Siberia

The Nenet people of the Yamal peninsula are nomadic reindeer herders who live within the Arctic circle on the northern coast of Siberia. In summer they graze their herds on the tundra of the peninsula, and in winter as the ground freezes they move south to milder parts of the Siberian steppes. They use the frozen surface of the landscape to cross the numerous freshwater lakes and marshes of the peninsula, which in summer they catch fish in. But things are changing. The Arctic is the most sensitive area of the planet to climate change. While global average temperature has risen by around 0.8 degrees, some parts of Siberia have warmed by as much as 5 or 6. And so the Nenet have noticed the ground is freezing later and later in the year – and in some places, not freezing at all. The reindeer herders have to wait longer and longer before they can move their animals south across frozen ground.

Here, on the frontiers of the world, the warming of Siberia is already threatening a way of life that has remained fairly constant for thousands of years. It’s not only that the Nenet have to move later in the year - many of the freshwater lakes that dot the landscape are leaking away as the frozen walls of earth that contain the water melt, and collapse. And so the Nenet are also losing the fishing that provides one of their main sources of food.

See the rest of this amazing article here.