Pleistocene Park
Restoring grassland ecosystems in the arctic to mitigate climate change.
Rewilding the Ancient Arctic
Planting trees and shrubs isn’t always the answer. Take the arctic: reforestation will not save the arctic. Instead, removing trees and restoring grass-dominated tundra may be the answer, and all we need to do is return the absent megafauna and watch the ecosystem shift under their influence.
GRASSLANDS, not forests. Pass it on.
Wait, WHAT are we talking about? Let’s back up.
The concept behind Pleistocene Park is deceptively simple: rewild the Pleistocene Siberian arctic. To do this (according to the scientists working on these questions), release megafauna that match ancient ecosystem roles, roles that have been vacant for 10,000 years. These animals shape the environment, and, like all grasslands when pushed with their favorite disturbance, this steppe ecosystem responds.
Pleistocene Park
The fenced 20 sq kilometers of Pleistocene Park in remote Yakutia, Russia, maintains 9 major herbivore species: reindeer, Yakutian horse, moose, bison, musk ox, yak, Kalmykian cow, sheep, and (very recently) Bactrian camels.
New residents of the @PleistocenePark are settling in after a lengthy journey to the extreme north of Yakutia. Pleistocene Park is a major initiative attempting to restore the mammoth steppe ecosystem, dominant in the Arctic in the late Pleistocene https://t.co/Khb6hTZ1q9 pic.twitter.com/iBEqKGuF2a
— The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) June 20, 2021
Why put time, effort, and resources into this experimental rewilding project?
The answer is in the paleoscience, and it all has to do with climate change.
The Mammoth Steppe
Why put time, effort, and resources into this experimental rewilding project?
The answer is in the paleoscience, and it all has to do with climate change.
The Science
The scientific work behind the park is what makes this endeavor extraordinary. The idea sounds whimsically theoretical, until you dive into the work that Nikita Zimov and others have done reconstructing the paleoscience behind it.
The best way to learn, imo, is to watch Nikita himself speak about his work. In the webinar below (2018), Nikita spends about an hour speaking extensively about his research in the Siberian arctic, in addition to building the park itself and the studying the impacts on the park grounds.
Mammoth steppe: a high-productivity phenomenon (2012)
Protection of Permafrost Soils from Thawing by Increasing Herbivore Density (2020)
This more recent work is paywalled, but Sci-Hub has our back. The images and figures, many of which Nikita uses in his webinar, are incredibly valuable.
Arctic Climate Change
Permafrost Preservation
Carbon Sequestration
Methane Emissions Reduction
Sources/Further Reading:
Zimov, S. A., Zimov, N. S., Tikhonov, A. N., & Chapin, F. S. (2012). Mammoth steppe: a high-productivity phenomenon. Quaternary Science Reviews, 57, 26–45. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2012.10.005
Beer, C., Zimov, N., Olofsson, J. et al. Protection of Permafrost Soils from Thawing by Increasing Herbivore Density. Sci Rep 10, 4170 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-60938-y
Zimov, N. Pleistocene Park. https://pleistocenepark.ru/
Walter, K. M., Zimov, S. A., Chanton, J. P., Verbyla, D., & Chapin, F. S. (2006). Methane bubbling from Siberian thaw lakes as a positive feedback to climate warming. Nature, 443(7107), 71–75. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature05040
Did you spot an error or have questions about this post? Email Rachel Roth.
