Hunting, fishing, nature and gathering, a dependent Russian republic
From Dolgans to Evenks, Yakuts and even the descendants of 19th-century Russians, the Sakha region is still very rural and relies on natural resources for its food and livelihood.
Yakut carp, wild ducks and blueberries… local populations in the relatively isolated republic of Sakha rely on food extracted from nature to subsist. “We asked ourselves what kind of food extracted from nature they consume, and what share of the household economy this food represents,” Jorge García Molinos, an ecologist at Hokkaido University’s Arctic Research Center, tells Polar Journal AG. He led a study, the results of which were published in PNAS Nexus last December, according to which the inhabitants of this region are 9% dependent on plants, mushrooms and animals – gathered, hunted or fished in the wild. This dependence is strongest in the most isolated places and in the Arctic, where populations need game and fish.
Tuyara Gavrilyeva, a professor at the Institute of Engineering and Technology at the Northeast University of the Russian Federation, visited 18 villages in the region with a team of Russian researchers. They gathered information on the eating habits and incomes of 400 households. The Evenk community in the Arctic village of Kharyalakh was the most traditional in the study. According to the results, a quarter of these households hunt wild reindeer in addition to reindeer herding, in areas of forest and tundra.
Further south, the Yakuts of the village of Rassoloda are still involved in traditional horse and cow breeding. “Although this village is outside the Arctic region, it’s very cold. People live to the rhythm of the seasons, foraging for fodder, gathering mushrooms and berries,” explains Dariya Nikolaeva, a doctorate in anthropology who lived in and then visited the region during a French archaeological mission. “In May and September, it’s duck hunting, and there’s also a season for hares, etc.” Game birds are sought after throughout the Sakha Republic, just as fishing is practiced in the vast majority of households, whether in rivers, lakes or the sea.
But when we look at the proportions, Kharyalakh residents rely three times more on hunting, fishing and gathering than Rassoloda residents. “These results probably reflect regional differences in transport infrastructure and access to manufactured goods and services, as well as the traditions and practices of indigenous communities,” explain the study’s authors.
The villages we visited are home to between 400 and 2,300 inhabitants. “They can be described as city-type villages,” says Dariya Nikolaeva. “This means that there may be a collective heating system in some quarters, a school, a feldsher-midwife station or a cultural or administrative center. However, they often live without running water and sanitation. In the Arctic, electricity is produced by a generator that operates in time slots.”
Memory of Dolganes
Yann Borjon-Privé is an anthropologist and historian, with a doctorate from the Groupe Sociétés Religions Laïcité (CNRS, EPHE-PSL). He has been working with the Dolgans since 2009. This ethnic group is “a bridge between the Tungus and the Yakuts”, he tells Polar Journal AG. Deleted and reappearing on official maps at different times in history, between the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, the Dolgans spend part of their time hunting and fishing.
“We were walking between two hunting grounds and tasted some young larch shoots at the top of a hill,” he recalls. “An opportunistic and unheard-of consumption for the Dolganes I was with.” Nowadays, the plants that interest them are more often berries and mushrooms. But Yann Borjon-Privé’s research dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries mentions molasses made from larch bark. He notes that reindeer meat and fish, such as sturgeon (which disappeared), are less abundant today than in the past. The Dolganes use cellars dug into the permafrost to preserve these foods for several months. C.L.
The nomadic lifestyle is gradually disappearing, and in the last 15 years or so, people have been moving closer to the cities. “The nomadic way of life isn’t so popular now,” Tuyara Gavrilyeva explains. “Children have to stay in school from September to May.” However, the Evenks in the village of Kharyalakh still have links with nomadic groups. This is not true of all Sakha’s Arctic villages. This community helps each other by sharing the fruits of their collections between neighbors or between nomads and villagers.
A study cited by Tuyara Gavrilyeva shows that the population census in this part of the Arctic is outdated. “There are fewer people than the official figures, perhaps 30%; a lot of people have already left because of the economic situation and in some places because of climate change”, she explains.
Migrating north
The other result of the study led by Jorge García Molinos concerns the effects of climate change on species useful to people over the next 25 years. “We predict a general response: representatives of current species used by locals will migrate northwards. As a result, some will disappear locally and others will expand their range”, he explains.
“In Yakutia, climate change is visible and felt by the locals. There is, for example, severe erosion on the shores of the Glacial Ocean,” explains Tuyara Gavrilyeva. Forest fires are also raging in the region. “This is the third time since 2019 that we have observed major forest fires in the Arctic, and it shows that this northeastern Arctic region has seen the biggest increase in extreme fires over the last two decades,” said Mark Parrington, a researcher with Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Services, last summer.
These extreme phenomena accentuate the migration of animals and the modification of ecosystems, and lead to crop losses. As in the case of the inhabitants of the central part of the region who were deprived of blueberries (usually abundant) two years ago because of the fires. “These repeated phenomena ultimately produce profound changes in ecosystems that can temporarily deprive inhabitants of part of their means of subsistence,” explains Jorge García Molinos. “Commodities that are sometimes useful for medicine and making clothes.”
Modern food could be an alternative when faced with biodiversity loss, “but it’s more accessible in central Yakutia”, says Tuyara Gavrilyeva, without specifying the social justice issues in Russia.
Camille Lin, Polar Journal AG
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