An Indigenous science of the climate change impacts on landscape topography in Siberia

Abstract

As with many Indigenous Peoples, the Siberian Evenki nomadic reindeer herders and hunters have observed increasing consequences of climate change on the cryosphere and biodiversity. Since 2017, they have observed previously unthinkable changes in topography. Based exclusively on an Evenki Indigenous Ecological Knowledge system-social anthropology coproduction and community-based continuous observation from 2013, this paper analyses what a Subarctic People observes, knows, does not know, hypothesizes, and models (collectively or individually) about climate change impacts on Indigenous landscape types typical for local river systems. These landscapes are crucial tools for traditional activities. To the nomads, the landscape changes emerge from general anomalies: competition from new plant species; atmosphere–ground–vegetation interactions; icing blisters decrease; rising receding river water interactions; the formation of new soil, ice, and snow types; increasing ground, air, and water temperatures; and the (non)circulation of harsh air throughout the snowpack. We demonstrate the science-like structure and value of Indigenous typologies and hypotheses.

Supplementary information

The online version of this article (10.1007/s13280-020-01467-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Introduction

As with many Arctic/Subarctic Indigenous Peoples (ACIA 2005; Ford et al. 2006; Oskal et al. 2009; Gearheard et al. 2013; IPCC 2014), the Evenki nomadic reindeer herders and hunters of Eastern Siberian mountain taiga (Yakutia and Amur region) have been observing climate change and its increasing consequences on the environment for decades. They are struggling to cope with anomalies in the cryosphere and biodiversity; from 2017, they have noted previously unthinkable changes in landscape topography. These observations come from their Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK), which we refer to as the Evenki Indigenous Ecological Knowledge System (IEKS) since it is a dynamic and constantly updated system.

TEK, defined as “a cumulative body of knowledge practices and beliefs (…) handed down through generations by cultural transmission” (Berkes 1999), has its “own classification systems and versions of meteorology, physics, chemistry, earth science, astronomy, botany, pharmacology […], and the sacred” (Burgess 1999).

Among the environmental sciences, interest in TEK surged in the 1980s (Berkes 1999). In the 1990s-2000s, TEK was increasingly involved in Canada, Alaska, and Greenland, creating a paradigm shift toward the quasi-systematic participation or consultation of natives in research (Gearheard et al. 2013): it has also been used in Fennoscandia (Huntington et al. 2004; ACIA 2005; Ford et al. 2006; Oskal et al. 2009; Riseth et al. 2010; Krupnik et al. 2010).

However, there has been less participatory research on TEK in Siberia, with the exceptions of studies on the Nenets, Sami and Yenissei Evenki (ACIA 2005; Oskal et al. 2009; Forbes and Stammler 2009; Forbes et al. 2010; Bartsch et al. 2010; Callaghan et al. 2019). Eastern Siberia has only seen a handful of these studies, such as among the Yakut (Crate 2008), the Yukaghir (Mustonen et al. 2009), the Chukchi (Bogoslovskaia et al. 2008), and the Evenki (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017), or unique linguistic documentation exclusively in Evenki (Pikunova and Pikunova 2004).

The methods for collaboration with TEK are generally multidisciplinary fieldwork, interviews, questionnaires, community-based observatories (Oskal et al. 2009; Krupnik et al. 2010; Gearheard et al. 2013; Johnson et al. 2016), and the increasingly popular “knowledge co-production” with various levels of TEK involvement (Forbes and Stammler 2009; Nakashima et al. 2012; Jagannathan et al. 2020).

TEK-science collaboration is acknowledged as, culturally and epistemologically very challenging: TEK is purportedly “non-scientific”, difficult to calibrate with the sciences, valuable only locally, and damaged by climate change (IPCC 2014; Ford et al. 2006). However, involving TEK (naturally valuable in itself) can add evidence, inspire new research questions, and allow for some calibration (Huntington et al. 2004; Berkes 2009; Riseth et al. 2010; Krupnik et al. 2010; Callaghan et al. 2011; IPCC 2014; Eira et al. 2018; see references above for Siberia).

Our co-production, which lies between the social and environmental sciences and their different traditions of writing and data treatment, has often struggled to find the right publication format to be heard by both scientific audiences, as was the case for the first multidisciplinary studies (Huntington et al. 2004). Most classical social and cultural anthropologists (except for ecological or cognitive anthropologies and ethno-biology) have no use of such detailed IEKS that they consider more relevant to environmental scientists (“science”). This paper therefore addresses the sciences rather than the social sciences by focusing more on the detailed IEKS and the environmental changes that IEKS observes and analyses, rather than on a detailed description of the cultural context or on theoretical anthropological debates on IEKS-Science relationships. We aim thus to enrich environmental science and communicate with a multidisciplinary audience: to us and to the Evenki co-researchers, highlighting the indigenous cognitive structure of IEKS is a way to allow for equitable IEKS-science dialogues about a rapidly and dangerously changing environment.

Based exclusively on an Evenki IEKS—social anthropology co-production, and community-based/driven continuous observation from 2013, this paper analyses what a Subarctic Indigenous People observes, knows, does not know, hypothesizes, and models about climate change impacts on its changing landscape topography. As well as entering this dynamic cognitive realm, this paper also aims to reveal IEKS research issues for future bridging with the environmental sciences.

