by Ed Struzik, from Environment 360

In late July, a group of Inuit hunters set off by boat along the west coast of Banks Island to search for Peary caribou, which inhabit the Arctic archipelago of Canada. Roger Kuptana, a 62-year-old Inuit who had grown up on the island, didn’t give his fellow hunters much chance of success in their hunt for the animals, the smallest caribou sub-species in North America.

“I think it’s a waste of gas,” Kuptana told me when I visited his modest home in Sachs Harbour, a traditional community of roughly 100 people on the island, not far from the Yukon-Alaska border. “There used to be a lot of caribou around here when I grew up. But now you have to travel pretty far north to find them on the island. It’s not just here. It seems like this happening everywhere.”

As it turned out, Kuptana was right; the Inuit hunters found no Peary caribou, despite three days of searching. The hunters’ predicament is familiar to the Eskimos of Alaska, other Inuit of Canada and Greenland, and the Nenets, Komi, Evenks, Chukotkans, and indigenous groups of northern Russia and Scandinavia. Throughout the Arctic, many of the great caribou and reindeer herds that once roamed the treeless tundra, providing an indispensible source of meat and clothing for aboriginal groups, are in free-fall.

Thirty-four of the 43 major herds that scientists have studied worldwide in the last decade are in decline, with caribou numbers plunging 57 percent from their historical peaks. Some populations have fallen precipitously: The Bathurst herd in Canada’s central Arctic has plummeted from a peak of 472,000 in 1986 to 32,000 today — a drop of 93 percent.

According to scientists, the causes of the global caribou decline are straightforward: rapidly rising Arctic temperatures are throwing caribou out of sync with the environment in which they evolved; oil and gas development, mining, logging, and hydropower projects in the Far North are impinging on the caribou’s range; and, though not a major factor, hunting is further depleting already beleaguered caribou populations.

In the 1.6 million years that caribou have roamed the northern hemisphere, their populations have risen and fallen with cycles of glaciation and deglaciation. In more recent millennia, populations have ebbed and flowed on a regional basis. But what concerns many caribou experts now is the rapid, global decline of caribou and reindeer (reindeer is the Old World name for the caribou, Rangifer tarandus) in the face of precipitous warming.

Two caribou experts from the University of Alberta, Liv Vors and Mark Boyce, have done extensive research showing that a host of factors related to warming are taking a heavy toll on caribou populations, which they say now “hover on the precipice of major decline.” These factors range from a growing incidence of extreme weather and ice storms, which prevent caribou from reaching lichen and other vegetation under the ice, to a significant increase in mosquitoes and flies, which torment the animals and prevent them from foraging and gaining the body mass needed to successfully reproduce.

Peary caribou have been particularly hard hit by weather-related events. Back in 1961, when the first aerial survey of the Arctic islands was done, biologists estimated Peary caribou numbers to be 24,000. Since then, at

least two catastrophic freeze-ups that were caused by early fall ice storms and rains and early, short-lived spring thaws resulted in more than 90 percent of the animals starving to death because they could not punch through the ice to get to food. Peary caribou populations have fallen today to about 2,000 animals. Scientists in the far-northern Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard told me earlier this spring that they are seeing the same kind of icing take a toll on reindeer in that region.

While there is evidence to suggest that these severe icings have happened in the past, there are also signs that they are likely to occur more often in the future. In recent decades, the Arctic has been heating up twice as fast as the rest of the northern hemisphere — with temperatures routinely rising by 4 to 5 degrees F — making fall rains, early thaws, and severe icing events increasingly common.

Both caribou and reindeer are better adapted to cold than they are to warmer, moister weather. In cold, dry winters there is less snow to slow them down and sap their energy while they’re on the move or being chased by wolves. Less snow, especially if it is not icy and hard-packed, also makes it easier for them to dig down to the vegetation they need in order to get them through to the summer months.

