Forest fires create hell on earth: Yakutia

related to the recent post about the forest fires in Siberia, here I share some footage from local people. This is not official news, it's private people's videos, often shot from their phones. It shows close up how Sakha people struggle to save their land and their homes from the inferno - mostly in vein. …

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Arctic climate amplification and Siberia’s burning forests

Usually Arctic amplification is referred to as the reason why the Arctic is warming faster than the earth's average, as the Arctic's surface gets darker (due to less sea ice and snow), and the surface absorbs more heat.What we see currently in Siberia with the burning forests sheds yet another light on how this affects …

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Long live the tundra nomads!

Just found out from the local news that in the Novyi Urengoy hospital two Nenets elders survived covid-19 and recovered from pneumonia, at the age of more than 100 years! These elders are so tough! I have also had the honour of meeting quite many people over 100 years old in the tundra particularly during …

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Covid-19 arrived in the Yamal tundra

It was probably a matter of time, but I thought until today 'how great that the tundra is still free of infections'. The reindeer herders strategy of avoiding dangerous places had worked pretty well since March. Using flexibly nomadic movements to avoid dangerous places has been a strategy among the Nenets for centuries, which has …

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COVID-19 impacts in the Arctic: anthropological research gaps / ideas?

Dear all, I'm contributing to an expert document on the impacts of COVID-19 in the Arctic. I think it is essential that we highlight research gaps that we notice as anthropologists working in the Arctic. I would like to invite everybody to use the comment function here in this blog to highlight what anthropologists in …

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“CCC” – corona, climate change and conspiracy in the Yamal tundra

I have been doing fieldwork with Yamal Nenets reindeer herders for more than 20 years now, and have noticed this year a change in their perception of the changes happening around them, maybe partially reinforced by corona virus. Be it industrial expansion, the icing-over of pastures, outbreaks of diseases, methane holes in the tundra, the …

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WHO/ВОЗ

1st December: “World Aids Day” Всемирный день борьбы со СПИДом – ВИЧ и коренные народы Севера в России HIV and indigenous peoples in Russia

(English version see bеlow, after the end of the Russian text) В связи с этой датой хотелось бы обратить внимание на один аспект эпидемии ВИЧ-инфекции в России, который еще недостаточно изучен и мало известен широкой общественности.  Я и сам относительно недавно узнал о нем. Как показывают исследования у коренного населения Севера риск заразиться ВИЧ выше, …

Continue reading 1st December: “World Aids Day” Всемирный день борьбы со СПИДом – ВИЧ и коренные народы Севера в России HIV and indigenous peoples in Russia