To reduce the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere, it is not necessary at all to destroy conventional energy, it is enough to re-create grasslands for millions of ungulate animals in the vast and almost lifeless expanses of Eastern Siberia – what happened during the last ice. age. Ecologist Nikita Zimov, director of the Pleistocene Park, came to this conclusion. The expert explained in his column on the Clean Future information and analytics portal that if 10% of the Russian land is occupied by pastures, the country will become carbon neutral.
A columnist entitled “Mammoth Steppes: Grasslands as carbon sinks” argues that highly productive pastoral ecosystems in the Arctic have a cooling effect on the climate. The first experiments on the resettlement of animals in the Pleistocene Park in Yakutia began in 1988 by his father, ecologist Sergei Zimov.
Today, the fenced area of the park is 20 square kilometers, 9 species of large herbivores live here: reindeer, Yakut horse, deer, steppe bison, bison, musk ox, yak, Kalmyk cow, sheep.
According to Nikita Zimov, director of the Pleistocene Park, it is the revival of pastures that will create a sustainable economy and ecology in the expanse of permafrost.
If pastures for 40 million animals occupied three million square kilometers, or one-third of the areas occupied by permafrost, Russia would cover half of Europe carbon neutral. The expert also believes that the economy will grow quietly.
“What’s wrong with the Paris climate agreement? The reality is that if we want to reduce emissions then it will take huge costs, we will either have to slow down the economy, shut down factories or rebuild them into renewable energy sources for huge sums of money. It is technically difficult for our country, but impossible for the north,” said the expert, and concludes that it is difficult for Russia to reach carbon neutrality without lowering its living standards. He sees his way out in the creation of vast pastures.
The ecologist explains that now scientists at the Pleistocene Park have recreated a replica of the mammoth grazing steppe.
“There are no mammoths, but other animals of that time have survived, and the general idea is to create an ecosystem that would work according to the same principles,” explains Zimov.
According to him, the creation of a rich ecosystem is a good tool to combat climate warming. The scientist’s goal is to bring the park’s ecosystem to a state where it can exist and thrive without human intervention.