In this paper I want to show how seismic lines influence every day life in a hunting and reindeer keeping community in the siberian taiga with special focus on forest infrastructure (e.g. trails and camps), movement and human-animal relations.
Paper long abstract:
In this paper I want to show how seismic lines influence every day life in a hunting and reindeer keeping community in the siberian taiga with special focus on forest infrastructure (e.g. trails and camps), movement and human-animal relations.
The first wave of seismic lines logging started in the late 1970s in this research area which is a dense taiga ecosystem with patches of tundra and bogs. This constituted the first time that straight lines have been introduced in an otherwise bendy and interwoven world lived in by mainly local Evenki who keep reindeer and hunt sable and moose. With the second wave of logging lines having started around 2010 an extended grid of new and old logged tracts, called 'profili', now profoundly influence the locals perception and use of the forest. Trails and trap-lines are being abandoned, reindeer and dogs are taught different skills and young hunters have learned to use the lines to an extent that they would claim, 'we do not walk in the forest, we walk on profili.'