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Scars of the Tundra
Our investigation reveals how heavy machinery in the Russian Arctic harms ecosystems, the climate, and Indigenous communities.
In the Russian Arctic, the heavy tracked all-terrain vehicle—hauling cargo across snowy wastelands and summer swamps—has become a symbol of human conquest over the tundra.
In eight Arctic regions of Russia, the investigative project Arctida has documented dozens of large-scale cases where tundra vegetation has been destroyed by the movement of heavy transport. Some of these tracks, visible from space and stretching for kilometers, may date back to the Soviet era and are still expanding today.
Our investigation, published in collaboration with NeMoskva and Most.Media, explores the consequences for nature and local communities—and what can be done to prevent further destruction of the tundra.
A Typical Landscape
A tracked vehicle cuts through the thawed tundra, leaving deep ruts and waterlogged soil in its wake. This has been the standard mode of travel in the Arctic during summer for decades.
“This is what a typical Russian tundra landscape looks like,” a Russian environmental expert, who has visited the northern regions many times, told Arctida while describing the rutted terrain left behind by these machines.
Even if you've never set foot in the tundra yourself, today you can see these tracks clearly in satellite images.
Tracked all-terrain vehicles first arrived in the Russian Arctic in the second half of the 20th century, during the Soviet Union’s aggressive campaign to develop the North. Evidence of that era can still be found in the journals of polar explorers:
“We stormed into this world [the Arctic] with our roaring machines, racing back and forth across the island, cutting the tundra with steel tracks… my beloved Arctic takes a very long time to heal the wounds that are so easily inflicted,” — recalls geophysicist Lev Lipkov, describing an expedition to Kotelny Island in Yakutia in 1972.
Since then, little has changed. The ruts left by these heavy machines remain one of the most widespread human imprints on the Arctic. Everyone uses them: geologists, coal miners, oil workers, the military, scientists, and local residents.
“Every settlement is viewed as a base for further geological exploration or the construction of military facilities. And it’s always these tracked roads that connect everything. If you Google any Arctic village, you'll see these trails branching out around it like a spider web,” says an anonymous environmental expert.
Heavy Machinery on a Fragile Ecosystem
The movement of heavy vehicles is one of the primary threats to tundra vegetation—alongside seismic exploration, resource extraction, oil spills, and road construction.
Destruction of Vegetation and Wildlife Habitat
Heavy tracked vehicles exert extreme pressure on the soil. In winter, the thick snow cover offers some protection. But in warmer months, when the machines run over unprotected ground, the impact becomes devastating.
According to Russian scientists, on the Taymyr Peninsula and in Yakutia, just one heavy tractor can damage a full hectare of tundra surface for every 10 kilometers it travels. If a vehicle passes through an area twice, it destroys about 30% of the vegetation. After three passes, that number jumps to 80%.
What’s worse, these vehicle tracks tend to expand over time. After the first pass, the ruts often become waterlogged and impassable. The next time, the vehicle shifts slightly to the side—eventually creating parallel tracks that can span hundreds of meters in width and stretch for kilometers. These scars are clearly visible from space.
“The area was crisscrossed with vehicle tracks,” recalls an environmental expert who visited Yugyd Va National Park in the Komi Republic in the mid-1990s. “Where I was, the ruts were half a meter deep. Some had overgrown, but in the most vulnerable spots, where the soil erodes easily, there were fresh tracks. The ruts go so deep they expose the bedrock. These tracks run for kilometers across the mountainous tundra and slowly erode with rain, washing away the soil down to the base.”
Research shows that in these ruts, the population of arthropods declines, and plant diversity drops significantly. Small tundra shrubs are especially vulnerable—even a single pass of heavy machinery can wipe them out completely.
Near the Bovanenkovo gas field in Yamal, scientists have documented collapsed Arctic fox dens due to uncontrolled off-road movement of tracked vehicles and other industrial activity. Studies in the area have also shown that no plant community can withstand repeated passages of tracked transport.
Because of the Arctic’s harsh climate, damaged soil cover can take hundreds of years to recover—or may never recover at all. Once vehicle activity triggers permafrost thawing and the ground begins to subside, the ecosystem may never return to its original state.
Because of the Arctic’s harsh climate, damaged soil cover can take hundreds of years to recover—or may never recover at all. Once vehicle activity triggers permafrost thawing and the ground begins to subside, the ecosystem may never return to its original state.
