Altai-Sayan eco-system: Global 200 priority worldwide!

From Novossibirsk, April 29th 2009.

The Altai-Sayan mountain country is one of the key Global 233 eco-regions worldwide, which represent 95% of biodiversity on Earth. WWF works on 35 of them as top priority and Altai-Sayan is one of them.

On top of rich biodiversity, the region represents the most complete sequence of altitude vegetation zones in Siberia. The area contains geographically distinct biomes, consisting of high-mountain taiga, mountain tundra, a mix of forests, desert and semi-deserts, steppes and wetlands. This mountaineous eco-region gives life to two of the world's ten largest rivers: the Ob and Yenissei, with a total watershed of over 5.5 million km2. It also contributes to the drainage of Lake Baikal. The health of the region is therefore crucial for eco-systems that stretch far outside immediate area.







Altai-Sayan region covers an area larger than the territories of the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Great Britain and Germany put together.



The richness of the eco-system comes from its situation, at the border between:
- The tiger zone in the North with central siberian taiga forests,
- The steppes in western Siberia,
- The central asian deserts of China and Mongolia.
The region contains the world's largest unbroken stretches of Siberian pine forests of the highest quality, which consists mainly of endemic Siberian fir forests that have relict and endeimc vasculr plants and mosses.
Of more than 200 rare plant species, 12% are endemic. The region is also the north-western habitat of the snow leopard, also called irbis, as well the habitat of Altai mountain sheep, also called argali. These 2 flagships species are listed as endangered species in the IUCN Red List. We will talk more about them in the next posts.





Argali sheep


Irbis


In addition, Altai-Sayan eco-region also preserves an important historical heritage with sites dating back to 35,000BC (petroglyphs, cave paintings, menhirs, steles, tumuli, etc.). And indigenous people today still share common cultures, mixed from pagan customs and shamanism, and centuries of ancient cultures (Scythian, Turkic, Iranian, Chinese) and languages families (Slavic, Turkic, Mongolian).





The actual population consists of 1.5 million people, who mainly live in rural areas and rely heavily upon local natural resources. People in the Russian part are engaged mainly in farming, cattle breeding and mining, and many people earn a living by hunting. Poverty, widespread unemployment and a lack of alternative economic activities can have a negative impact on both the natural resources and biodiversity of the region. In the next post, we will see more precise threats and what WWF is doing to prevent those.

XVII to XXth century Russian civilization, e.g. painter Sourikov's house

From Tomsk, April 21st 2009.

Wood has been and remains a key construction material. We see it everywhere in Siberia: standing majestuous in the forest, cut and lying on the floor, being transported, processed, and finally used in constructions. Retracing Russian habitat between XVII and XXth centuries is the occasion to demonstrate the mastery in wooden architecture.

Street with traditional wooden houses in Taltsi museum, next to Irkutsk


Mayor's house


Details




Examples of churches from the 2 variants of Christian Orthodox religions after the schism.



Eglise des vieux croyants




Other example, this time in Ulan Ude


And the most impressice piece is the main tower of the ostrog (i.e. fortress), here in the case of a volost, which is the smallest administrative territorial unit in tsarist Russia.



Details of bicephale eagle of Russian Tsar


Finally, Parish school:




And cimetery:


The famous painter Sourikov lived in Krasnoiarsk and his house now transformed in museum transports its visitors back to the life at the end of tsarist Russia.







Inside the house with a copy of his most famous painting, the original being in Russian Museum of Saint-Petersburg:

Leaving taiga and Orthodoxy for steppe and Buddhism

From Tomsk, April 21st 2009.

Steppe is the landscape of large meadows with tempered climate in drz regions. It is also called tampa in Latin America. In Russia, mz first steppe has been the one in the south of Buriatie republic close to Mongolian border. I expect to see more of it towards Altai and later along the border with Kayakhstan.



Monks playing soccer in the steppe near Ulan Ude




The republic of Buriatie has its own anthem, its parlament, and its capitale is Ulan Ude. This city is a true mix of religions and nationalities living together in peace, but buddhism represents the main religion. It is present via numerous temples and monasteries called datsan. The biggest is Ivolga, which is also the center for buddhism relgion in Russia.

Main temple


The Main Door, which will only be opened for Dalai Lama


Stupa and temple


Houses for the students or permanents lamas

Introducing Pribaikalie civilizations, e.g. Evenks

From Tomsk, April 21st 2009.

Russian Far East and Siberia, and especially the region around Lake Baikal, has a rich history of so called "Pribaikalie" civilizations. These populations were indigenous people living here before Russians pass the Ural mountains and conquer this region. Among them, we find the Buryats, Koriaques, Nanais, Tchouktchis, and Evenks. Most of local museums dedicated good exhibitions about their way of life: habitat, dress, activities (mostly hunting, fishing), and rituals closely linked to chamanism.

Garde-manger


Tomb


Traditional habitat: yourte


Their descendants continue to maintain their traditions and organize regularly celebrations opened to public. In the one shown in below pictures, each tent is dedicated to one family with their specific clothes and danses.

