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Another important biological characteristic of the area lies in the occurrence of the most important meridional zoogeographical boundary in the Palaearctic, cutting across the latitudinal vegetation zones. Here eastern and western faunas meet, sometimes with one subspecies replacing another across the boundary, or a species replacing a closely related species, or simply species extending to the boundary with no replacement beyond. The boundaries do not all coincide, and in some places anthropogenic or other changes have destroyed the natural barriers helping to maintain them, so there is in fact a broad north-south zone, 150-1000 km wide, encompassing all these boundaries, hybrid zones (eg.between black and hooded crows), interpenetrations of species' ranges, and such like. Interestingly, where two northern species or subspecies of bird meet in the boundary zone, as on Taymyr, one usually winters to the SW and the other to the south-east.
Biological exploration of the area began with P.S.Pallas, leader of the Russian Academy of Science's First Orenburg Physical Expedition, who visited southern Central Siberia in 1771. The next major contribution was made by A.F.Middendorff. In 1843 he followed the Yenisey north from Krasnoyarsk by dog sledge to Turukhansk, then on to the mouth of the Dudinka River, and from there by reindeer to the Upper Taymyra River. Then, building a boat, the expedition sailed down the river, crossed Lake Taymyr, and reached the coast of the Arctic Ocean at the Lower Taymyra Delta, not far from Cape Chelyuskin. Thirty-four years later Henry Seebohm explored the Yenisey (see his book Birds of Siberia) and reached the tundra.
Bird ringing began in 1941, when Mikheyev caught and ringed nearly a thousand geese near Dudinka. Since 1956, zoogeographical and ornithological studies of Central Siberia have been dominated by the husband and wife team Helena Rogacheva (HR) and Evgeni Syroechkovski (ES). Waterfowl populations have been continuously monitored since that date, particularly at an abandoned village, Mirnoye on the Yenisey, where ES founded the Northern Ecological Field Station of the Institute of Evolutionary Morphology & Animal Ecology (IEMAE, now IEEP) in 1970. The work there mostly concerns birds, including the use of Heligoland traps.
HR and ES began work on Taymyr in 1956, and were later joined by Evgeni Syroechkovski jnr (ES jnr) and his wife Elena Lappo (EL). One attraction of Taymyr is that it represents the northern end of the Central Siberian vegetation ‘transect'. It has been one of HR's and ES's long-term aims to establish a north-south chain of reserves representing all the important habitats along the 'transect', perhaps even eventually continuing it into the Southern Hemisphere down to the Antarctic. The reserves already established make an impressive list, and in most of them the Syroechkovskis were influential if not the prime movers: Great Arctic, Taymyr, Putorana, Central Siberian, Tungus, Stolby, Chazy, Maly Abakan, Sayano-Shushinski, Azas, Ubsunur, and Great Gobi in Mongolia. One role the chain of reserves is intended to fulfil is to act as biological standards for monitoring global and local ecological changes which may not be evident in other, managed areas, or only by comparison with unmanaged, protected areas.
As environmental politics and scientific ecology grow more international in scope, the combination of the Syroechkovskis' global ideas and proven organisational skills will become increasingly relevant, and they show one of a number of ways in which Russia/CIS has much to teach the rest of the world.
Writing this in a pocket-handkerchief-sized country, I continuously need to remind myself that Russians are used to ‘thinking big' in a way I am not. Taymyr alone is enormous - c.400k km2, about the size of Germany. It is the largest single expanse of tundra in the world, and is known for the largest free-ranging reindeer herd (c.700,000) and the multitudes of breeding waders, gulls, terns, skuas, duck, geese and other birds. Since 1979 a large area, mostly adjoining the south-west end of Lake Taymyr, has been protected as the Taymyr Zapovednik, and in 1986 the Putoranski Zapovednik was created in the Putorana Mountains, just to the south of Taymyr. Despite these conservation initiatives, much of Taymyr is still threatened by mining for gold on the Chelyuskin Peninsula and uranium north of the Pyasina Delta, by the possibility of marine accidents in the growing volume of merchant shipping, by waste dumps and vehicle damage near settlements, and by helicopter-equipped hunters of seals, wolves, reindeer and polar bears. Damage on the Yamal Peninsula by oil and gas prospecting illustrates what could happen to Taymyr in the absence of conservation, but already on the doorstep there is the awful spectacle of Norilsk, at the south-west corner of Taymyr, with its filthy industries and the damage to hundreds of square kilometres of neighbouring taiga. On my visit there in 1996 I had never seen anything like the completely killed larch forest to the south-east of the town, and I wondered whether Norilsk ought to be preserved in its present state as a reminder to our and future generations of what uncontrolled pollution can do. It could even support a gruesome kind of ecotourism - and our presence on an excursion to this dead forest, which was certainly a thought-provoking and moving experience, indicates that such tourism has already begun.
