Do Reindeer believe in Climate Change?
My long-suffering wife is getting weary of holidays where the hottest part of the day is minus 30 degrees, the loo consists of a hole in six feet of snow with a shovel and a wash comes from baby wipes and clothes are never removed. Can’t understand the problem personally…
But every adventure to meet an indigenous tribe living a traditional way of life is an opportunity to ask: do you believe in climate change? Typically they have no idea what I am talking about. But when asked if the weather has changed in recent years, it all makes sense. These communities normally have a well-established oral tradition – they remember history or key events through story-telling, which is an important part of their lives.
Two weeks ago, it was the turn of the Nenet to shed light on this topic. 10,000 nomadic reindeer herders in Siberia live almost as they have done for centuries. Reindeer are key to their way of life just as buffalo were to North American Indians. They provide clothes against the bitter cold; their hides make the “chums” (like a tepee which needs over 140 hides to stay warm); reindeer meat is part of every meal; antlers and hooves are sold to the Chinese (see last week’s blog); they represent money, wealth and status. It is considered extremely rude to ask how many reindeer some-one has, rather like asking a Brit how much money they have, but everyone knows. There would be no Nenet without reindeer.
The Nenet spend their whole lives migrating – moving the herd to different pastures where they can eat lichen. For centuries, the reindeer follow essentially the same path each year. The key decision for the chief of a clan is when to make camp and when the food has been exhausted and it is time to move the herd on. This is a serious topic for almost daily discussion as they check on their herd.
But they told me that the weather has been changing making such decisions more difficult. The Summer is getting hotter – it can reach 30 degrees in June – bringing with it more mosquitos than before which reindeer hate. The frozen rivers are melting earlier making walking more hazardous. Spring comes several weeks earlier than in the past. More worryingly, the Autumn now brings mixed weather which severely affects migration.
In hushed voices, they relayed the story of a highly respected family who had built up a herd of 2,000 reindeer. Bearing in mind that the Nenet recognise each individual reindeer as though they are family, this is a life-time’s achievement and is the equivalent of being a billionaire in Nenet society. Such a large herd needs careful grazing. Ten years ago, the head of the family moved them to the regular part of the tundra to fresh lichen. This September, it was warmer than normal and instead of snow it rained instead and then the temperatures dropped. The water turned to ice and froze, which meant that the reindeer could see but not eat the lichen beneath. The whole herd of 2,000 died.
Grief stricken beyond imagination, the father killed his whole family and himself. A family of 14 children is not unusual. Climate change kills.
I cannot end a blog on such a sad note. Unlike the Inuit where suicide rates are high (see earlier blog), the Nenet are happy and enjoy their way of life; suicide is extremely rare. They are also very hospitable and their culture demands that anyone is offered a reindeer hide to sleep on in a chum – you would not last long outside – and also food. They also play and have fun.
A family of Nenet arrived at “our” chum for Easter and told us this story. Before leaving, the head man Anatoli offered to give us a display of some of their traditional manly displays including tug of war and wrestling. It was late at night, gone 10 pm and it was at least minus forty. The Nenet are quite short (say five foot six) and are lean and light, the heaviest proudly announced he weighed 75 kilos (I lifted him up to check). Standing at over six foot and over 100 kilos, I decided to take him on at wrestling … pretty confident…
I lost.