Bakhton Doniyor, 50, lights a fire with pieces of charcoal and dried manure in the wood-burning stove of his home in Bulunkul, a village in Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region in eastern Tajikistan.
Her husband Bulbulov Doniyor, 55, pours instant coffee into a glass cup and kneels at the end of a colorful mop, covered in plates of sweets, cookies, goat cheese and traditional Tajik naan.
“You know,” Bulbulov said, breaking bread, “I think she would have been relieved if the wolves had gotten the better of me last winter.”
High in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan, wolves prey on livestock cared for by semi-nomadic herders like Doniyor. But melting glaciers and increasingly extreme weather conditions are rewriting the rules of the game for all the inhabitants here on “the roof of the world”.
The temperature is increasing faster in the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan (elevation 25,095 feet) than the global average. These are the stories of the people living through our coming climate crisis today. This series was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
And so, last winter, the wolves came down from the mountains and went right to the shepherd, instead of the sheep.
“I was sure I was going to die,” Doniyor said, pointing to the surrounding mountains. Sterile and sorry. No place to hide.
Helped by Yuri, his sheepdog, Doniyor repelled the pack of wolves with his wooden stick. He does not hold a rifle license.
Bakhton laughs and nods theatrically, feigning pleasure at being a widow, but then she sighs and joins her husband on the floor.
“I’m worried whenever he’s out there,” she says, “especially alone with the animal. You can only rely on yourself – and nature is cruel.
“Wolves can strike at any time of the day,” Bulbulov explains. “In the end, we got away”
He and his dog managed to drive the wolves away, but the pack took with them the shredded remains of one of Bulbulov’s sheep. “Yuri took a few bad hits but stood firm by my side.”
“I was certain that I was going to die.”
For residents of Bulunkul — a village of about 20 houses at 13,000 feet above sea level and mostly inhabited by cattle herders who spend the warmer months in portable yurts — wolf attacks are no are not new. Wolves usually enter the village in packs, preying on livestock kept either in barn-like structures or behind clay walls.
Winters here are just as unforgiving – but at the start of 2021, temperatures plummeted to an all-time low of minus 140 degrees Fahrenheit. The cold forced many ranchers to keep their animals inside their homes to prevent them from freezing to death, but that didn’t necessarily prevent them from starving to death. The wolves, which were becoming ravenous and desperate, came to Bulunkul even more often in search either of cattle or of the shepherds who guarded them.
“We saw it coming for a few years, but last winter was a game changer,” Bulbulov says. “Since then, nothing has been the same. »
“This year could turn out to be even worse,” adds Bakhton.
In the spring, the signs of the famine that had driven the wolves to such desperation became visible along the slopes of the Pamir mountains. All kinds of wildlife were starving as the thick frost on the ground made it impossible to dig for roots, grass or hibernating rodents.
The Pamirs make up 45% of Tajikistan’s land – and are home to at least 16 peaks over 20,000 feet – but are home to only 3% of Tajikistan’s total population of 9.5 million.
Tajikistan became independent from Russia in 1991 but immediately descended into civil war. Islamist guerrillas have established strongholds in the Pamirs in hopes of eventually defeating the post-Communist regime led by former Communists in the capital, Dushanbe.
By 1997, the war had claimed nearly 100,000 lives and the Islamists had lost, but the Gorno-Badakhshan region was granted full-scale autonomy.
Today, many argue that autonomy has only increased social and economic inequalities between isolated communities such as Bulunkul and the corridors of power in Dushanbe.
“We had seen it coming for a few years, but last winter was a game changer.”
The coal industry never came this far east during the Soviet era; no other type of industry is worth mentioning. Agriculture is difficult in the unforgiving mountainous terrain, as few plants or trees survive on these slopes. Animal husbandry was and has remained the best means of economic survival.
“I don’t remember a life without yaks,” Bulbulov says. As a young man, he tried it: he was a truck driver transporting goods to Dushanbe, as well as to neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan. In 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Bulbulov delivered goods and supplies to Soviet troops.
When the Soviet empire collapsed, many Tajiks found themselves in desperate need of income. Bulbulov turned to breeding.
But now people like Bulbulov in the Pamirs face an uncertain future, as increasingly unpredictable weather patterns have made winters both bitterly cold and summers terribly dry. The soil becomes saltier and the animals are less able to survive the winters, despite the inflated prices of food imported from Dushanbe.
“Our animals are used to the salty grass here – they won’t touch Dushanbe’s fodder,” Bulbulov explains. “They would rather starve and lose weight. In the spring, many are skin and bones, with little meat to offer.
“Today is my lucky day.”
In 2020, Covid-19 struck and the usual trade routes for herders – the routes from Kashgar in Chinese Xinjiang and the historic city of Osh in Kyrgyzstan – were closed. Prices for wheat, cooking oil, gasoline and, worst of all, animal feed have soared.
Meanwhile, Bulbulov says, “the price of meat is not what it used to be, or shouldn’t be, these days.”
People started slaughtering their cattle for quick cash.
“We need money to pay for our children’s education and health care, and to support ourselves,” he says.
The next morning, Bulbolov prepares a thermos and a backpack with bread, meat and sweets. The herdsmen of Bulunkul, it seemed, took turns grazing their cattle.
“It’s my turn,” he said, grimacing. “Today is my lucky day.”
Bakhton, who works as a school supervisor in the town of 2,000 people of Alichur, about 30 minutes away, has to leave for a meeting, but she milks the cows and helps Bulbulov with the yaks before she leaves.
As Bulbulov walks towards the pastures, other shepherds greet him, walking beside him and chatting a bit; one by one they leave, leaving Bulbulov and his dog Yuri alone with the animals.
“The seasons followed fixed cycles. Now winters are coming earlier every year.
Yaks, sheep and cows follow in the footsteps of Bulbulov’s rubber shoes. He picks up his phone and holds it high in the air. “No signal, he’s never in Bulunkul,” Bulbulov laments before putting the phone away.
He takes the animals and heads for the slopes on the other side of Bulunkul Lake, a saltwater lake that is an important stop for migrating birds.
“Everything changes,” says Bulbulov Doniyor. “The seasons followed fixed cycles. Now winters are coming earlier every year. Then just wait, wait and wait. Here, we live like marmots; we go into hibernation mode. And just like the animals, we break through to the other side, in the spring, bare to the bone.
This is the first part of a three-part series: The climate crisis on the roof of the world.