But the icing problem is only one of a host of warming-related effects now plaguing caribou. In a paper published last year in Global Change Biology, Vors and Boyce detailed these impacts. As spring arrives earlier and earlier, “the flush of highly nutritious plant growth” has advanced. Yet caribou reproduction and calving are not occurring earlier, meaning the calves are born past the peak of prime forage availability.

In addition, the lichen and other tundra plants favored by caribou are gradually being replaced by shrubs and trees that are advancing northward as the Arctic warms. Vladislav Nuvano, an expert on the history of reindeer herding in Chukotka, in the Russian Far East, told me recently that reindeer herders there are seeing woody shrubs expand at the expense of lichens and other reindeer food.

Vors and Boyce also reported that rising temperatures have led to an increase in mosquitoes and flies, whose harassment of caribou interferes with their ability to forage and ultimately means that the animals gain less weight. One study in southern Norway showed that rather than increasing foraging times to compensate for harrying by insects, the animals lost body

mass, which makes it harder for the calves to survive the winter and for adults to successfully reproduce.

As other, more southerly animals, such as deer, move north as the Arctic warms, they invade caribou territory, bringing with them disease, such as the meningeal brain worm, according to Vors and Boyce. The worm does not harm deer, but kills caribou. In addition, as moose arrive from the south, wolf packs follow them, and while the much-larger moose are more successful at fending off wolves, caribou succumb more easily to the predators.

Komi reindeer herders along the Kola Peninsula in Arctic Russia are already complaining that their animals are losing 20 percent of their weight by the time they take them to slaughter. Not only is heavy snow making it more difficult to move the animals, warmer temperatures are delaying the winter round-up by up to two months because the lakes the herders need to cross are not freezing over as fast as they once did.

The other major threat to global caribou populations is industrial encroachment — the roads, pipelines, drilling platforms, mines, dams, and other human development that is shrinking the size and quality of the habitat these animals can move to when they become stressed by climate changes and overhunting.

In northern Canada, French mining giant Areva is proposing a $1.5 billion uranium mine near the calving grounds of the Beverly caribou herd, located in Nunavut Territory. That herd’s numbers have fluctuated considerably in recent decades, going from an estimated 210,00 in 1971 to 110,000 in 1980, to 286,000 in 1994. Aerial surveys done in the past several years show a steep drop in both the number of cows and calves, indicating that the herd now contains far fewer animals than in the mid-1990s.

The Canadian government is backing the Areva project, which will include four open pit mines, one underground mine, and the construction of roads

and bridges. The project promises to create 400 jobs, many of which will go to the chronically underemployed Inuit in the region. But indigenous hunters oppose the mine, saying it could seal the fate of the Beverly caribou herd and create a precedent that will endanger other herds in the Canadian tundra. Half of the world’s caribou populations live in Canada’s Far North, which also contains most of the world’s uranium.

Farther south in Canada, logging and other human activities have led to a steady decline in numbers of woodland and mountain caribou. Yet, according to University of Montana caribou expert Mark Hebblewhite, Environment Canada has dragged its feet for years on creating reserves and migration corridors for these caribou sub-species.

Across the Arctic, development — sometimes aided by warming that is increasingly opening up the once ice-covered Arctic Ocean — threatens caribou and reindeer. In the central region of the Russian Arctic, the reindeer-herding Evenks have been struggling to stop a $13 billion hydroelectric development that will flood an area ten times the size of New York City.

In Greenland, a 22-mile access road that was built in 2000 between the Kangerlussuaq airport and the Greenland Ice Cap has already caused a major habitat alteration for the Kangerlussuaq-Sisimiut herd. The road, which provides year-round access to tourists, day-trippers, and hunters, traverses what was once sensitive habitat for the herd during the calving and post-calving periods. Now, ALCOA, the world’s largest producer of aluminum, wants to build a giant smelter in the region, along with several hydro dams to power it.