We expound the facets of climate change observed by the Evenki and its effects on some of their IEKS topographic landscape types (called “landscapes” from here onwards). We then analyse these landscapes: their features, the ecosystem services they offer, observed changes, the consequences of their (potential) loss, and human adaptations (if any). Finally, we discuss the Evenki hypothesises about these changes as belonging to a more general transformation of the environment and their consequences for society. We also compare the collectively shared IEKS and individual abilities to hypothesise, while also considering why it is of interest to science to initiate new research starting from IEKS typologies and hypotheses.

This paper contributes to a range of studies dedicated to Siberian Environmental Change (Callaghan et al. 2021).

Materials and methods

Through our projects (see Acknowledgments), we understood in 2013, that to avoid simplifying Evenki observations, we must study their IEKS as a “system of thought analogous to scientific understanding within traditional cultures (…) [which is] (…) systematic in a similar way to (…) science” (Barnard and Spencer 2005). Working through the prism of IEKS typologies and co-analysing and co-writing with nomads (i.e. Indigenous methodologies), we placed the sciences and IEKS on the same level, much as anthropologists of science do (Nader 1996). We thus contributed, epistemologically and ethically, to the counter-hegemonic current against Eurocentrism in research (Turi 2013; Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017).

We identified Evenki typologies of topography, vegetation, and fauna. The Evenki “climate science” includes a typology of warm and cold air, a typology of wind, and a typology of clouds and precipitation containing 20 types. The snow typology (25 types) and ice typology (8 types) form a “physics” of snow and ice. The Evenki articulate their typologies to analyse present norms and anomalies or hypothesize about the future, a crucial tool for successful adaption (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017). Because IEKS is highly systemic (Berkes 2009), the Evenki cannot talk about snow without discussing the plant cover, ice, and animals, for instance. Thus, the elements of these typologies are thought to interact. They conceptualise norms (admitting variations), anomalies, and various “degrees of extreme event” relative to the extent of their adaptive capacity (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2018).

The sophisticated Evenki IEKS mobilises complex processes of cognition. It is not a set of practical “knowledge packs”, but a theoretical system containing a great deal of “know-how”, predictions, and hypothesising comprising some “modelling”. It is not only passed down through the generations: it also questions previous knowledge, implements experiments, takes measurements, produces new knowledge, forms theories, and involves specialised terminologies shared by part of society. Like in science, the notion of the authorship of innovation exists in Evenki IEKS (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017, 2018) and in other peoples IEKS (Barnhardt and Kawagley 2005).

Our IEKS—social anthropology co-production focuses on the human environment (while classical anthropology studies society), but also documents the cognitive conceptualisation of Nature, and relationships with it (uses, rituals, human networking, etc.) (Appendix S3).

The study area is a 76 650 km² nomadic region of continuous permafrost situated in the Stanovoy Range between Aldan and Olekma, spread across Southern Yakutia and the Northern Amur region (Biskaborn et al. 2019). Administratively divided into five villages, it contains around 15 000 reindeer herded by 200 reindeer units. Nomads live off small-scale reindeer herding (10-30 heads/family), essential for transport purposes, and sustainable hunting (wild reindeer, roe deer, and elk for food and sable for the fur market). They nomadise (i.e. move from one camp to another) each week/month in a yearly cycle. Ideally they completely change the area of annual nomadisation every 10–20 years (i.e. a migration). This implies a deep knowledge of biodiversity, climates, and landscape specificities.

From 2013 to 2020, the 12 Evenki from our three-to-six community-based observatories produced meteorological measurements and IEKS observations of the fauna, flora, sky, and cryosphere on a daily basis during each year of the project. Lavrillier identified seven specific subareas for study: each corresponds to a network of rivers, nomadic families, common geographical and microclimatic peculiarities, and ongoing changes (Table 1).

Table 1.

The subareas of the community-based/-driven observatories spread over an area of 76 000 km²  (© A. Lavrillier, 2020). The nomads do not wish the locations to be provided

We documented IEKS during Lavrillier’s four-month-long winter and summer collaborative fieldworks (participant observation and open/semi-open interviews) and co-analysed abnormal seasons and increasingly frequent extreme events. During each fieldwork, we worked with 50–60 participants, including a dozen nomadic co-researchers and/or observers, and approximately 25 nomadic families in order to conduct interviews and anthropological participant observations. The Evenki co-researchers/observers are nomads who have spent most of their lives in remote forests, did not finish school, and have little access to the Russian media, which in any case rarely considers climate change. We recorded interviews based on the question “How is your environment?”, conducted on the nomadic road for in situ analysis, in the tent, or in the village.

In 2014, and 2018, the co-researchers noted the first signs of transformation in two landscapes types in different subareas. Not witnessed everywhere, this was akin to the first “scientific” hypotheses about an initial phenomenon likely to increase. We then searched for other evidence and related processes in all our material from 2013, such as the 12 multi-annual daily observation tables, notes from 14 fieldworks, and the 35 strictly related interviews. In 2019 and 2020, we added questions focusing on landscapes. Our analysis resulted in a complex portrait of unprecedented processes and five changing landscapes. Following an internal review of our manuscript, we looked for matches/discrepancies between these Evenki findings and some environmental scientific papers (“science”). We avoided reading these beforehand so as not to distort Evenki IEKS documentation. In order to focus only on natural phenomena, we do not include here landscapes degraded by local industries.

