Adapting to climate change: Reindeer herders in arctic Russia

Different parts of the world are affected by warming temperatures in different ways, and adaptation of social and ecological systems varies with context. For some communities, such as the Arctic’s Nenet people , adaptability is already an engrained part of traditional life; the Nenets actually view industrial growth as a greater threat to their well-being.

Much can be learned, both from this region’s specific characteristics, and from the Nenets handling climate change effects without intervention; however, the threat to their way of life remains very real and its sustainability depends on the actions of a much larger community.

Feedback mechanisms

The indigenous Nenet reindeer herders, who maintain a nomadic lifestyle on Siberia’s Yamal peninsula, are experiencing directly the effects of higher temperatures: Warmer Julys in recent decades have favored woody shrub growth, with former tundra being transformed into a mosaic of 3-meter-tall, forest-type shrubs—tall enough that the Nenets’ reindeer become hidden from view.

“The shrub that used to be low and secluded becomes tree-sized and expands in other places. This creates a structurally different ecosystem,” explains Oxford University’s Marc Macias-Fauria. Snow easily blankets low vegetation, and produces a high albedo. But a patchy landscape with tall shrubs cannot be easily covered. With albedo thus reduced, more energy is transferred to the ecosystem, bringing with it early snow melt.

Arctic vegetation response to warming is not restricted to snow and sea ice-related amplification mechanisms. During the peak growing season, temperature is affected by large-scale continental air masses which are linked to the jet stream and Coriolis effect. In this way, wrote Macias-Fauria and his colleagues in Nature Climate Change, tundra vegetation is coupled to lower latitude climate.

Bruce Forbes of the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, argues that the Nenets thrive nonetheless because they have access to a wide range of habitats due to the “lack of fences, and ability for people to still move in a traditional manner.”

But the Nenets do not view climate change itself as the main threat to their existence, Forbes has found . While there are very real consequences of changing vegetation and extreme weather events, the Nenets downplay their importance, stressing instead the management of hydrocarbon development as their main concern.

Why the Nenets are keeping cool about environmental change

Small-scale, low-intensity disturbances from gas field development affect vegetation and permafrost soils well beyond the geographical extent of these features as shown on maps. The future resilience of indigenous people is increasingly threatened by both the expanding gas field infrastructure and ecosystem degradation. Indeed, remote sensing data analyzed by Timo Kumpula of University of Eastern Finland and his collaborators indicate that the Arctic as a whole is very susceptible to industrial impacts and climate change.

Western media often link climate change and resource extraction, citing retreating sea ice as a main driver for opening the Arctic for exploitation. But according to Forbes, there simply had not been “the will and market to develop in the post-Soviet slump.” Now that there is a market, the sea route through which the Russians transport oil and gas from Siberia, using their superior icebreaker capacity, will not require significant warming to increase the export capacity.

What is surprising, then, is that the Nenets are not opposed to hydrocarbon extraction. A project funded by the Finnish Academy of Sciences to study their resilience found an attitude allowing for mutual coexistence between the oil industry and the Nenet people.

“They’re patriotic people wanting Russia to succeed, too. They have been dealing with overlapping stresses for several decades and are still managing; they know it’s going ahead and they see benefits,” explains Forbes. But with an influx of workers, a time will soon come when the herders must be consulted.

A main effect of hydrocarbon extraction is the loss of hunting territory and contamination of freshwater; a main effect of Arctic warming is the increase of unusual weather patterns, which cause unpredictable conditions and changes in vegetation. These combined factors result in loss of territory essential for reindeer herding, and increased vulnerability of the nomadic people.

Elsewhere in the far north, herding structures have changed. The Sami , another indigenous people of northern Scandinavia, were forced by the state system into a non-traditional agricultural system based on settled communities. “People are very constrained by rules!” says Forbes. Using natural pastures to feed animals has become so difficult that herds can no longer be maintained in a traditional way. It is no longer profitable for the Sami to only herder reindeer; insetad, they sustain multiple forms of income per household.

And as long as Nenet children want to be herders, something has to change.