Anne Gunn, a former biologist with the government of the Northwest Territories and now a scientific consultant, is concerned that the whittling away of caribou habitat is occurring just as the animals are feeling the effects of global warming. Unlike some scientists, Gunn, who has more than 30 years of field experience, believes caribou can adapt to the climate changes occurring now. She is most concerned that very little is being done to protect critical caribou habitat, especially the critical calving grounds and migration corridors. Of 24 large caribou herds being tracked by CARMA — the Circumpolar Rangifer Monitoring and Assessment Network — only the calving grounds of the Porcupine and Bluenose West herds are fully or largely protected.

“For caribou it is all about ‘space’ — their perceptions of what space they need, including the space needed to distance themselves from us,” said Gunn. “Climate change and overhunting are very serious factors that need to be addressed. But unless we give caribou the space they need, I’m afraid we’re going to see these declines continue.”

(Source: BarentsObserver) Russian energy major Gazprom will postpone the launch of the Bovanenkovo field in Yamal until 2012, a high-ranking company representative confirmed today.

Aleksandr Ananenkov, Deputy Chairman of the company’s Management Committee today said that the launch of the field will be postponed from 2011 as originally planned to 2012. The reason is the company’s need to save costs, RIA Novosti reports.

The postponement is a blow to Gazprom, which has the Yamal development among its top priority projects. The company has on numerous occasions stressed that it will not postpone neither the Yamal development, nor the Shtokman project in the Barents Sea

The postponement comes as Gazprom is losing big money on the international economic downturn. As BarentsObserver reported this week, Gazprom’s exports to the EU the first quarter of the year shrunk as much as 35 percent year-on-year. The company’s revenues have dropped similarly.

The Bovanenkovo field is with its estimated 4,9 trillion cubic meters of gas the biggest of the fields in the Yamal Peninsula.

В минувшую субботу в Нельмином Носе отмечали самобытный праздник День Ворона, символизирующий обновление природы. Жители Малоземельской «столицы» в очередной раз собрались на Тундровом шару, где помимо снегоходных ралли, которые по сложившейся традиции вошли в программу сельского праздника, зрителей привлекает возможность увидеть заезды на оленьих упряжках, людей, облаченных в удивительные ненецкие паницы…

К встрече Варнэ на речной протоке развернули традиционные жилища ненцев – чумы, трудолюбивые и приветливые хозяйки которых с раннего утра готовили для гостей национальные блюда. И следуя древней традиции, в гостеприимстве никому не отказывали. Как и в прошлом году, здесь была установлена сценическая площадка, где в перерывах между заездами проходили выступления ненецкого ансамбля «Маймбава».

Зрителей собралось предостаточно, на праздник к сельчанам приехали горожане, гости из других поселков, ведь посмотреть было на что.

Самыми зрелищными и массовыми стали, конечно же, гонки на снегоходах. К ним допус-кались все жители Нельмина Носа, в том числе и временно зарегистрированные. Предусмотрен был и заезд чемпионов округа прошлых лет. Они выступали на трассе отдельно.

Итак, первыми стартовали мужчины. У них соревнования проходили в пять этапов: два отборочных заезда, столько же полуфинальных и финальный. На сей раз испытать себя и технику отважился 21 человек, восемь из них попали в финал. В каждом заезде мужчинам предстояло пройти по три круга, протяженность каждого составляла полтора километра. По мнению главы муниципалитета Михаила Талеева, инициатора и вдохновителя сельского праздника, трасса оказалась даже сложнее, чем в Нарьян-Маре: больше крутых поворотов и ухабов.

В финальной встрече мужчины боролись за один главный приз – снегоход «Буран», который был предоставлен одним из многочисленных спонсоров – крпорацией «ConocoPhillips Russia Inc.». Евгению Ардееву повезло больше всех: именно он стал обладателем новой техники. Серебряным призером судьи признали Леонида Вокуева, а на третьем месте в этот раз оказался Александр Лагейский. Примечательно, что в прошлом году Александр выступил удачнее и завоевал титул чемпиона среди гонщиков.