Results

All the 2380 Evenki of our area have observed three stages of changes that reveal abrupt increases in unprecedented anomalies in the local climate from 2005 and in the cryosphere and biodiversity from 2012, as well as a rise in extreme events from 2015 (Table 2).

Table 2.

The changes in climate and biodiversity observed by the Evenki in our area in Yakutia and the Amur region. It is difficult to paint a single picture of climate changes and their impacts since the types of anomalies or extreme events change each year and can be different in each subarea: informants often say that ‘the environment is broken’ (from Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017, 2018; unpublished field observations)

Furthermore, from 80 topographic IEKS landscape types (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017), five types are currently changing. This is a turning point in climate change impacts: it concerns not only seasonally appearing/disappearing elements of the landscape like snow, but also the topography itself.

The Evenki topographic typology is a detailed collection of concepts that defines mountains, hills, inclines, slopes, rivers basins, types of soil, snow specificities, etc. The socio-economic importance of topographic landscapes is huge to the nomads, as accessibility of these landscapes constitutes their richness. Landscape labels (5 are presented in Table 3) are used as place names in the Siberian areas where the Evenki live(d), thus informing us about the ecosystem services they offer.

Table 3.

Vegetation species—indigenous indicators of changing topographic landscape types. Synthesis of 150 systematic Evenki records of the vegetation indicators of changes in indigenous topographic landscape types and in general (from our Evenki community-based observatories monitoring and fieldworks between 2013 and 2020 (© A. Lavrillier and S. Gabyshev, 2020)

Species/English	Species/Evenki	Species/Latin	Types of change	Landscape types	Subreas	Year of record/observation
Spruce	Ahikte	Picea ajanensis Fisch.	Appearing	Amnunna	C	2019–2020 winter
Birch	Chalban	Betula pendula, Betula manshurica	Appearing, Increasing	Amnunna	A	2014 summer
Pine	Diagda	Pinus sylvestris L	Appearing, Increasing	Amnunna	C	2019 summer, 2019-2020 winter
Young larch	Iriaktakan	Larix sibirica  Ledeb	Appearing, Increasing	Amnunna	A, B, C, G	2014 summer, 2019 summer, 2019–2020 winter
Dwarf birch	Okta	Betula nan	Increasing, Appearing	Amnunna	C	2019 summer
Unwanted plant with adhesive seeds	Russian “repeinik”	Unkonwn	Appearing	Amnunna	C	2019 summer, 2019–2020 winter
Willow grove	Siekta	Salix purpurea, salix viminalis	Appearing	Amnunna	F, C	2019 summer
Poplar	Russian “topol’”	Populus suaveolens Fisch. or Populus sect. Tacamahaca	Appearing	Amnunna	C	2019–2020 winter
Labrador tea	Chengkire	Ledum L., Rhododendron subarcticum	Appearing	Kever	E	2018 summer, 2019 winter
Moss-cover	Ialbuka	Mostly sphagnum anchored on turf	Appearing	Kever	A, C, E	2018 summer, 2019 summer, 2019–2020 winter,
Young larch	Iriaktakan	Larix sibirica  Ledeb	Appearing, Increasing	Kever	A, C, E	2018 summer, 2019 summer, 2019–2020 winter
Lichen	Lavukte	Cladonia stellaris	Increasing	Kever	C	2019–2020 winter
Sheathed cotton sedge	Nirgakta	Eriophorum vaginatum	Decreasing, Disappearing	Kever	A, C, E, F, G	2017–2019 summer
Pine pinus pumila	Bolgikte	Pinus pumila	Appearing, Increasing	Kever	E	2020 Spring
Dwarf birch	Okta	Betula nan	Appearing, Increasing	Kever	A, C	2019–2020 winter
Underwater moss cover	Ialbuka	? Sphagnum	Appearing	Kudu	A	2013, 2020
Young larch	Iriaktakan	Larix sibirica  Ledeb	Appearing, Increasing	Kudu	A	2019–2020 winter
				OTHER LANSCAPES
Pine pinus pumila	Bolgikte	Pinus pumila	Increasing	everywhere, camps, nomadic tracks	D, A, E	2019–2020 winter
Alder tree	Dulgikte	Alnus alnobetula, Alnus viridus	Appearing, Increasing	Everywhere	D, G	2019–2020 winter
Moss cover	Ialbuka	Mostly sphagnum anchored on turf	Increasing, Appearing	Everywhere	D	2019–2020 winter
Dwarf birch	Oktak	Betula nan	Increasing	Everywhere, camps	D, E, G	217 summer, 2019–2020 winter
Willow grove	Siekta	Salix purpurea, salix viminalis	Appearing, Increasing	Everywhere, entire rivers, nomadic tracks, camps	E, F, G	2015 summer, 2019 summer, 2019–2020 winter,
Pine	Diagda	Pinus sylvestris L	Increasing	Camps	C	2019–2020 winter
Young larch	Iriaktakan	Larix sibirica  Ledeb	Appearing	Nomadic tracks	A	2016 summer

From the most to the least changing landscapes, we present amnunna, kever and kudu. For each of these landscapes types, we give the Evenki description of the landscape and its importance and then present the changes the Evenki have reported. Two other landscape type (leva and nire) changes are described in Online Supplementary Material (Appendix S1, S2).

