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THE ENVIRONMENT AND ANTHROPOLOGY 125
climate, the ground is frozen in winter and summer, and only for a very brief
period (the period of vegetation) does the upper segment of the soil thaw. This
permafrost produces a special landscape and the ecosystem here is extremely fragile.
The region is populated by the Sakha, among whom Csaba Mészaros has been
conducting anthropological fieldwork since 2002. His research has revealed the
attitude of the local people to their natural environment, and how this relationship
has changed in recent times due to climate change.
The Sakha conceive of the landscape where they live as a sentient and perceptive
medium with material characteristics and a soul. The landscape and its elements
are independent entities, members of the community just like the people. The
ponds and meadows (a/aas), which have great importance in the lives of the Sakha,
have personality traits that the locals, at least those who are in permanent contact
with them (fishermen, hunters) know well. They communicate and even barter
with them accordingly. The landscape elements may fall ill, get hurt, be healed
(e.g., by exterminating the ondatras which dig up and destroy the lakeshore), and
they can also die. Mészáros illustrated the latter with a concrete example. In 1978,
the Soviet state performed an experimental nuclear explosion here under a field
and lake. Since then, the local people regard the area as dead.
“It does not mean that these ponds died out; no fish live nor water birds rest there
— the natives simply regard them as lifeless and hence they stopped having economic
or spiritual relationships with them" (Cs. Mészáros 2019: 156).
The impacts of climate change are particularly powerful in the arctic regions, and
they have caused serious changes in this fragile ecosystem: the permafrost soil is
getting eroded, thawed, watery. The ecological change influences the landscape
and the individuals and communities living there. This receives a special
interpretation in their view of the world:
“When the banks of a lake or a field become swampy, it is not only (not primarily)
an ecological process for the Sakha, but the illness of a member of the community.
Likewise, when new species of animals appear, the water and fish stock of a lake
changes, the hunted game disappears or the haul of fish decreases, all this indicates
the changed behavior of a member of the community. Consequently, global climate
change is principally interpretable and interpreted in the specific terms of the living,
feeling landscape. In other words: the Sakha enter the Anthropocene world not
surrounded by climatic anomalies and altered ecological conditions, but amidst sick
or dead lakes, revengeful or humiliated fields” (Cs. Mészaros 2019: 155)
In their interpretation, people have violated the behavioral norms among members
of the community, therefore the non-human members of the community turned
away from them, refuse to communicate, or behave in a hostile manner. A previously
functioning worldview and practice have lost validity owing to the ecological changes.
Similarly to Katharine L. Wiegele, Csaba Mészaros also states, on the basis of
his field research, that the attention anthropology gives to local communities is
valuable. What is more, it is worth adopting certain local environment evaluation
practices and ontology, and solving the environmental problems of any given
region by applying them (Cs. Mészáros 2019: 160).