As well as being of concern to Russians, conservation of Taymyr has also attracted the attention of ornithologists in West Europe. Much work has been done over several decades - using the techniques of ringing, radar, radio-tracking and straightforward field observation, and particularly in Britain, Germany and the Netherlands - to trace migration routes of birds wintering in or passing through those countries. Routes from north-east Canada via Greenland and Iceland, and from northern Greenland to northern Scandinavia and down the coast, became well known, innumerable water birds using them to reach the Wadden Sea (Wattenmeer), there to stop or to feed before flying on south-westwards, sometimes as far as South Africa.
It is only since the greater communication between Russian and other ornithologists, made possible by the political thaw since 1985, that something like a complete picture of the Eurasian migration routes (flyways) has begun to emerge. Dr Peter Prokosch, then at the Wadden Sea Ornithological Station, approached ES with a view to studying Brent Geese and waders in Taymyr - species which come to Wadden Sea on migration. Brent Geese are a prominent component of the Taymyr-Wadden Sea connection - something which became clear to everyone once geese ringed at each site were recovered at the other.
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Despite discussion of the need for joint research on Taymyr birds as early as 1976, serious attempts at ornithological cooperation between Russia and W Europe were initiated only during the political thaw of the late 1980s in the context of the 1988 Environment Agreement between the German and Soviet governments and of a cooperation agreement between WWF and the IEMAE. As a result three expeditions were organised by ES to visit Taymyr in 1989, 1990 and 1991, funded by the Russians, WWF, and the German environment ministry. The 1989 expedition was mainly a Russian-German effort, the German side being led by Peter Prokosch, now in charge of the WWF's Arctic Programme in Oslo. The 1990 and 1991 expeditions also involved participants from Britain, the Netherlands, France, Poland, Scandinavia, and South Africa. The Dutch also mounted their own expedition and a long-term program to concentrate on the brent geese of the Pyasina Delta. These expeditions were the first real opportunities for non-Russian biologists to study Taymyr for many decades, since it was a closed area during the Soviet period.
The international cooperation did not end with the expeditions. A permanent official partnership has been set up between Taymyrski Zapovednik and the Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park. The Netherlands Department for Conservation has financed the building of the Willem Barents Biological Station at the mouth of the Yenisey, and it was opened in 1996 [check] to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Barents' death [check]. Perhaps most significantly, in 1989 the idea was conceived of a new zapovednik to include the most important sites in northern Taymyr, and a 1991-93 planning phase was financed by WWF and the Dutch government. Also involved were IEMAE, the State Committee for Russia's North, and the Socio-Ecological Union. Plans were discussed at three conferences - at Husum (Wadden Sea), at Dudinka, and on the island of Vilm - and in 1993, 150 years after Middendorff reached the Arctic coast at the Lower Taymyra Delta, the Great Arctic Reserve was established as Russia's largest zapovednik (about the size of Switzerland). It includes the deltas, of particular importance as mass moulting sites for geese, and adjoining areas of the Lower Taymyra, Pyasina and Lenivaya rivers, a few other coastal areas, and many islands in the Kara Sea. Large areas of Severnaya Zemlya, north of Cape Chelyuskin, were added in 1996.
This bare outline of the story skates over the immense amount of work that went on behind the scenes - making contacts, persuading potential collaborators, writing reports, setting up meetings and conferences, securing funds, surmounting language problems, and much else. It all paid off, since the Great Arctic Reserve is a magnificent achievement in its own right, but of particular significance is the establishment of permanent international cooperation prompted by the biology of species which recognise no political boundaries. (Other international agreements prompted by the cross-border nature of pollution and global warming also come to mind.) More recently the attempt has been made, in the context of the Bonn Convention, to set up an African Eurasian Waterbird Agreement between all the countries of the Western Palaearctic migration system. The agreement would be an incentive to identify other Russian sites important for these birds, and to establish reserves to protect them (eg.Yamal Peninsula, Vaygach Island, Pechora Delta). It would also prompt further research to increase our knowledge of these species, and to enable hunting to be regulated on an international basis so that the geese and ducks which are important to Arctic peoples can be managed sustainably. There is also a proposal for an Asian Pacific Waterfowl Agreement. The two agreements would together take care of at least two thirds of the world's waterfowl resources, and hopefully ensure sensible management of them for the foreseeable future. Of course nothing can be achieved without international cooperation of a high order in science, policy and administration.
Meanwhile expeditions continue every year in Taymyr or other Russian Arctic regions. Rather than mounting major international expeditions, the pattern now tends to be Russian expeditions (often led by ES jnr) with invited foreign participants - who may be professionals or keen and competent amateurs who can pay their own expenses and contribute to the scientific work of the expedition. This can provide an opportunity to visit the Arctic at a time when travel for commercially organised tours in the area is becoming increasingly difficult, with the result that few tourists are now reaching Taymyr and similar areas. Anyone interested in joining one of these expeditions should contact ES jnr at International Arctic Expedition . Other institutes also invite foreign participants on their expeditions to many parts of Russia/CIS. International cooperation is not the monopoly of organisations: participating in expeditions is one way in which we can help as individuals, and enjoy a wonderful experience at the same time.