Amnunna

Description and importance

Amnunna is a typical wide and flat basin where a river divides into small and shallow streams flowing between spots of solid dry ground (keteme, “solid ground”): this keteme is covered in horsetail and bushes (mostly bog bilberry, dwarf birch, long grass, horsetail, and some moss cover (ialbuka)) (see Tables 3 and 4 for Latin/Evenki terms; S1). Other amnunna are stony with long grass and horsetail. They range from 500 m to a dozen km in size. An ice layer (3–5 m) that produces large icing blisters (bukte) covers them during winter.

Table 4.

Names of plants, animals, processes and associated habitats/landscapes in Latin and Evenki, (© A. Lavrillier)

English	Latin	Evenki
Bog bilberry	Vaccinium uliginosum	dikte
Long grass	Bromus spp.	chuka
Horsetail	Equisetum arvense L., Equisetum fluviatile L.	sivak
Black-billed capercaillie	Tetrao parvirostris	oroki
Recently appeared predatory birds called “unknown eagles”, “strange birds”, “American flag eagles”	Aquila chrysaetos, Haliaeetus leucocephalus	Unknown

Normally found in indigenous landscape types	Other indigenous items, processes	Evenki
amnunna	Solid and dry ground	keteme
amnunna	Winter water flowing out from under the ice/from within the ground	ulan
amnunna	The vegetal cover overgrows, creating extremely dense, sometimes impenetrable vegetation	sehipderen
kever	Covered by soil/dirt	dunnerbuderen
Abnormal appearance in amnunna and kever	Litter brought by river flow from fallen branches and fragments of wood	siverikte
	Icing blister	bukte
	Sand	tukala

Amnunna is crucial for the Evenki because horsetail grows in great quantities in autumn, spring, and summer: domestic reindeer can thus gain weight and quickly recover before and after the long winter. In winter, when water sources flow under the ice, the amnunna is depicted as a garden where precious horsetail grows, offering fresh pasture to reindeer. In springtime, domestic reindeer can eat young dwarf birch leaves. The remaining ice and snow can persist until June-July: the reindeer can lie down on this and, in the cold air, escape insect pests (Fig. S1). In summer, the many water sources in this landscape provide the reindeer with cold water, even during drought: in 2019, this water saved the herd. In winter, domestic and wild reindeer can lick the salty ice. Closer to the spring or in autumn, attracted by domestic females, wild reindeer join the amnunna from the mountains, an occasion for humans to hunt.

This is a good landscape for humans during several seasons: on the edge of the amnunna, one can install a camp on solid ground covered in lichen (thus keeping the domestic reindeer nearby), and permanent winds protect the reindeer and people from insects. In winter, water flows out from under the ice and people can drink it directly (they do not have to thaw the ice); in summer, the many water sources from under the ground offer very cold water for humans, ensure a lot of fish, and provide a natural fridge for food. People gather berries in the taiga or close to villages, providing an important source of nutrition and income (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017; field observations).

As this landscape is very flat, it is highly suitable for sledging or riding reindeer. It offers a path across rivers during the floods from the spring–summer thaw. It is important for orientation, offering much appreciated visibility. One can also survey (sometimes directly from the tent) how the reindeer come to lie down on the ice, graze, or drink, as well as potential attacks from predators (wolves, bears, eagles, or, notably, the recently appeared “strange birds” (Table 4).

Changes

Only a few amnunna changed in our subareas. The huge amnunna (called kler by some informants) did not change. Depending on subarea, two transformations were noted.

First, all the 182 nomads of subareas A, B, C, E, F remarked the vegetation is overgrowing, creating extremely dense, sometimes impenetrable vegetation. In 2014, the Evenki noticed the abnormal growth of 3–5 year-old larches or birches in one amnunna (subarea A). From 2017, this phenomenon has increased. The nomads have observed variations in species depending on subarea: some are typical for the amnunna but are now undergoing an abnormal rise in size and quantity (dwarf birches). Some of these species never earlier reached adulthood (larches), while others had never grown before on such landscapes (pines, the invasive willow grove, poplars, spruces, and even weeds with adhesive seeds usually found in villages) (see Table 3 for our analysis of indigenous indicators of changes). In 2014, Gabyshev hypothesised that this change resulted from the decline in the number of icing blisters due to climate change. To nomads, icing blisters are shaped during periods of harsh cold on some rivers and riverbanks (amnunna or water sources) by the huge amount of water flowing out from under the ice, which normally freezes and forms a thick ice. The accumulation of air or gas occurs in shallow streams or in shoals (which the ice fills due to the form of the river bed) or where gas is emitted from the soil. This forces the ice to blister and crack on the surface. At − 45 °C/≤ − 50 °C, the cold closes all apertures and the icing blisters explode. Both these explosions that throw huge blocks of ice, and the spring thaw, uproot, crash down and crush the young trees, thus forming the amnunna. As the Evenki repeat: “good amnunna exist where big icing blisters appear” (Fig. S1). However, between 2014 and 2016 (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017) and until 2019 (field observations) in subarea A or until 2018 in subarea B, icing blisters were not formed, a matter of great concern to the nomads.