Permafrost Melts Faster
Permafrost in the Arctic is already melting due to the man-made climate crisis—but when heavy tracked vehicles traverse it, the degradation accelerates.
Vegetation plays a critical role in insulating the permafrost. It holds the soil in place, stores carbon accumulated over thousands of years, and shields the frozen ground from summer heat. When heavy vehicles destroy this natural buffer, the soil begins to erode and the permafrost thaws deeper—by 4 to 6 centimeters even two years after the initial disturbance, according to some estimates.
Tundra soils store massive amounts of carbon—roughly twice as much as is currently in Earth’s atmosphere. As permafrost melts more rapidly, it releases increasing amounts of greenhouse gases, further intensifying climate change.
Russian researchers working on the Taymyr Peninsula observed that tracked vehicle movement mixes soil layers, increasing their thermal conductivity and reducing their reflectivity. As a result, the permafrost melts faster. According to their findings, any movement of machinery— even lightweight—should be strictly avoided in such areas for at least 7 to 15 years.
Damage to Indigenous Peoples
The widespread use of heavy vehicles across the Russian Arctic is causing serious harm to the traditional ways of life of Indigenous small-numbered peoples. By destroying yagel (reindeer moss), a key lichen that reindeer feed on, tracked transport is degrading critical grazing lands. Today, this is considered one of the main environmental threats to reindeer herding in the North. These damaged pastures take a very long time to regenerate—and some may never recover.
This infringes upon the constitutional rights of Indigenous peoples to practice traditional land use and preserve their ancestral habitats. For many communities, reindeer herding is a primary source of livelihood.
An anonymous representative of the Indigenous peoples of Chukotka told Arctida that in the Providensky District, the tundra has been “torn up” by all-terrain vehicles, exposing and melting the permafrost in their tracks:
“You can see vehicle tracks all over Chukotka. [...] We depend on the tundra—for reindeer feed, and for gathering berries, mushrooms, and wild plants we eat. Of course, all of this affects our habitat and the climate as a whole,” — said the Indigenous representative.
In Yamal, tracked vehicle ruts have led to the destruction of lichen and the spread of invasive species. As a result, lichen-dominated pastures have virtually disappeared from the peninsula, and the ecological situation there is now considered “critical.”
In Taymyr, the overabundance of heavy machinery makes it difficult for Indigenous residents to go fishing or gathering.
“Indigenous people in Baykalovsk told me that when so many machines are driving around, it becomes nearly impossible for them to access the tundra, fish the lakes, or gather berries and mushrooms. These are essential sources of both food and income for local families,”
— said a researcher of the Russian North, who observed “massive” tracked vehicle scars around the settlement of Munguy in Taymyr in 2016.
Reindeer herders in Komi also recognized the issue as far back as 2017, estimating that it would take 25 to 30 years for yagel to recover. Sergey Pasynkov, head of the cooperative Olenyevody ("Reindeer Herders"), put it bluntly when discussing the unchecked use of tracked vehicles in the tundra: “Where are the herders supposed to go?”
What Arctida Discovered
Using satellite monitoring data, Arctida identified 34 distinct cases of heavy tracked vehicle activity across eight regions of the Russian Arctic: Krasnoyarsk Krai, Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (YNAO), Nenets Autonomous Okrug (NAO), Komi Republic, Yakutia, Arkhangelsk Oblast, Murmansk Oblast, and Chukotka. There are likely more cases—these are only those confirmed via open-source data. The absence of tracked damage in Karelia and Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO) may be due to the predominance of taiga forest, where off-road vehicle use is less feasible.
In two locations—near the Varandey and Kharyaga oil fields in NAO—the tracks Arctida found cut directly across reindeer pastures. This is prohibited by regional law, except in cases involving special permits or emergency operations.
In another case in Murmansk Oblast (Semyostrovye), tracks were found within the boundaries of the Nizhneponoysky nature reserve, where the movement of tracked vehicles is explicitly banned.
