Grass Could Save The Arctic

In a remote corner of Siberia, a Russian geophysicist named Sergey Zimov, and his son, Nikita, are bringing back the Ice Age.

It isn’t like they have woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats running around.

Although they’d certainly be open to hosting some if anyone ever finds a solution  to that whole extinction thing.

Instead, the Zimovs are trying  to restore the ecosystem to the way it was 12,000 years ago.

Back in the 90s, the Russian government  gifted them 160 square km of land to run their massive experiment, hich they named Pleistocene Park.

And while it’s definitely eccentric,  the Zimovs’ “backyard” hobby could have huge implications for  the fate of the entire planet.

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Sergey Zimov has dedicated  the second half of his career to studying how grazing animals  affect grassland habitats.

He roped his son into joining the cause, and Nikita is now the  director of Pleistocene Park.

They’re situated in a stark, frozen landscape, about a 4-hour flight away from the nearest city.

If you lived out here, it wouldn’t be  hard to imagine the world frozen solid.

That’s probably how many of us imagine  the Earth looked 12,000 years ago at the end of the Pleistocene geological era, better known as the last Ice Age.

But even in Siberia, that’s not how it was.

Geological records indicate  that this shrubby tundra was once covered in lush  meadows with grazing megafauna.

That kind of ecosystem is called a mammoth steppe.

Steppes are dry grassy plains  characterized by low amounts of rain.

And mammoth is in the name because of, yanno, the mammoths.

But since the end of the Ice Age, Siberia has been a scrubby tundra.