The second change was observed very recently in some stony amnunna by 37 local nomads: “Soil invades stony amnunna. River water now brings much more litter in the form of fragments from wood and branches; this deposit rots during the summer, merging with the sand and becoming soil. If this process continues, trees will start growing there. This is linked to changes in flooding and receding water levels, but also to the decrease or absence of icing blisters. Normally, these 4–7 m high icing blisters shake up big stones in the spring: these ultimately cover the soil, and the resulting forceful water flow takes away the soil”. To nomads, the existence and size of icing blisters depends on the amount of water in the autumn and the frost: as there is less water and it is now warmer, climate change can be held responsible for this change in landscape.

This second change raises the anxiety to lose amnunna in 10–20 years. The first change focused, in subarea C, predator attacks on adult reindeer (because the young ones, normally the preferred prey, were hidden behind overgrown bushes). It is easier to bear the loss of young reindeer than adult females and riding reindeer. Nomads had to move to another place.

Kever

Description and importance

Kever is a kind of tussock field along river shores or water sources and is another crucial landscape because of the sheathed cotton sedge that grows there. Thus, in the earliest part of spring, reindeer feverishly look for this emerging plant, as they can gain weight and recover from winter by consuming it. The Evenki install their camps nearby: the herd, which tends to spread out in groups of a few individuals in all directions, is kept in one place by the kever. Like the amnunna, it is a “parking space for reindeer”. As an open space, it offers good visibility for protecting the herd and calves from bears (hungry after wintering) and other predators (including the birds mentioned above).

The kever ground thickness and consistency normally change: waterlogged and inflated from May to mid-summer, it dries and hardens from July to September. Kever thaws quicker in spring because of the tussocks’ topography, which better catches the sunlight and the frequent winds that make the snow shallow. It is an ideal calving ground. In winter, it offers better snow conditions during the extreme event of basal ice embedding the lichen: kever is an adaptation tool. In summer, some use its long grass as pasture. It is also a good place for hunting predators in all seasons or wild reindeer and black-billed Capercaillie in the spring. Nomads regularly burn kever in the spring while there is still some snow remaining (which reduces the risk of fire spread): this helps the cotton sedge to grow quicker (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017) (Fig. 1; Fig. S1).

Fig. 1.

Normal state of the indigenous kever landscape type (tussock field)

Changes

The Evenki have observed three transformations. The first change was observed by 91 local nomads. In 2018, a woman (subarea E) mentioned her shock: a huge kever that took 6 h to cross by reindeer almost entirely disappeared under a thick moss cover filling the empty spaces between tussocks. Only a few cotton sedges were left, and a few young larches appeared. In 2017, she noticed that the cotton sedge grew a month later than in the 1990s because of the colder spring. In 2019, she noted there the abnormal growth of Labrador tea and invading young larches. Nomads in subarea C also saw a kever gripped by moss and lichen.

In 2019, 165 local nomads (subareas A, C, F, G) noted the second change: a creeping appropriation of kever by birches and young larches, thus making the tussocks hardly recognisable (Tables 1, 3; Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Three anomalies observed in the indigenous kever landscape type (tussock field)

The nomads’ explanations of change are divided into two opposite hypothesises, while some do not know what is causing it. Some link it to the decreasing number of reindeer, arguing that while eating the cotton grass reindeer trample and deform this often wet ground, thus shaping the tussocks on the top of which the new shoots grow. “Reindeer intentionally pattern the kever for themselves and prevent an invasion by the moss cover”, they explain. This illustrates the perception of domestic animal–environment relationships. Reindeer are understood as sustainable cultivators of nature. Lavrillier asked: why does kever exist in places where few or no reindeer walk? She also enquired: “What came first: do Evenki put their camps close to kever or are kever created by reindeer close to the camps?” The defenders of the reindeer-based hypothesis (i.e. less reindeer means more trees) had no answer.

Other nomads refute this know-how, arguing that the kever is changing because of the warm weather and increasing humidity/moisture in all seasons, which allow everything to grow (Table 2). Indeed, the number of reindeer has decreased from 30 years ago, from 1000/State herd (i.e. 200 head/family) at the beginning of the 1990s to 10–30/family in the 2010s. However, due to a slight reduction in the number of predator attacks in 2019 and 2020, almost all the calves had the opportunity to reach adulthood, thus increasing the herd’s size.

The third change was mentioned in winter 2019–2020, observed in subarea D by 54 nomads: the kever turned into swamps (leva) where it is possible to sink. Nomads are very anxious about the previously solid ground of kever becoming swampland to such an extent that sometimes stones protrude above the surface. The Evenki have no explanation or they pronounce an inconceivable hypothesis: “Are dunne (ground/permafrost) or keteme (solid/dry ground) thawing because of warming winters?”. In subareas D and A, the nomads noticed in other landscapes that the solid ground (keteme) has also turned into swamp. This really is a new process. The generalised potential of this change could be very problematic: it threatens tracks, transport, and camp installation (Tables 1, 3; Fig. 2).

