relying on the UN Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and at Tengri’s initiative, Uch Enmek Nature Park was established in the Sacred Karakol Valley, a specially protected area designed to protect, preserve, and sustainably develop the natural and cultural Space in the Sacred Valley. This Nature Park was the first protected area in Russia to be established at the grassroots level from the bottom up according to the desire of the local population and a consciousness of their own cultural values, rather than top-down by the government based on the scientific values of its natural complexes.