Женщины в мастерстве и азарте также не уступали мужчинам. Всего на старт их вышло четырнадцать. У них гонки проводились в один этап. Чемпионкой нынешнего состязания стала Любовь Ледкова – ее наградили двигателем к снегоходу «Буран». Второй к финишу пришла Валерия Копеева, ну а бронзовым призером стала Диана Ардеева.

Заезд среди сильнейших спортсменов НАО по мотокроссу выиграл Валерий Ижемцев из Красного, второе место занял макаровец Александр Хаймин, бронзовым призером стал Семен Явтысый из Нельмина Носа.

Традиционными для национальных поселков становятся гонки на оленьих упряжках. К сожалению, на сегодняшний день в Нельмином Носе почти нет оленеводов, работающих в СПК имени Выучейского. По этой причине все участники нынешних гонок являются членами семейно-родовых общин Малоземельской тундры: «Сенга», «Табседа», «Обседа», «Варк», «Нерута», «Илебц».

Заявки на участие в соревнованиях подали 14 мужчин и 6 женщин. Упряжки, подготовленные мужчинами, прошли заданную трассу без особых сложностей, а вот у женщин до финиша добрались только две, остальным гонщицам пришлось сойти с трассы: либо олени пугались проезжавших мимо снегоходов, либо не было достаточного опыта управления.

Среди мужчин победу одержал Федор Выучейский, второй финишировала упряжка Михаила Талеева, а третье место присудили Николаю Талееву. Чемпионкой в женском заезде стала Ольга Явтысая. Ее соперница Людмила Выучейская заняла второе место.

In March  the village of Batagay-Alyta in the Verhoyanskogo region, Sakha (Yakutia)  will host a regional competition «Nomadic family-2009», which is open to families with children under 16 years old,who  lead a nomadic life, and are engaged in reindeer herding. (More english below)

Конкурс проводится Комитетом по делам семьи и детства при Президенте РС(Я) совместно с Министерством сельского хозяйства РС(Я), Департаментом по делам народов и федеративным отношениям РС(Я), Министерством культуры и духовного развития РС(Я), администрацией МР «Эвено-Бытантайский национальный улус (район)», Госкомитетом по физической культуре и спорту. Мероприятие пройдет в рамках региональных Игр народов Севера, посвященных 20–летию Эвено-Бытантайского национального района РС(Я).

Как сообщили корреспонденту ИА SakhaNews в Комитете по делам семьи и детства при Президенте РС(Я), конкурс пройдет в четыре этапа: оленьи гонки; выставка мужской, женской и детской национальной одежды, изделий прикладного творчества из меха, ровдуги, сделанных руками членов семьи; визитная карточка; конкурс детского творчества. Прием заявок производится до 1 марта.
According to Sakha News, the contest will be held in four phases: reindeer racing, exhibition of men’s, women’s and national children’s clothing, items of applied art from fur and skin made by the hands of family members; business cards, and a  children’s art contest. The contest is organised by various ministeries of the Government of Sakha (Yakutia) and the Presidents office.

Source – Источник

The Maksimovs, who live in the reindeer-breeding village of Iengra in the south of Yakutia, have handed to the President presents from the craftswomen of the village, and a symbol of power – a type of board with carved symbols.

However the most important gift waits for Medvedev in Maksimovs’s native village. It’s a reindeer, a symbol of happiness and prosperity of the Evenki people. The animal will live in the Yakutian village until its owner arrives personally to take it away.

There are 15 people in the Maksimov family. The head of the family, hunter Vladimir, his wife Olga, their five children, three grandsons, two nephews and three daughters-in-law.

