Scars of the Tundra
Heavy equipment in the Russian Arctic is damaging the ecosystem, climate, and indigenous peoples, according to a study by Arktida.
Author: Maria Ivanova, Arktida analyst on climate crisis and energy transition
A heavy tracked all-terrain vehicle, delivering cargo across snowy off-road terrain and summer swamps, has become a symbol of the conquest of the tundra.
Across eight Arctic regions of the country, Arctida has discovered dozens of cases of large-scale destruction of tundra vegetation due to heavy vehicle traffic. Some of the routes, visible from space and stretching for kilometers, may have existed since Soviet times and are still being expanded.
The consequences for nature and people this leads to, and how to prevent further destruction of the tundra, are discussed in a study by Arktida, published jointly with Govorit NeMoskva and Most.Media.
Typical landscape
The tracked all-terrain vehicle cuts through the snow-free tundra, leaving behind deep ruts in the soil and swamp—this is what summer travel in the Arctic has been like for decades.
"A typical landscape for the Russian tundra" — a Russian environmental expert, who has visited the country's northern regions many times, describes the all-terrain vehicle tracks in a conversation with Arctida.
Even if you've never been to the tundra yourself, you can see these trails in satellite images today.
A tracked all-terrain vehicle that helps you overcome the most difficult terrain, I came In the Russian Arctic in the second half of the last century, during the Soviet Union's active exploration of the north. Evidence of that era can be found in the records of polar explorers:
“We burst into this world [the Arctic] with our roaring machines, rushing back and forth across the island, wounding the tundra with our steel tracks, […] my beloved Arctic takes a very long time to heal the wounds that are so easily inflicted on it,” recalls geophysicist Lev Lipkov expedition to Kotelny Island in Yakutia in 1972.
Little has changed since then: the tracks of heavy all-terrain vehicles remain one One of the most common human footprints in the Arctic. Everyone uses this vehicle: geologists, coal miners, oil workers, military personnel, scientists, and local residents.
"Any settlement is considered a stronghold for further geological exploration or the construction of military bases. And as a rule, it's always the all-terrain roads that connect it all. And if you Google any village, these all-terrain roads spread out around it like a spider's web.",” comments an environmental expert who wished to remain anonymous.
Heavy equipment through a fragile ecosystem
Movement of heavy equipment - one of the main risks posed to tundra vegetation by industrial activities, along with seismic exploration, mining, oil spills and road construction.
Destruction of vegetation and animal habitats
Heavy tracked vehicles create high ground pressure. While this doesn't pose a serious threat in winter on thick snow, the situation changes dramatically in warmer weather, when heavy equipment travels across unprotected ground. counting According to Russian scientists, on the Taimyr Peninsula and in Yakutia, one heavy tractor destroys a hectare of tundra surface for every 10 kilometers traveled. If a tracked all-terrain vehicle makes two passes, it destroys 30% of the vegetation; if it makes three passes, it destroys 80%.
What's worse, all-terrain vehicles get worse over time are expandingThe track becomes boggy after the rover's first pass, preventing the vehicle from moving along it and forcing it to drive alongside it the next time. This creates ruts hundreds of meters wide and kilometers long, visible from space.
The area was riddled with all-terrain vehicle tracks"—the conservation expert comments on his visit to the Yugyd-Va National Park in Komi in the mid-1990s. — Where I was "There was an [all-terrain vehicle] track half a meter deep. In some places it's overgrown, but there are fresh tracks in particularly vulnerable areas prone to erosion. It [the track] is deep, right down to the bedrock. Accordingly, this track runs for kilometers through the mountain tundra, and it's gradually being washed away by the rains, washed down to the bedrock.".
Research shows that in the tracks left by transport in the tundra, are decreasing populations arthropods и diversity of vegetation speciesSmall tundra shrubs are particularly vulnerable, for which even a single pass of heavy equipment can be fatal. In the vicinity of the Bovanenkovo gas field in Yamal, due to "uncontrolled off-road movement of tracked vehicles" and other industrial activity, scientists found destroyed arctic fox burrowsResearch there too showed, that no plant community can withstand repeated passes of tracked vehicles.
Due to the harsh climatic conditions of the north, the soil cover is disturbed can restore hundreds of years or not recover at allReturning the ecosystem to its original state is practically impossible and then, when, due to the impact of the all-terrain vehicle, active melting of permafrost began and the soil began to subside.
