Personal Stories: Dr. Erich Kasten

In Personal Stories, we ask people the following two questions:

1. What specific changes have you observed in the Polar Regions or your environment, and what impacts do these changes have?

In recent years, my work has focused less on direct field observation and more on long-term reflection, based on earlier collaborations with indigenous communities in Siberia. What stands out most clearly to me is not only environmental change, but the cultural transformations that are underway – especially the loss of indigenous languages, oral traditions, and locally rooted knowledge systems.

Much of the traditional environmental knowledge – how to navigate the land, predict seasonal changes, or maintain sustainable practices – has been passed down through language and lived experience. When language is lost, that knowledge often disappears with it.

The Foundation for Siberian Cultures supports community-driven efforts to preserve indigenous ecological knowledge. We publish materials that address these themes from multiple angles: cultural anthropology, oral history documentation of human-nature relations, and education. In our volume A Fractured North, we are also reflecting on current political restrictions that may prevent us from continuing these efforts successfully.

2. What personally motivates you to protect polar regions? What advice would you give to others?

What drives me is a deep respect for the cultural richness and resilience of northern communities. Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to collaborate with people who generously shared their knowledge, concerns, and ideas. That experience has left a lasting impression on how I see the world – and on what I believe that all of us should value.

The polar regions are often seen only through the lens of climate and resource issues. But we must also look at what is happening culturally: the erosion of language diversity, the weakening of intergenerational knowledge transmission, and the struggle to maintain identity in changing political and economic conditions.

At the Foundation for Siberian Cultures, we work to create platforms where these perspectives can be heard – through research, exhibitions, publications, and educational programs, most of them open access and on the Foundation’s websites. We don’t see ourselves as protecting something from the outside, but as contributing to a broader effort to keep cultural knowledge sustained and valued.

My advice? Take a step beyond the statistics. Get to know the human stories behind the headlines. And understand that cultural diversity – especially in the Arctic – isn’t just heritage; it’s part of the solution to living sustainably in a complex world.