Musk ox expedition and other updates

Greetings everyone

About a week ago our camel expedition finished and we got 15 camels into the Park succesfully. I been walking in the Park in the recent days and places where first groups of camels roamed look incredibly good - with a lot of good grass and shortened shrubs with lots of leaves on them. So they are indeed a good "tool" to have effect on the ecosystems. So happy that population of camels has increased.

Unfortunately these are all good news we have at the moment. I think I mentioned in the previous updates that last year we started to get support from big Russian business run by Andrey Melnichenko. They publicly stated that support will be for many years, and we made a plan to expand the Park, develop infrastructure, get more animals and in several years the plan was to introduce first predators. So all this winter we been making the preparations for the fence construction, and preparing expeditions with animals.

In addition this spring we conducted a big research campaign measuring carbon content in the Park and outside the Park and comparing it with data we had from 2018. As a result we obtained 300 frozen soil cores this year (and same amount in 2018). Which is probably one the largest (if not the largest) database in the Arctic. Results turned out very good. We got a sequestration of carbon in the Park, and loss of carbon in the territory outside of the Park. First one is because we promote development of vegetation which has a deep root system. This vegetation is replacing low productive vegetation with little to no deep roots. And outside of the Park loss of carbon is happening near the soil surface and this can be attributed to climate warming, which is lowering the carbon carrying capacity of soils (that is actually a very bad sign in terms of global problems).

Also, team of experts from the Institute of the Atmosphere from Moscow been measuring albedo and temperature regime of the surface in April. For this purpose they used drones equipped with special sensors. Results turned out to be very good as well. Animals open landscape, and winter albedo is increasing dramatically. Temperature difference between two originally similar sites (inside the fence and outside) can reach 5C during the day hours in April.

In this sense our project stand really well against many other Nature-Based Solutions. Recent publication in Nature Communications showed that tree planting in most of the world doesn't give much climate mitigation profits, since carbon sequestration is getting balanced by decreasing albedo which in contrary warms the air temperatures. Arctic rewilding in contrary have albedo effect strengthening the carbon sequestration.

Despite all the progress we made and scientific data we gathered, Melnichenko decided to cancel the support for the Park. This was announced to us just 10 days ago. By that time we already had 3 expeditions with animals ongoing, had a full assemblage of employees and construction of fencing went into an active phase. This involved preparation of 12000 5 meter long wooden posts for the fencing which was conducted 1000km up the Kolyma from the Park. So now we have to cancel pretty much all the work and still Park has to cover many expenses for activities which already took place and have to pay some fines for contracts cancellation.

So this puts us into a very complicated situation. Still there is one expedition I am intending to finish at any cost. Tommorow I leave Cherskii and fly to Vladivostok. I already obtained a captains licence and in a few days we are going to depart on from Vladivostok on "The Ark" the old calmari fishing vessel which we turned into a musk ox transporter. It will take us few days to get all the supplies, atvs, trailers, cages etc on board. From there we will head out to Cherskii. The route will go past Sakhalin island, Japan, Kuril islands, Kamchatka and Bering straight. In Cherskii we will get veterinarians, rangers from ministry of nature and couple filmmakers on board and continue towards the Taimyr peninsular. Just before it, there is a Big Begichev island. There we plan to catch musk ox.

We already had several unscuccessfull attempts trying to get musk ox from the Arctic islands, but I hope this time it will work. But still even in my standarts it is a crazy complicated trip. Total distance which we will have to cover is 11000km by seas. uhh.

Anyway Park is going to experience a rough times. Incomes have really went down from all our sources and right now it is not clear if in the future we will be able to get enough funds to maintain the Park and research on the station. Still hoping that things will workout somehow.

In any case really greatfull for all your support. This time it is really much needed.

All the best

Nikita