Danses and songs in front of the family's tent


Family members preparing the next song


Different family, different dress


Working on the campfire


Traditional game

Le gel, Voivode au nez rouge

From Krasnoiarsk, April 18th 2009.

Nicolas Nekrassov is the poet of the population's suffering. He unifies a realistic vision of life with a deep lyrism that often reaches the best of poetry. His work has had and still has a strong influence on Russian youth, and he remains a key author studied at school. Its beauty, music and originality made him eternal. HEre is my preferred extract that evocates so well the winter in Russian taiga as i have experienced it the first month of my travel.

Est-ce le vent au fond des bois?
Ou l'eau qui descend dans la plaine?
Non, c'est "Voivode-le-froid",
Qui vient inspecter ses domaines.

La neige en tempete puissante
A-t-elle efface les chemins?
A-t-elle laisse quelque fente,
Quelque sillon sur le terrain?

Sont-ils emmitoufles, les chenes?
Sont-ils duveteux, les sapins?
La glace est-elle ce matin
Bien prise sur l'eau du domaine?

"Voivode" marche a grands pas,
Passant sur les cimes des arbres,
Tandis qu'un clair soleil s'ebat
Parmi sa broussailleuse barbe.

Nicolas Nekrassov, 1821-1877

Bright future for Baikal

From Krasnoiarsk, April 16th 2009.
Before closing the topic of Lake Baikal, let me share interesting learning that helps break pre-conceived ideas.

1. Lake Baikal is much polluted! Wrong.
Since the collapse of Soviet Union and especially in the 90’s, American, German and French journalists from TV channels and newspapers, as well as cultural and ecological associations, have written and worked on Lake Baikal risks.
Lake Baikal is indeed uniquely important as it has so many endemic species, but situation has changed and risk remains limited.

First, the population of the basin is very low with reduced domestic and agricultural outlets bringing only very little phosphate and nitrogen to the lake.
Sources of pollution are much localized and could be, until the past years, clearly identified as 3:
- Railway Baikal-Amur,
- Selenga river basin,
- Baikalsk paper-cellulose manufacturing site.



The first source is localized around Severobaikalsk, city built in 1974 for the exploitation of the BAM railway. However, only 9% of existing natural resources of this region are effectively used and this source is considered as low risk.

The second area is along the biggest affluent of Lake Baikal, Selenga river, bringing to the south-eastern part of the lake outlets from Mongolia and Buriatie. It is particularly dangerous for northern and central of the lake as streams bring these outlets to the north, on around 1,500km2. Some of those have been identified up to 130km to the north-east.

But by far the biggest source of pollution for Baikal is Baikalsk paper-cellulose manufacturing complex, located in the extreme south of the lake and which contributes by 59% to the outlets of used water. Cellulose is a strategic material for aeronautic industry and in the context of Cold War Khroutchchev decided in 1954 to build a Sovietic plant dedicated for this material. The choice of the site was driven by 3 criteria:
i) A lot of water close by with low mineral content,
ii) Close pinewood forests as raw material,
iii)And good infrastructure for easier logistics.
Lake Baikal and its South part for the Trans-Siberian railway were by far the best choice, and the decision led in 1959 to the construction of a new city around the plant: Baikalsk.
However, following a decreasing demand and pressure from scientific and ecological associations, the site has been closed a few years ago, giving Lake Baikal a brighter future.

2. Lake Baikal is endangered and threatened of disappearing! Wrong again.

The speed of filling with sediments is lower than the one of the lake's cavity.
On the one hand, the rift is opening further at a speed of 0.1cm/year, the lake is going deeper by 2mm/year, and the surrounding mountains are becoming higher.
On the other hand, the Lake Baikal is cristaline so that it brings only few sediments. The protection by the taiga helps reducing even more the sedimentation rate, down to 0.25mm/year.
In consequence, the balance is favorable for a long existence of the lake: the older Lake Baikal gets, the bigger.

How sustainable tourism can contribute to social welfare?

From Irkutsk, April 9th 2009.

Lake Baikal and its surrounding region are treasures for different reasons that we have covered in the earlier posts. However, economic situation is fragile: unemployment rate is high and the regional economic activity is known as low compared to others in Russia. For this reason among others, inhabitants are keen on using their resources (fish, wood, etc.) as much as possible or develop the industrial sector. These activities are a threat to the local ecosystem, but there is an alternative: develop ecological tourism, also called “eco-tourism” or “sustainable tourism”. On the one hand, it can create jobs. On the other hand, it gives more reasons to protect the environment.

The non-profit and non-governmental organization Great Baikal Trail contributes to this concept by 3 main activity areas:

1. Maintain a network of hiking trails around Lake Baikal, via summer camps with volunteers from all over the world.
2. Help and support local villages for the deployment of ecological activities and resorts.
3. Develop and organize projects and camps with local youth, inmates at low security prisons, orphans and teenagers from broken or problematic homes.
   

