Uilta. Surrounding society and the main economic activity of the region of residence

Oil production in the northeast of Sakhalin was launched in the 1920s. This sector has greatly influenced Sakhalin’s economy in general and resulted in an increase of new arrivals (some of them were integrated into the island’s permanent population). The Nogliki and Okha administrative districts were established. In the 1960s–1980s, the island’s indigenous peoples, including the Uilta, found themselves being exposed to much greater social influence of the interethnic environment: Tatiana P. Roon writes that large ethnically mixed settlements housing the staff of oil and gas facilities appeared right next to indigenous villages. Newly established collective farms and state-owned farms naturally changed the traditional system of the Uilta’s fishing and reindeer herding, and their hunting ways also suffered.

Major socioeconomic changes took place in Sakhalin in the 1990s: the arrival of transnational corporations resulted in rising housing prices, hotel prices, and food prices.

In connection with launching their projects, the companies first attempted to study the social aspects of the Sakhalin region and specifically of indigenous peoples (including the Uilta). The Sakhalin 2 project developed a special program to address Sakhalin’s indigenous communities. In 2001–2004, they studied the project’s effect on the indigenous peoples’ lifestyle; the study was done in 2001-2004. Tatiana P. Roon who took part in the study notes that mapping of the use of environmental resources showed that most residents and clan enterprises in the Nogliki district fished in bays and rivers, in the rivers’ estuaries, far away from construction sites and pipelines. Local residents’ worries that their fishing situation would deteriorate owing to oil companies’ operations largely stemmed from psychological factors. However, effect on reindeer herding (the Northern Uilta) proved to be significant: reindeer herders traditionally use spring and summer pastures along the Piltun, Astokh, and Chaivo bays and the rivers and streams that flow into them. Those were precisely the sites for the project’s facilities. Tatiana P. Roon estimated that about 10% of spring pastures were no longer available to reindeer herders. Compensations paid by the project’s operators into the district treasury had shrunk by the time they tricked down to reindeer herders. Companies appointed representatives to the village of Val and to the urban-type settlement of Nogliki in order to promptly respond to criticisms from local residents, particularly indigenous peoples. Sakhalinskaya Energia (Sakhalin Energy prior to 2022) has been working with indigenous peoples since 2006 using Russia’s most progressive strategy, The Plan for Promoting Development of Indigenous Peoples in the North of the Sakhalin Region (four Plans were signed with the Regional Council of Authorized Representatives of Indigenous Small-Numbered Peoples of the Sakhalin Region and the Government of the Sakhalin Region). Since 2006, over 650 projects supporting traditional occupations and social development were implemented; these projects had been proposed and approved by representatives of indigenous peoples and their organizations. Natalya I. Novikova compared industrial companies’ policies toward indigenous peoples in the Russian Federation and noted that the Plan for Promoting Development of Indigenous Peoples compares favorably to similar policies in that it is geared toward the development of indigenous peoples. Implemented projects funded equipment purchases, developing pastures, and fitting out hunting areas; additionally, indigenous population gains both funding for their projects and managing experience and other skills needed today.