For thousands of years, the Nenets have led a nomadic lifestyle by migrating with their reindeer herds across the Yamal Peninsula in the Russian Arctic, beyond the Polar Circle.
With the arrival of winter, the region is transformed into a landscape covered in snow and frozen rivers and lakes. This allows the Nenets to migrate their sledges and herds from the summer pastures in the north to the winter pastures south of the Arctic Circle. Today only about 12,000 nenets make this journey of thousands of kilometers following the same ancient migration routes of their ancestors.
However, in recent years, climate change is affecting the climatic conditions of their territories, causing the thawing of permafrost, the reappearance of ancient diseases such as anthrax, centuries ago disappeared, or leading reindeer to starve due to the difficulty to find lichens, their main food during the harsh winter.
In addition, the increasingly abundant fields of oil and gas extraction in Yamalia and the very long gas pipelines that cross this territory like scars, make this way of life in danger.