It’s not the first time a Russian president has been given an animal. Earlier on his 43rd birthday Dmitry Medvedev was given two dogs, one for him and one for his son. In addition, he has an aquarium with goldfish – also a birthday gift.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin during his presidency was given thoroughbred horses, falcons, dogs… more than enough to build a small zoo.

Putin already has a tiger from Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbaev. The King of Jordan sent Vladimir Putin three thoroughbred Arabian racers; the head of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf sent him two such horses, and a horse nicknamed ‘Gulsary’ was presented to Putin in Kyrgyzstan. At the opening ceremony of the International horse-racing complex “Kazan” Vladimir Putin and the President of Tatarstan were presented the smallest horses in the world. Mini-horses are even smaller than ponies, and they are very rare.

The most exotic gift received by Vladimir Putin was in 2002 on the day of his fiftieth birthday. The president of Moldova Vladimir Voronin brought him a live crocodile. Putin also received a white goat – a present from the Mayor of Moscow Yury Luzhkov. One of Putin’s favorite pets is his Labrador Kony, given to him by the Minister of Emergencies Sergey Shoigu.

(As of yet, no news as to whether Medvedev intends to take up reindeer herding as a second job)

While Kamzakin speaks of snowmobiles received from oil companies in return for access to pastures, he also alludes to the damage that is being done to the ecology of the region as a result of their activities. Watch the clip here.

Suicide rates among northern peoples are also higher that the national average, and higher than comparable rates for indigenous peoples in other countries. The WHO rates 20 suicide cases per 100,000 and above as being ‘critical’. In Russia, it is approximately 38 cases per 100,000 while the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Region and Koryak have some of the highest rates in the world: 133.6 cases per 100 thousand population.

О критической ситуации в Заполярье в конце прошлой недели на заседании комиссии Общественной палаты по здравоохранению рассказал руководитель лаборатории прогнозирования качества окружающей среды и здоровья населения Института народно-хозяйственного прогнозирования РАН Борис Ревич. Профессор Ревич является соавтором проведенного межправительственной комиссией исследования, посвященного влиянию изменения климата на состояние здоровья населения Севера. Работа была профинансирована российским представительством ООН и в прошлом году получила Нобелевскую премию.

Source: Gazeta.ru, WindowonEurasia, MariUver

«Я не вижу альтернативы ЯНАО, который дает 87% российского и 20% мирового газа, и на 50 лет вперед Ямал будет определять развитие газовой промышленности, как нашей страны, так и мира в целом»

Just in case you were in any doubt that Gazprom, its affiliates and other Russian oil and gas folks are prioritising the Yamal Peninsula, home to the largest area of nomadic reindeer husbandry in the world, the Head of the Union of Russian Oil and Gas Industrialists, Gennady Shmal, said recently that the Yamal Peninsula will be a vital key for the development of the world’s gas industry over the next 50 years.

Rosbalt Nord, Barents Observer

“I do not see any alternatives to the Yamal-Nenets Autononous Okrug, which gives 87 percent of Russia’s gas and 20 percent of the world’s gas”

According to regional predictions, by 2012, a total of 638,6 billion cubic meters of gas will be produced in the region, much of which will be from the mighty Bovanenkovo field. Gazprom is about to install the first three rigs at its huge Bovanenkovo field in the Yamal Peninsula, with a total of nine rigs ready when production starts in late 2011. However, it is not all full steam ahead – the Yuzhno-Tambeyskoe gas field  in the Yamal Peninsula will not now be started until 2024, Gazprom says, likely a disappointment to Shell and ENI, which both seek stakes in the project.

President Medvedev with Chukchi Herders outside their Yaranga. Photo: Anatoly Zhdanov

This week, President Dmitry Medvedev became the first Russian President in history to visit Chukotka. Accompanied by current Governor Kopin and former Governor Roman Abramovich, Medvedev also visited Kanchalan (site of EALAT Information workshop earlier this year) and a brigade on the tundra.

