Paper Short Abstract:

The paper suggests that cold regions rather than problems present opportunities for the development of resilient organisms on this planet that can best adapt to changing climates. Data from human-animal livelihoods in Arctic pastoralism from Siberia, Finland and Greenland shows how partnerships of humans with animals navigate a fine line between the duty to protect and the desire for autonomy of animals. Negotiating that fine line involves as much intimate knowledge by people of their animals, as it involves agency by the animals to carve out the autonomy they strive for without compromising the services they offer to their people in exchange for protection.

Paper Abstract:

It is usually thought that the Arctic presents the most challenging environment for the sustainable survival and development of organisms. This paper will start from the other end and investigate what the benefit of a cold environment is for the development of organisms. Rather than emphasizing the deficit of the planet's cold regions, we show how humans and some ungulates such as reindeer, cattle, horses and sheep have used the benefit of their surrounding cold environment to develop some key adaptive traits that makes them resilient in extreme surroundings. We show how humans jointly with their animals have developed these adaptive capacities in relations of trust and partnership rather than in dominance and subjugation. This also means that humans carefully consider animal perception and agency in their decision making and selective breeding practices in their pastoralist livelihoods in the Arctic. On the one hand, the closeness of such partnerships involves a human duty to protect their domestic animals (in exchange for loyalty and service that the animals lend to people). On the other hand, autonomy is among the highest valued traits that people seek to strengthen in their animals: the more autonomous the animals are, the less expensive care they need from humans, while still providing basic services for their human partners (such as milk, transport, warmth, food). With data from Siberia, Finland and Greenland we show that extreme environments are not a problem but a benefit for boosting resilience of organisms in related livelihoods.