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Reindeer herders and scientists collaborate to understand Arctic warming

Predicting rain-on-snow events that turn tundra into ice could save reindeer and livelihoods

Roza Laptander leads a string of four reindeer across the snow in Siberia. Other reindeer and another reindeer herder are visible behind her.

Roza Laptander leads reindeer across the tundra in Western Siberia. A linguistic anthropologist originally from the region, Laptander has periodically embedded with the region’s Indigenous reindeer herders, who can travel hundreds of kilometers every winter in search of lichen for their animals.

Roza Laptander

By Sujata Gupta

The spring 2014 annual reindeer festival in Yar-Sale, a rural town on the Yamal Peninsula in Western Siberia, was a grim affair.