Tero Mustonen
Snowchange Cooperative
Dr. Tero Mustonen, a passionate defender of traditional worldview and cosmology of his people, is a Finn and head of the village of Selkie in North Karelia, Finland. He has worked as the traditional knowledge coordinator for Eurasia for the Arctic Biodiversity Assessment. Professionally, he works for the award-winning Snowchange Cooperative, which is a non-profit organization based in Finland with members across the Arctic, including the communities of Eastern Sámi, Chukchi, Yukaghir, Sakha, Evenk, Even, Inuit, Inuvialuit, Gwitchin and many more. Mustonen is well-known scholar of Arctic biodiversity, climate change and indigenous issues, having published over a dozen publications on the topics including the ground-breaking Eastern Sámi Atlas and Snowscapes, Dreamscapes. He lives in the middle of the last old-growth forest in Selkie with his wife, Kaisu, two goats and 10 chickens without running water. He is a winter seiner. Mustonen has won several human rights and environmental awards for the work with Snowchange and indigenous peoples of the Arctic. He is also an adopted full status member of the Kwakwakwala First Nation based in British Columbia, Canada.