Environmental degradation in the land of the Samoyed Peoples

Before the city of Norilsk was founded in 1935 and the mining industry was established in the middle course of the river Ienisei and surrounding areas in Northern Siberia the region was inhabited by several peoples collectively called Samoyeds.

The Samoyeds were people who lived in small communities and depended on reindeer husbandry, hunting and fishing.

The reindeer had been domesticated approximately in the tenth century and since then were used as a means of transport and to obtain milk.

Some villages consumed their meat while others avoided sacrificing domestic reindeer, and only took advantage of the milk.

To obtain the meat, they hunted the wild reindeer. Fishing was done through the ice in lakes and rivers frozen in winter and hunting by traps, bows and arrows and spears.

The main Samoyed people of the Nordic region of Siberia is the ethnic group of the Nenets.

Their ancestral domains are located from the peninsula of Taymir to the peninsula of Kanin in the inferior basins of the rivers Obi and Ienisei. The original population who probably amounted to more than 100,000 inhabitants, stretched over a vast area of ​​more than 1 million square kilometers.

Life changed in the Yamal region when the czarist Russian empire extended its territory throughout Siberia and even more so when the Soviet Union government decided to expand the mining and hydrocarbon producing industry in the region.

During this period of occupation and acculturation, the Nenets were victims of successive campaigns to abandon their traditional religions.

The first attempt of forced conversion to Christianity was in 1824. These missions continued during the Tsarist era, making the Orthodox Church the majority of the population. Later, during the Soviet period, the population of the Nenets was subjected to the depreciation of their traditions through institutionalized education, neglecting the vertebral elements of their identity.

The Nenets have reacted against this degradation and cultural assimilation by forming political identity organizations. One of them is Yasavey (those who know the way) who has carried out intense activities to defend his rights

Because of these changes many Nenets abandoned the traditional life and started working in the new mining and industrial plants.

The intense exploitation of gas in the area produced some unexpected effects in the Yamal peninsula.

In 2014, a sinkhole was discovered in the southern section of the peninsula. People were wondering about the cause of this unusual geomorphological feature.

A spokesperson for the Yamal branch of the Emergencies Ministry said, "We can definitely say that it’s not a meteorite”.

According to Andrei Plekhanov of the Scientific Research Center of the Arctic, Andrei Plekhanov, the sinkhole was the result of a "buildup of excessive pressure" underground because of warming regional temperatures in that portion of Siberia.

Simultaneously some tests conducted by Plekhanov's team showed unusually high concentrations of methane near the bottom of the sinkhole.

If the intense exploitation of natural gas fields is taken into consideration we should not be surprised that in nearby zones destabilizing effects may have taken place.

Loss of pressure in the gas containing layers may result in the collapse of the local terrane upper levels producing large sinkholes wherever the conditions were appropriate.

Clearly, the extraction of hydrocarbons in the peninsula has affected the local geomorphology and ecosystems.

Thanks to the Yamal riches, presently, Russia has emerged in the international arena as one of the largest producers ol hydrocarbon of the world.  

Certainly, the Nenets are not the beneficiearies of these geological resources of their traditional lands.
From "Chronicles of Human Peripecie", Danilo Anton, Piriguazu Ediciones.