Komsomolskaya Pravda had an article about the visit by Yelena Kriyakina – reproduced below.

Yesterday was an unusual day for President Dmitriy Medvedev. He became the first president in Russia’s history to visit Chukotka. Medvedev headed to the northern corner of the Far East to attend a regional development conference. Early on in his trip, Medvedev visited the Kanchalan village 70 kilometers outside Chukotka’s capital, Anadyr. Kanchalan was a pleasant sight for the Moscow delegation with its various brightly colored homes and clean air and streets.

Present and past Chukotka governors Roman Kopin and Roman Abramovich accompanied President Medvedev during his visit. The president was observant and attentive, standing an arm’s length from the two regional politicians with his hands in his jeans pockets. Medvedev came away from the visit convinced Chukotka residents don’t live that badly after all. One family he visited, the Bukashkeevs, even had two computers. Both belonged to the children. Medvedev reminded the kids not to get too caught up in games and to continue studying astutely. He then boarded a helicopter and headed to the Tundra to get a look at how Russia’s indigenous nomads live today. The aboriginal peoples met Medvedev beating shaman drums.

“Hello!” Medvedev said.

“Hello! We’re glad you’ve come to visit us,” they replied.

At that moment, a small child resting in his mother’s arms reached out to Medvedev. The president touched his nose lovingly. A local resident shouted: “He‘s saluting you!” Medvedev then entered the hut nearby. A pile of smoke rose from within.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Reindeer intestines,” the owners answered. “They‘re frying.”

When he left , a thermos of hot tea and reindeer meat awaited him. Medvedev tried the local cuisine and asked about meat: “I hope this is reindeer?” The local residents said it was, after which he replied: “I also have presents for you all! Candy from Moscow.”

Medvedev’s assistants began unloading heavy brown trunks of candy. The children grabbed as much as they could.

Later, the president decided to take a peek at the herd of reindeer nearby.

“So, maybe we should go over to the reindeer?” Medvedev asked Arkadiy Makushkin, director of the Kanchalanskiy farm. But the latter didn’t want the president to have to drudge through the wet mud and said: “Ah, they’ll come over themselves!” After a few moments, though, he saw the president was short for time and the reindeer weren’t rushing over to meet the delegation.

“Well, if it’s not too complicated, let’s go over ourselves?!” he asked.

“Of course!” Medvedev said and walked over.

The security service began worrying slightly. “Who knows what these reindeers might be up to?” they thought.

Abramovich calmed the agents down immediately. “They won’t do anything,” he said. “They’re afraid themselves.”

Medvedev had already walked close enough to the herd to take in the impressive view: 3,400 reindeer walked attentively in circles in front of him. But as the president still had to attend the Chukotka development conference, he bid the local residents farewell and headed to the helicopter. They wished Medvedev good health and success, asked him to visit again and shouted: “Russia! Medvedev! Chukotka!”

The conference began at 20:30, Chukotka time — only 11:30 in the morning in Moscow.

“A Chukotka good evening and a Moscow good morning to you!” Medvedev said, greeting the participants of the conference. He quickly got to the point. “The government’s main aim is to provide local residents with normal conditions for subsistence.”

Medvedev said the quality of life had drastically improved in the region in recent years. However, he said, the infant death rate still exceeds the national average. Residents are continuing to leave the region and problems with energy and transport persist. He added that Chukotka has the potential to become a tourist center and play a role in effectively assimilating the Artic.

The president told ministers and department heads to get busy with the Far East and spend more time in the region to avoid a strategic conference later.

“You need to get going!” Medvedev told the officials. The Chukotka conference was the first in a series of regional conferences in the Far East. Today, the president will visit Magadan. On Thursday, he will arrive to Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy.

Regional Development  Minister Dmitriy Kozak said a plan to advance Russia’s smaller native peoples, and a strategy for developing the Far East and Baykal region will be ready by the year’s end.

More: ITAR-TASS.