Permafrost is melting faster
Permafrost in the Arctic today melting due to the man-made climate crisis - but if tracked vehicles drive over it, permafrost degradation intensifies.
The fact is that vegetation creates an insulating layer on the permafrost surface. It locks in the soil and the carbon accumulated there over millennia and protects the permafrost from heating during the warmer months. Heavy equipment destroys this buffer, erodes the soil, and thaws the permafrost deeper—according to some calculations, by 4-6 cm even two years after exposure to transport.
Soils in the tundra snoring huge carbon reserves — there are approximately twice as many of them as in the entire Earth's atmosphere. And the more rapidly frozen soils melt, the greater the greenhouse gas emissions, which exacerbate climate change.
Russian researchers, worked In Taimyr, they noted that the movement of tracked vehicles mixes soil layers, increasing their thermal conductivity and decreasing their reflectivity—resulting in faster permafrost thaw. The scientists conclude that the movement of any equipment, even light vehicles, in such areas is unacceptable for the next 7-15 years.
Damage to indigenous peoples
The widespread use of all-terrain vehicles in the Russian Arctic is causing significant damage to the traditional way of life of indigenous peoples. By destroying moss, a type of lichen that reindeer feed on, it leads to degradation of reindeer pasturesToday it is called one of the main environmental problems for reindeer herding. Disturbed pastures take a very long time to recover, and in some cases die.
This leads to a violation of the constitutional rights of indigenous peoples to traditional nature management and the protection of their original habitat, since for many indigenous peoples, reindeer herding is a source of livelihood.
As an anonymous representative of the indigenous peoples of Chukotka told Arktida, the entire tundra in the Providensky district of the region has been "dug up" by all-terrain vehicles, exposing and melting the permafrost in their tracks.
"There are all-terrain vehicle tracks all over Chukotka. […] We depend on the tundra: reindeer food, we gather berries, mushrooms, and plants for our food. And of course, in the big picture, this affects the habitat and climate."", comments a representative of the indigenous people.
In Yamal, along the tracks of tracked all-terrain vehicles die Lichens are becoming increasingly common and are being displaced by other species. As a result, lichen pastures have virtually disappeared from the peninsula, and the ecological situation is assessed as "critical."
In Taimyr, the dominance of heavy transport prevents indigenous people from gathering and fishing.
"Local residents of Baikalovsk said that with so many of these vehicles driving around, it becomes difficult for them to even go into the tundra or fish on the lakes, or pick berries and mushrooms, which is a significant source of food and income for local residents.", - told «Arctida» a researcher of the Russian north who observed "enormous" all-terrain vehicle tracks in the area of the village of Munguy on Taimyr in 2016. The presence of a problem recognized And reindeer herders from Komi in 2017, estimating the recovery time for lichen at 25-30 years. Sergei Pasynkov, chairman of the "Olenevod" cooperative, commenting on the uncontrolled movement of all-terrain vehicles across the tundra, posed the question bluntly: "What are reindeer herders supposed to do?"
What did Arctida find?
– Using space monitoring data, Arctida discovered 34 cases of traces of heavy tracked vehicles в eight regions Russian Arctic: Krasnoyarsk Krai, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Nenets Autonomous Okrug, Komi, Yakutia, Arkhangelsk and Murmansk Oblasts and ChukotkaThere may be more tracks—that's what we were able to find from open sources. The lack of tracks found in Karelia and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug may be due to the predominance of taiga in these regions, making all-terrain vehicle travel difficult.
– In two locations – in the vicinity of the Varandey and Kharyagin oil fields in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug – found by Arctida tracks cross deer pasturesThis is prohibited by regional authorities. legislation, except in cases of special permission or rescue operations.
– In one location in the Murmansk region (Semiostrovye) The tracks are located within the boundaries of the Nizhneponoysky Nature Reserve.Where smoking movement of tracked vehicles.
– It’s impossible to say for sure whose all-terrain vehicle passed through a particular place and for what purpose – but we can make assumptions based on the industrial facilities and populated areas nearby. Traces can be related to servicing the following activities or facilities:
- Oil and gas infrastructure - 19 cases;
- Settlement - 12 cases;
- Traditional nature management (reindeer herding, fishing, hunting) – 8 cases;
- Airfield - 5 cases;
- Mining, geological exploration, coal deposit, military infrastructure - 1 case each.