The first change has forced the nomads to search for other kever as calving ground, but kever are rare. Some nomads have already identified kever with high tussocks “that the moss cover will not cover soon”. Regarding the second change, nomads complain about the loss of all kever and use much less beneficial landscapes.

Kudu

Description and importance

Kudu is said to be a “feeding landscape”. Salt water naturally emerges from the ground as a mixture of sand and soil/marsh or is captured by algae in lakes. The size of this landscape varies from a big puddle to an entire river. It is found in a few streams, rivers, or marshes with lakes (nire). Elk, red deer, roe deer, and wild and domestic reindeer eat this soil or algae in summer, and lick the ice in winter, making kudu an ideal hunting ground. The nomads told us not to specify the locations of these landscapes in order to prevent non-native hunters from exhausting this resource. As with amnunna and kever, the Evenki always include several kudu in their annual nomadic cycle.

Changes

The few changes in this landscape that have been observed are some very important Indigenous indicators. In 2018, a nomad spontaneously depicted the first change in one particular kudu (witnessed by the subareas A, B’s 54 nomads). The salt source (identified by a murky white spring emerging from under the ground in a river) often did not flow, dried up at the confluence with the main river, and did not form icing blisters from 2014. Animals no longer come to this kudu. Instead of the salt spring, moss covered the soil under water. A nomad hypothesised: “The salt water probably disappeared into the thawing ground?” (Figs. 3, 4).

Fig. 3.

Norms and an anomaly observed in the indigenous kudu landscape type (side view)

Fig. 4.

Norms and an anomaly observed in the indigenous kudu landscape type (top-down view)

In 2019–2020, the 37 nomads of subarea A observed some kudu being covered by young larches to such an extent that it threatened visibility. To them, the kudu had kept its properties, but the worsening visibility obstructed hunting. The local nomads have also testified that animals visit the other kudu much less often than in the past: “an entire river was known for its multiple kudu, game always visited it, but now they have stopped”. They interrogatively hypothesised: “Is there no more salt? Perhaps this is because of increasing warming: for several years, the ground has not frozen when the snowpack forms!”

To some nomads, the wild animals create kudu from some salt swamps (leva) (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017). Nomads observed in subarea B that animals trampled and dug the ground deeper each year until the salt water disappeared into the ground: they then stopped coming (2013). Over the years, water brought up new salt sediments and reformed the kudu, so animals are now returning (2018). The supporters of this hypothesis do not exclude the effect of warming in some kudu. Others regard kudu as a natural landscape upon which animals have no impact.

The loss of some kudu forces the nomads to search for others or to hunt in less resource-rich landscapes.

Interrelated landscapes

Nomads discuss relationships between the studied landscapes. They are all elements of a river system: from source to confluence, water circulates between them, alternatively flowing underground, from the ground, and into the river (shores). Icing blisters link the amnunna they shape and the kudu they are shaped by (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017; field observations) (Fig. 5; Appendix S1, S2).

Fig. 5.

A Siberian river system: the elements of a typical system according to Evenki IEKS (See also Appendix S1, S2)

Discussion

The Evenki know about possible landscape dynamics, but now they face very new changes: we found in interviews 53% of “not-know-how”, 32% “know-how” they are sure of, and 15% (interrogative) hypothesises, i.e. plausible/questionable explanations.

Evenki possess IEKS unequally. Gender is not a determinant factor, since many women hunt and herd. The criteria are: age/experience (≥ 35 years-old), economic activity, the scale of the nomadic cycle, and contact with older generations.

Among the nomads, there are men and women who are more creative/foreword-looking in their analysis/hypothesis than others (“thinkers”): they develop hypothesises that sometimes contradict or complement each other. Some engage in modelling over past/future years: like Gabyshev about the amnunna, or informants arguing that the recovery of stony amnunna (instead of ones covered in soil) will happen if the harsh cold returns for several years. Others imagine the amnunna turning into a tengke landscape (a riverbank covered by forest).

Nevertheless, some changes are so unprecedented that the nomads can hardly conceive of/accept them, like the thawing ground. They first communicated about these changes in 2018–2020, while they first observed them in 2014-2016. The nomads thought that the norm would return after few years, as their IEKS norms admit variability (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2018). However, after 4–6 years the nomads realised that landscapes are changing irrevocably.

In their community discussions, nomads anxiously relate these landscape changes to the almost complete disappearance of icing blisters on many rivers from 2014 (Fig. 3). They hypothesise five interactions with global climate disruption:

1. The ice (thinner due to warming) does not fill the shoals. Indeed, rivers have not frozen properly since 2014, with a decrease in ice noted from 2018 (80 cm to 1 m thickness instead of three-to-five meters in the recent past) or a partial lack of ice since 2019.