My contribution focused on the 3^rd area. On top of the work on the website’s structure and translation, I had the chance to take part in activities at Irkutsk rehabilitation center with orphans and kids from problematic homes (alcoholic or drug-addicted parents), and in a school camp in the Siberian village of Novii Uoyan (4 hours train north-east of Lake Baikal). What extraordinary experiences! I will never forget Natasha, Ksenia, Maxim, Marina and the other 80 kids from different schools of the region. What a chance to follow them during a few days, sing Russian folk music with them, play and work with them, see them smiling and tired, happy and stressed: an immense source of positive energy and joy! And I will also remember Novii Uoyan as the place of my first presentation in Russian language, about my vision of the new eco-tourism website’s structure for the Northern Baikal schools’ network.

Novii Uoyan

Its school, outside and inside

In the evening, rehearsal of famous Russian folk songs on the guitar

Angoya and Kichera school teams singing for the opening ceremony

Sport activities in the afternoon

Working on the projects at the computer room

Endemic animal species of Baikal

From Irkutsk, April 9th 2009

Baikal Lake is connected to the Arctic Ocean by one river, that’s why its endemic species can be divided in two groups: indigenous species and species coming from Arctic Ocean. These species are classified as "least concern" by IUCN and therefore not endangered, but are scientifically very interesting to study. 

1. Indigenous species
1.1 The endemic reliques
Some species, known from the Tertiary and shared with other lakes, have disappeared elsewhere and only remain in Baikal. The best example is the sponges (“goubki” in Russian), attached to the rocky deep ground of Baikal until 600m depth. They belong to a family unique in the world: Lubomirskiidae, which are key information database as they have almost not evolved since the Tertiary. Scientists call them “living fossils”.

1.2 The Baikal monsters
Other species have an enigmatic origin. We can say that they were born in Baikal and have evolved locally. It is the case of the fish without scales (see below picture).

But the most surprising ones are the so called “naked fishes”:
- The big golomianka: Comephorus baicalensis (Pallas, 1776), where the female can reach 25cm and the male 16cm.
- The small golomianka: Comephorus dybowskii (Korotneff, 1905), where female and male can reach respectively 15 and 12cm.
Golomianka has a white transparent body with pale pink shadows, nacre reflects that makes the orange around the eyes come out even more. The legend says that it is possible to read the newspaper through it. Its wings are indeed fully transparent.
This fish contains a lot of fat. In the big golomianka, fat represents 43 to 44% of its total weight (Galazi, 1984). But its main specificity is its reproduction modus. Different to all fishes of Baikal and almost all fishes on Earth, the golomianka is viviparous. It gives birth to “larves” that can live on their own, and not to eggs. It therefore does not need to move to give birth, neither within the lake, nor in the rivers. The other specificity is that parents die after giving birth. The golomianka is the only fish on Earth to associate viviparous reproduction modus to death after giving birth.

2. Species coming from Arctic Ocean

Other species come from a migration from Arctic Ocean and an evolution in situ. It is the case of the most appreciated fish of the lake, the “Omul”, Coregonus autumnalis migratoris (Georgi, 1775) that most probably migrated from the Arctic Ocean via Ienissei and Angare rivers. It is also the case of the “phoque”, the nierpa, Phoca (Pusa) sibirica (Gmelin, 1735), one of three fresh water “phoques” on Earth with the ones from Ladoga and Saimaa lakes but the only one to live so far from the sea. An interesting study has been led to classify the nierpa within the existing Phoca families and uses 3 different methodologies. The objective was to prove that it comes from Phoca hispida, the ring Arctic “phoque”, called “akiba” by Russians, who would have migrated through Ienissei and Angara rivers system. Once settled in the lake, it would have evolved progressively to match its new geographical context and reach its current morphology.
Method 1: comparing morphology
The “griffes” of nierpa are bigger and stronger because the ice of the lake is more solid than the one of the sea. The positions and structure of its teeth with more space in between correspond to an alimentation with smaller fishes. The larger eyes and higher haemoglobin level in its blood are designed for deeper waters to find their favourite food.
Method 2: comparing parasites
The parasites on the nierpa (in French, “vers parasites et pous”) and the ones on the Phoca hispida have many similarities, while they are totally different from the ones on the Phoca caspica for example (Pasthoukov, 1982, 1993).
Method 3: using genetic tests
Unfortunately, the more recent genetic method does not allow confirming the classification confirmed by methods 1 and 2. The genetic similarity within the Phoca family is at 55% between the 4 sub-families, taken two by two. Therefore, the similarity between nierpa and Phoca hispida are not stronger than with other Phoca sub-families, and does not lead to a clear classification.

Thanks geological rift: Xakussy hot springs:

From Irkutsk, April 2nd 2009.

After crossing Baikal lake on skis (see previous post), it is hard to wake up the following morning and motivate myself. But the reward is worth it: in the morning silence, we are the first ones at the baths and enjoy hot thermal water in an idyllic landscape of pine forests and snow, and in the morning silence and low light. Only with us are the so called "snegir", little birds with red chest living in the forests and active in the cold and snowy winter. Lying in the hot water, it reminds me of my last birthday in the thermal baths of Baden, next to Vienna.

Xakussy hot springs in the morning

Le repos des guerriers :-)

On the way to the bath

3 baths, 3 different temperatures