Books and Arts

Nature Reports Climate Change
Published online: 29 May 2008 | doi:10.1038/climate.2008.52

Snapshot: Siberian symbols

Anna Barnett

SUBHANKAR BANERJEE

On the Kolyma river in the frigid northeast corner of Siberia, the few surviving communities of indigenous Yukaghir people live by elk hunting and ice fishing — and this traditional reliance on some of the Earth's coldest conditions makes their culture one of the world's most vulnerable to climate change. Warming in the Arctic, proceeding almost twice as fast as elsewhere on Earth, is expected to disrupt local freshwater fisheries whose relatively low value on the international market belies their crucial place in indigenous diets. Key Arctic fish species that spend all or part of their lives in Siberia's north-flowing rivers will have to contend with encroaching southern competitors and the possibility of new parasites as waters warm. The Yukaghir fishermen pictured here, from the village of Nelemnoye, are catching mostly broad whitefish (Coregonus nasus), one of the species most likely to be displaced.

Subhankar Banerjee's photographs of the Yukaghir and other indigenous Arctic people threatened by climate change are on display at the United Nations' New York headquarters 9–31 May. Banerjee is one of seven artists featured in the exhibition Unlearning Intolerance: Art, Attitudes & Environment.