- Oil and gas infrastructure – 19 cases
- Nearby settlements – 12 cases
- Traditional land use (reindeer herding, fishing, hunting) – 8 cases
- Airfields – 5 cases
- Mining, geological exploration, coal fields, military infrastructure – 1 case each
Track List and Analysis
While the exact year the tracks were made can’t always be determined from satellite imagery (only the image’s capture date is known), comparing images from different years reveals important trends:
- Soviet-era tracks are still visible today—confirming both slow vegetation recovery and the ongoing use of these routes.
- New tracks continue to appear: for instance, in 2024 satellite images near the village of Ust-Kara in NAO, tracks are visible that weren’t present in 2020. Similarly, new tracks have appeared around Anadyr in Chukotka compared to imagery from 20 years ago.
- These examples also show that tundra tracks tend to widen over time.
- New vehicle tracks continue to appear in the Russian Arctic. For instance, in the Ust-Kara area (NAO), 2024 satellite imagery shows trails not present in 2020. Around Anadyr in Chukotka, new tracks are also visible in 2024 imagery compared to the situation 20 years ago. These examples clearly demonstrate that tundra trails expand over time.
What Can Be Done: Not All All-Terrain Vehicles Are Created Equal
Even during the Soviet era, there was some recognition that ecologically destructive expansion into the tundra couldn’t go on forever. In 1984, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree banning the movement of mechanized vehicles across tundra and forest-tundra that damaged soil and vegetation, except on designated roads.
Modern Russia has made repeated attempts to include a similar ban in drafts of the federal law "On the Arctic Zone of the Russian Federation". However, over time, the wording of the ban was weakened, and by the 2018 draft, it had disappeared entirely.
Current laws impose seasonal restrictions on heavy vehicle movement—but only at the regional level, and often only in areas with reindeer pastures. Such laws exist in Yakutia, NAO, Komi, Chukotka, Murmansk Oblast, the Taymyr (Dolgan-Nenets) District of Krasnoyarsk Krai, and the Yamalsky District of YNAO.
Still, as Arctida’s investigation, expert analysis, media reports, and local testimonies show, these laws have limited effectiveness and are likely poorly enforced. Crucially, there is no federal-level ban on operating heavy tracked vehicles across the tundra and forest-tundra during the snow-free season.
Importantly, heavy tracked vehicles are not the only option. One promising alternative is transport equipped with ultra-low pressure tires. These wide tires have a much larger contact area with the ground, distributing weight more evenly. As a result, they exert minimal pressure—comparable to the pressure of a standing human—on the tundra surface.
What Arctida Proposes
Arctic development must be based on the best available technologies with minimal impact on fragile ecosystems. The optimal solution is the use of all-terrain vehicles with ultra-low-pressure tires. According to Russian scientists, to preserve the tundra's terrestrial ecosystems, the maximum allowable ground pressure from a vehicle should not exceed 0.14 kg/cm².
In addition, legal frameworks and enforcement mechanisms need to be strengthened:
- Adopt a federal ban on driving mechanized vehicles that damage the soil and vegetation in tundra and forest-tundra zones during snow-free periods.
- Require Arctic regions (within the Russian Arctic Zone, or RAZ) to implement clear and detailed rules for vehicle use in tundra and forest-tundra, drawing on international best practices.
For example:
- On Alaska’s North Slope, all off-road travel—year-round—requires a special permit.
- Permit applications are evaluated using a vegetation sensitivity map, with criteria including soil temperature and snow cover depth. If snow is insufficient, the tundra is closed to off-road traffic.
- In Norway’s Svalbard archipelago, over 60% of the territory is under protection, and vehicle use is strictly regulated.
To monitor compliance, Russian researchers recommend requiring all vehicles to be equipped with GLONASS tracking systems.
To ensure the “historic mission of careful and balanced Arctic development”—as claimed by Russian officials—does not remain just rhetoric, these measures must be funded. Funding should come from those who stand to profit from Arctic development:
- Federal authorities should develop subsidy programs to help regions in the Russian Arctic Zone (RAZ) transition to tundra-safe vehicles. Special emphasis should be placed on supporting Indigenous communities and small- and medium-sized enterprises, which typically lack the resources to invest in eco-friendly alternatives—unlike large corporations.
- Major companies must adopt plans to fully transition to vehicles with ultra-low-pressure tires. This transition could form a key part of their ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) strategies.
Methodology: Tracking Heavy Machinery in the Russian Arctic
Consolidated gallery of satellite images featuring the tracks identified in this investigation