The geographical scope of the tracks found by Arctida, as well as the diversity of activities with which they may be associated, confirms the widespread nature of the all-terrain vehicle track problem in the Russian Arctic.
– Although it is impossible to say exactly in what years the traces on a specific satellite image were left (we can only talk about the year of the image itself), the availability of comparisons of the same locations in different years allows us to say the following:
- All-terrain roads from the Soviet era still exist today. — they can be found in modern images. This may confirm both the slow recovery of vegetation and the continued use of these routes.
- New traces appear in the Russian ArcticFor example, in the area of Ust-Kara in the Nenets Autonomous Okrug, traces can be seen in the 2024 image that were not present in 2020. In the vicinity of Anadyr in Chukotka, the appearance of new traces is also noticeable in the 2024 image compared to the situation twenty years earlier. These examples also demonstrate that the routes expand over time.
What to do, or not all all-terrain vehicles are born equal
Even the Soviet authorities began to suspect that the ecologically destructive development of the tundra could not continue indefinitely. A 1984 decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR banned movement of mechanized transport across the tundra and forest-tundra, disturbing the soil and vegetation cover, outside of specially designated roads.
In Russia many times were undertaken attempts include such a ban in the draft federal law “On the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation”, however, the wording of the ban weakened as new versions of the bill are adopted, and from the 2018 version it disappeared at all.
Current legislation includes seasonal restrictions on the movement of heavy vehicles. at the regional level and often only in areas of reindeer pastures: there are such laws in Yakutia, NAO, Komi, Chukotka, Murmansk region, Taimyr (Dolgano-Nenets) Autonomous Okrug of Krasnoyarsk Krai and in Yamal Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug region.
However, as research by Arctida and other experts, media reports, and interviews with sources show, such bans do not solve the problem and are likely poorly enforced. Furthermore, there is no federal ban for the movement of heavy tracked vehicles throughout the tundra and forest-tundra during the snowless season.
What's important is that today there is an alternative to heavy all-terrain vehicles - transport on ultra-low pressure tiresWide tires have a larger contact area with the ground surface. This allows them to are having there is minimal pressure on it, comparable to the pressure of a person standing still.
What does Arctida offer?
– The development of the Arctic is only possible with the use of best available technologies with minimal impact on fragile Arctic ecosystems. The best solution is all-terrain vehicles with ultra-low-pressure tires. According to recommendations According to Russian scientists, in order to preserve terrestrial tundra ecosystems, the maximum pressure of a vehicle on the ground should not exceed 0,14 kg/cm².
- In addition, it is necessary improvement of legislation and supervision of its implementation:
- Adoption federal ban for the movement of mechanized transport across the tundra and forest-tundra, which disturbs the soil and vegetation cover, during the snowless period.
- Adoption in the regions of the Arctic zone of the Russian Federation (hereinafter referred to as the AZRF) more precise detailed rules for the movement of vehicles in the tundra and forest-tundra, including taking into account the experience of other countries. For example, on the North Slope of Alaska required A special permit for all off-road travel in both summer and winter. When reviewing applications for new routes, they use a special map Vegetation sensitivity. They establish the soil temperature and snow depth at which the tundra is accessible for travel, and if there is insufficient snow, the tundra is closed to off-road vehicles. In Norway, on the island of Svalbard, more than 60% of the territory is under guard, and the use of vehicles is strictly regulated.
- To control the implementation of prohibitions, a rule for equipping transport can be introduced GLONASS systemAs offer Russian researchers.
- To "the historical mission of careful and balanced development" Arctic, what about they say representatives of Russian authorities, was not just words, All these changes will need to be paid forThis could be done by those who are developing the Arctic and plan to benefit from it:
- Federal authorities need to develop a plan to subsidize the transition to tundra-safe vehicles in the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation. Particular attention should be paid to measures to support indigenous peoples and small and medium-sized businesses, which have limited resources to transition to environmentally friendly alternatives compared to large businesses.
- Large companies need to adopt plans for a complete transition to safe all-terrain vehicles with ultra-low-pressure tires, which can become part of the companies' ESG strategies.