2. The ground is probably thawing deeper: in the past, it was entirely frozen in winter, thus shaping icing blisters. Now (except in winter 2019–2020), the snow is first installed on unfrozen ground. While it can freeze during winter, it probably does so only on the surface layer.

3. The snowpack in subareas A, B, C, and D has become much deeper from 2012–2013. It insulates the ground and ice from the harsh cold air and prevents the ground from freezing properly, the ice from thickening, and icing blisters from developing.

4. The disappearance of kudu (some of which are a source of gas that shapes icing blisters) triggers the disappearance of icing blisters (Fig. 4).

5. The decreasing amount of water during river freezing and increasing water temperature (evidenced by the appearance/increase of river algae (il)) cause an insufficient number of icing blisters.

These icing blister hypotheses are Evenki findings, and are comparable to assessments of warming of Siberian river waters (Gautier et al. 2018) or to the “naled” winter ground-water up-welling and freezing described by science (Callaghan et al. 2011): however, the Evenki have noticed far more impacts.

IEKS importantly records the local, societal consequences of change often neglected by science and is immediately usable for native communities. The scientific studies we consulted on vegetation, cryosphere and permafrost show both discrepancies and similarities with IEKS as exemplified below.

In 2015–2016, Evenki often attributed general increases in vegetation growth to the interacting warming winters, rising humidity/moisture, and increasing winter and summer precipitation (Tables 2, 3). Scientists, as with the Evenki, identify factors like humidity increase (Callaghan et al. 2011), differentiate between the height, density, and extent of vegetation growth, and question parameters like wind or herbivores. However, science tends to use fewer or more precise proxies (i.e. only summer temperatures (Forbes et al. 2010), growing season length, summer precipitation, or snowpack (Myers-Smith et al. 2015)).

To Evenki, the vegetation growth triggers a loss of visibility and open spaces, a major ecosystem service offered by these landscapes: “Before we could see people/animals coming 2 h before they joined us; now we cannot even see them when they are five meters away from us!” This dramatically increases the danger from predators: in subareas E and C, nomads first uproot bushes before setting up the tent. This is exacerbated by recent changes in predator behaviour, as such animals increasingly approaching humans, and reindeer (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2018). The dense vegetation also hampers nomadisation and the ability of domestic reindeer to escape predator attacks. In subarea E, to the Evenki it has facilitated the invasion of an alien species, the tick-borne encephalitis virus. This reveals how the new direct effects of shrub growth dramatically impact the nomads.

Science does not detail the impacts of permafrost thaw and shrub growth/tree encroachment on nomad life or the socio-economic importance of visibility (open space in a dense taiga), although Forbes and Stammler (2009) mention how shrub growth has caused more reindeer to be lost (hidden behind shrubs) during tundra Nenets migrations.

The Evenki have identified competition between species and some atmosphere-ground-vegetation interactions that are an important focus for science.

The invading moss cover (absorbing humidity) dries up the local cotton sedge. The lower layer of this moss cover (mostly constituted by moss from previous years) is a kind of turf favourable for bush growth.

In 2016 nomads thought that the abnormal, almost disappearance of night cooling (evidenced by the anomalous flight of horseflies after sunset) had led to a warmth-induced vicious circle increasing vegetation overgrowth: vegetation keeps as an umbrella the summer diurnal warmth close to the ground, while the disappeared night-cooling cannot cool it down. Another Evenki thinker argued, as a synthesis of general change, that the dense vegetation does not give the harsh winter air the opportunity to circulate or for moisture to escape: it traps moisture and raises the temperature within the snowpack close to the ground, thus triggering the transformation of snow into a basal ice embedding lichen. This endangers reindeer health (Fig. 6). Scientific syntheses of Arctic snowpack changes and impacts also show that vegetation change affects snow distribution and characteristics (Callaghan et al. 2011) and, stimulated by TEK (Riseth et al. 2010), relate snowpack changes to the health of reindeer (and lemmings).

Fig. 6.

Indigenous knowledge about current abnormal interactions between climate, disruptions in the vegetation cover, and reindeer health. The norm is sparse vegetation: thanks to the circulation of air and the escape of humidity, this allows for dry snow and a cold snow cover. The lichen is thus dry and good for reindeer

The indigenous know-how in Fig. 6 could complement the scientific finding that soil moisture is a significant driver of the climate sensitivity of shrub growth (Myers-Smith et al. 2015) or the study of buffer layers between air and ground temperatures in permafrost regions (Biskaborn et al. 2019).

Science has analysed shrub growth and tree establishment (ACIA 2005, Forbes et al. 2010; Myers-Smith et al. 2015), but mostly in the pan-Arctic tundra. Less is known about shrub dynamics in the taiga. In the analysis of shrub growth, science is very focused on particular variables and vegetation types (e.g. Myers-Smith et al. 2015); or one species (Forbes et al. 2010), while the Evenki have a more holistic view and differentiate each species as being normally attached to a particular landscape type (Table 3).

The Evenki identify more complex and diversified snow cover anomalies (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017) (Fig. 6) than the rain-on-snow, thawing/freezing, and basal ice, famous in Arctic science (e.g. Callaghan et al. 2011; Bartsch et al. 2010; Golovnev 2017; Domine et al. 2018).

