In this report, a case of small management organization obshchina run by indigenous families and relatives in Sakha Republic, Russian Federation, is focused and its activity and challenges are indicated. Since 20th century, domestic reindeer numbers in USSR/Russia have been fluctuated drastically. After foundation of socialist regime, transformation of reindeer herds into public ownership was started in the early 1930s, and many domestic reindeer were lost in this process. Then despite some unfortunate accidents domestic reindeer number was increasing generally. From 1960s to 1990 domestic reindeer number became at the maximum, then in the 1990s and 2000s after Soviet regime collapsed, it was decreased dramatically. The obshchina system was put in operation in this period, as one of the successors of kolkhoz and sovkhoz. In most cases the system is a small scale management organization based on indigenous families and relatives. In 1998 P-obshchina was established to manage reindeer herding in eastern district of Sakha republic. It was distributed domestic reindeer from agricultural production cooperative T, which is a successor of former sovkhoz in the district. Since the T cooperative did not wholly admit P-obshchina’s use of pasture, hunting and fishing territory, trouble of land use happened between them and it has lasted for more than 10 years. In that period the P-obshchina continued reindeer herding in the area, however finally it decided to shift its subsistence activities to another area. Like this, many of regional administrations’ attempts to transform collective farms to obshchinas are in trouble. It is difficult for obshchinas to get agreement for land use from former land occupiers. On the other hand many of obshchinas are established for another aim different from original purpose, such as to obtain land use right. In spite of these problems part of indigenous peoples seem to manage the obshchina system.
