Introduction
The digitisation, and sometimes unauthorised dissemination of cultural knowledge through the Internet challenges intellectual property rights. However, open access to knowledge is seen as a legitimate need of the global community and has become a prominent theme in recent debates within international science and cultural organisations. These pressing issues and controversial views had been discussed for the Russian and the circumpolar North at a conference at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle in 2002. In my key note presentation, I pointed out that contested property rights with regard to cultural heritage of indigenous people ask for new solutions of returning that knowledge or sharing it with the local communities where the data usually originated (Kasten 2004a).

Two possible solutions were put forward and have been partly realised since then; first, to provide local communities by means of the Internet easier access to scientific outcome, which are based on their particular cultural heritage; second, to set up the collected data in a digitised way that is in a form on of CD or DVD, so that it can be used effectively by local communities, for example in their educational programmes. So it can contribute to maintaining endangered local knowledge and to stimulate its enhancement. Through this parallel approach new information technologies are not viewed only as disseminating information at low costs, but also as efficient tools inlearning and increasing cognitive capacities (cf. Kasten 2004b).

Sharing scientific results with indigenous communities through the Internet
The website http://www.siberian-studies.org is dedicated to the presentation and dissemination of case studies about Siberia and the Russian North by social and cultural anthropologists. One special regional focus of this site is on Kamchatka. But Siberian studies are also placed into a wider circumpolar context. Because of historic and recent exchanges between Siberia and the people of Northern Europe and the American Pacific Northwest, the site includes corresponding themes relating to these people.

By providing electronic access to digitised publications on Siberia and the circumpolar North, the site enhances the dialogue within the scientific community. Beyond this, it aims in particular, at returning and sharing the outcome of ethnographic research to local communities where such activities are usually conducted in collaboration with native experts. Furthermore, in addition to the essays by international scholars, particular attention is given to publications by local and native authors. Beyond monographs, some of the edited volumes are the outcome of international conferences, while others resulted from local workshops and field projects in Kamchatka.

The electronic versions of books and essays cover a great variety of themes, which are seen as relevant in the current academic debate and which are felt as pressing by local people themselves. One of the main issues is post-Soviet socio-economic transformations and risks of jeopardising cultural diversity. Particular attention is given to the preservation of endangered cultural knowledge and to native languages and to the enhancement of art and craft traditions. Indigenous knowledge in sustainable nature use is another important theme, and how that knowledge could be best transmitted from the elders to the youth by specific educational programmes and learning tools.

“Spoiled beauty” Kamchatka peninsula

Situated in the Russian Far East, Kamchatka peninsula is touched by the Pacific ocean, the Bering and Okhotskoe seas. True to its title ‘the land of fire and ice’, Kamchatka is blessed with the beauty of diverse wildlife, 160 active and inactive volcanoes, more than 150 thermal springs, crater lakes, mountain glaciers, pristine nature and fascinating culture. Kamchatka was closed to foreigners and even to Russians for many decades because of its strategic location importance for Russia with a large presence of military establishment. Finally the doors opened later than 1991. With harsh climate and widerness, Kamchatka is very sparsely populated, averaging less than one person per square kilometer, and far away from modern ways of life. Most of the inhabitants live in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the largest city and regional capital. In the north of the peninsula, the indigenous people of Kamchatka, the Koryaks, the Itelmen, the Chukchies, and the Evens have maintained their traditional ways of life. The untouched beauty is deceptive as Kamchatka is fighting with environmental pollution. The peninsula is filled with toxic pollutants as substantial military presence has contaminated the landscape with heavy metals, radiation, and other pollutants. Many NGOs have now started working to improve the ecology to computer education for the children of Petropavlovsk. Source: http://www.kamchatkapeninsula.com