While science often uses mean temperatures and the general heat conductivity of snow as proxies, the Evenki focus more on the interactive effects of the 24/7 temperature changes, humidity/moisture, and different cold air dynamics across the snowpack, which depends on the depth and different conductive properties of their 25 IEKS snow types (each of which has its own physical specificities). For instance, if it flows downwards, the cold air transforms the basal ice layer (sy in Evenki; basal ice observed by Sami (Callaghan et al. 2011)) into a seed-like snow (buldo) in Evenki (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017); hoar crystals (Domine et al. 2018); seagnash in Sami (Eira et al. 2018)), thus freeing the vegetation.

Science states that the snowpack insulates and increases ground temperature (Callaghan et al. 2011; Biskaborn et al. 2019). While agreeing in principle, especially in relation to very deep snow, the Evenki bring nuances. First, the ground will warm only if the onset of the snowpack occurs on ground that is not properly frozen (see kudu; icing blister); if the onset occurs on well-frozen ground, even a deep snowpack will not increase ground temperature. Second, increasing ground temperature depends on the snow types present in the cover and their thermal conductivity in terms of air-ground/ground-air exchanges or exchanges between different snow layers (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2017). This can contribute to the study of a “concept not yet addressed in snow and ecological research (…) the ground conditions during the formation of the durable snow of winter” (Callaghan et al. 2011 referring to Riseth et al. 2010). The insulating properties of snow are also important in driving permafrost dynamics.

Our paper provides information about mountain permafrost temperature trends, which increase less than other permafrost types (Biskaborn et al. 2019). Here, we show evidence of many different Evenki signs of ground thaw that we assume is permafrost thaw and that should receive attention by scientists, thereby adding to their wider recording and understanding of this environmental change.

To science, the hydrological and ecological health of wetlands depends critically on the unknown balance between diminished spring floods, longer snow-free seasons, and thawing permafrost likely to bring new sources of water (Callaghan et al. 2011). The Evenki use landscape types such as various wetlands as analysis grids: each landscape is a specific combination of types of soil, flora/fauna, moisture/humidity, wind, warm/cold airs, snow/ice, and positions in a river system. To IEKS, these are interacting drivers that determine the microclimate and micro-ecosystem that are typical to each landscape type if they behave normally, which is beginning to no longer be the case. Nomads then infer trends of general changes (i.e. a logical chain, similar to scientific research). The holistic Evenki understanding on the specific landscapes in this paper adds to the general science studies and fills in science gaps for a remote and important area while focusing disciplinary science questions on snow, vegetation, fauna, hydrology, permafrost and societal impacts.

Conclusions

This paper links qualitative and, to some extent, quantitative dimensions from IEKS with 8 years of daily observations/studies conducted over a 76 000 km² surface, divided into subareas, which one could compare to scientific stations. Our initial indigenous hypothesis of landscape transformation in 2014 was confirmed in the following 6 years.

Evenki modelling identifies interactions between receding and rising river waters, the formation of new soil, exchanges between ice types and other elements, snow depth, the amount of water during freezing, vegetation growth, the (interplaying) effects of increasing ground, air, and water temperature, increasing air, ground and snow humidity/moisture, and the (non)circulation of frost from the air through the snowpack to the ground, and from ground upward.

We argue that working with indigenous indicators of climate change is of scientific interest. Evenki findings on landscapes are relevant for international research themes like local and global climate (change), surface and underground hydrology, geomorphology, taiga biodiversity, the cryosphere, permafrost thaw, and human societies. Our findings contribute to bridging IEKS and science by creating new research perspectives. These landscapes issues are important indicators of rapid changes in Siberia’s rivers, a research we will pursue with hydrologists (see Acknowledgement).

Science has analysed processes that we did not find in IEKS, like the feedbacks from shrub encroachment and from cryosphere change to the atmosphere. In contrast, scientists have paid less attention to detailed studies of icing blisters and their impacts on landscapes, and specific plants and landscapes as indicators of change.

Science tends to generalise over large areas (circumpolar, Siberia, etc.) and over large time scales on mean phenomena (e.g. greening, warming). By adding to science-based ground observations, local-scale IEKS analysis complements international assessments (e.g. IPCC 2014) (see also Ford et al. 2016). IEKS analysis better documents the underestimated dramatic impacts of environmental changes on indigenous societies. Indigenous individuals, independently from institutions, could integrate international observation networks and IEKS studies could be combined in an equivalent of international assessments for improved communication with decision-makers about climate impacts.

Supplementary information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Biographies

Alexandra Lavrillier

is an Associate Professor at the Observatory of the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (University of Paris-Saclay). Her research interests include the social and cultural anthropology of nomadism, traditional economics, social organisation, landscape management, the perception of nature, rituals, ethnolinguistics, indigenous ecological knowledge, and climate change adaptations in Siberia among the Evenki, Even, and Sakha.

Semen Gabyshev

is a Evenki reindeer herder and hunter in Siberia, as well as a co-researcher at the Observatory of the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines (University of Paris-Saclay). His research interests include indigenous ecological knowledge and ethnolinguistics and the indigenous analysis of and adaptations to changes in climate and biodiversity among the Evenki nomads.