"Fifty years ago the sands appeared" -- amazing story of a Russian Arctic desert

I came upon the following interesting documentary a few days ago about the Russian Arctic desert. An ATS search did not reveal where it might have been shown on here, so my sincere apologies if I somehow missed it.

It's a 26-minute documentary that is quite fascinating and informative. It discusses the cause and the effects of this desertification as well as some successful interventions to counter desertification. It shows the three deserts of Russia, the northernmost one relatively new that lies above the Arctic circle, the second where successful efforts are underway to return the soil to some former semblance of itself, and another which is a preserved relatively small natural site.

It was all new material to me and kept me watching with interest. I hope you will watch and enjoy it as much as I did.

The effect it has had on me is to make me question why efforts in the northern Sahara seem unsuccessful and whether they are trying the same methods to halt its spread in areas such as Algeria and Morocco. It also makes me question why efforts have not been made (or have they?) to repair the damage done by the trawling nets on the sea grasses.

Please let me know what you think.

I think this is what China has in its future, they have already seen a quarter of their top soil blown away due to out of control farming and de forestation. The wars of the future will probably be fought over water and green parts of land

On the level
I think this is what China has in its future, they have already seen a quarter of their top soil blown away due to out of control farming and de forestation. The wars of the future will probably be fought over water and green parts of land

aaaaaand this is why they will be moving into the US soon. lol

I like to camo guy who likes his "Freedom"
must be nice to do nothing all day

a reply to: aboutface
Its an interesting little documentary. The contrast of it that is, on one shore you have people plantings bushes to take back the desert and like the guy said he remembers when he was a kid the grass was as tall as him, now its just sand. And on the other side you have others trekking all the way there and through some pretty hazardous marshes all to see the desert enjoy its sight and have a little get together.

On a worldwide scale however its not so much that there is no global change warming or otherwise, and if its by man or nature, because really it seems to be both, and the whole thing is more like who and which place is getting the short end of the stick. Basically while some places seem to become desserts others just cant seem to get the rain to stop, and plants to quit with that growing they always do. Generally even global change intones not one monotonous change worldwide, not unless there is a worldwide iceage or cataclysm, because even the last ice age was not worldwide even if it effected things worldwide there were plenty of places in the world which were very fertile.

The effect it has had on me is to make me question why efforts in the northern Sahara seem unsuccessful and whether they are trying the same methods to halt its spread in areas such as Algeria and Morocco. It also makes me question why efforts have not been made (or have they?) to repair the damage done by the trawling nets on the sea grasses.

The Shara has been there for a while and is much bigger you would have to content with nature much more so then you would in that sleepy little Russian village, after all the Shara gets little to no rain there per year, and like the guy in the video said its impossible to grow in the sand or to halt its spread, the only thing you can really do is help the spread of plants. Like in the village they plant bushes which can grow in the more barren areas but not completely in the sand, and as those parts spreed into the dessert they try to plant grass in between the bushes as a way to take back the dessert.

I also dont think they have the manpower or resources to repair the damage done on the sea grasses in the white sea, or in that particular area were the desert is spreading. It could all just be a pocket of land which is getting the worst of it, there are places like that here in the US, and even in a place like Siberia or even places like Antarctica there is a dessert there, albeit a different kind of dessert, but supposedly its one of the driest if not the driest place on earth.

There are even worse places or areas like McMurdo dry valleys right in the middle of Antarctica which from all I heard has not seen any rain for hundreds of years. And while it may not have sandy dunes, well just look at the picture the whole place has snow and ice on every side, but in the middle it as dry as it gets in fact more so then sandy desserts as they found bacteria which live in rocks to survive, which makes for one curious contrasting picture and place.

a reply to: galadofwarthethird

Thanks for your input. I've been thinking about it some more and how they could restock and replant the northernmost sea grasses. I have the distinct impression that it could be done by say summer student project-s. However my gut instinct tells me that some naysayer put the kybosh on that notion by suggesting the fishing boats would only destroy them again. I think they and the caring world has been missing a huge and obvious opportunity here to not only conduct repairs, but also to educate those concerned in how to treat the place. To me it reeks of someone not caring enough.

a reply to: aboutface
Maybe, but considering I never thought much about sea grass or other aquatic plant life necessary for not only a thriving underwater habitats, but like you vid showed so as to not turn into desertification on shore. First thing that came up when I typed sea grass into Google was a link to how were losing sea grasses with and about the same rate were losing rain forests. Link cant be good I suppose, but again its just some places it seems.

Here in the northwest you cant step far off the shore without steeping on seaweed or all kinds of squishy underwater plant life, also I dont think you can seed sea grass the way you would just seed regular grass. I mean I dont know how you would go about it if you wanted to restore ecosystem under the water, but I am guessing you would at least need to be diving under to do any kind of planting or trying to restore the ecosystem on the shorelines of that Russian town, that or introducing a more durable seaplants into that area kind of like they did on land with those bushes which grow in sand.

seagrass restoration
I mean they probably could do a sort of summer student project, but they would have a lot of underwater ground to cover, and I dont think its going to be that easy, both physically, mentally, and monetarily as in the supplies and time you would need, it could be done I suppose but you would need at the very least be months and months just in the planing and preparing stages if not years.