Sergey Zimov easily rams a metal rod for soil samples into the otherwise frozen soil of the Russian tundra in the Yakutsk region. Global warming at least makes physical work easier for the Russian researcher. But there is a lot to be done: 65 percent of the rural areas in Russia once had permanently frozen ground, i.e. permafrost. Due to global warming, however, the ice masses are melting and thereby also releasing gases such as methane. Researchers are already warning that the greenhouse gases released from the permafrost could correspond to the amount of gases released from the industries of the European Union.
Sergey, white beard, smoking a cigarette, has taken on this inhospitable landscape and its peculiarities. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, he decided to keep the research station near the almost abandoned town of Chersky. Together with his son Nikita, he set up a nature reserve to slow down the thawing of the permafrost. They have been resettling animals in the Pleistocene National Park since 1996. Herbivores such as bison, wild horses and a special kind of camels live on the site. The animals should compact the soil with their body weight so that it can better store the ice and the cold of winter. To date, over 200 different species live on the site.
But time is getting scarcer: the winters in Yakutsk are getting shorter and warmer.
Scientists suspect that the permafrost in the northern hemispheres still stores around 1.5 trillion tons of greenhouse gases.
In order not to unleash these, more unconventional ideas and methods, like those of Sergey and Nikita Zimov, are needed.