Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Harking, and today we're going to be exploring people of the boreal forest together.

One of the topics we're going to cover is reindeer, which aren't just an animal that appear at Christmas time.

They exist all year round, and we're going to hear a bit more about the people who care for these animals and their lifestyle and how that is changing.

Today's lesson is called People's use of the boreal forest.

This is taken from the unit Forest biomes: why are forests so important? Today's outcome is to be able to describe how people live in the boreal forest, human activities there, and the impact of these activities as well.

Some of this content might seem a bit new and a bit tricky, but do not worry.

I'll be here to help you the whole way.

First of all, to help us out, we've got some keywords that we'll use in today's lesson.

Let's have a little run through of each of these keywords and check that we're happy with each of them.

If at any point you aren't happy, please pause this video and feel free to write them down.

If you want to do that anyway, that's absolutely fine.

First of all, we've got boreal forest, and this is the world's largest land biome found in the northern hemisphere.

Next we have Indigenous.

Notice we write this with a capital I in nearly every circumstance.

So these are people who are the original inhabitants of a place, rather than people who have moved there from elsewhere.

Rural is something to do with the countryside, whereas urban is something to do with a city or town.

So rural and urban are opposite words.

Then we've got migration.

This is moving from one place to another with the intention of staying there.

When we talk about people migrating, we are talking about people moving home for whatever reason they might have.

That might be within a country or from one country to another.

However, when we are talking about migration in terms of animals, animals tend to migrate every year, and they'll be migrating from one place to another in order to access maybe food, water, et cetera.

So they'll move with the seasons to find the best habitat for them at that time of year.

So migration for animals is slightly different to migration for humans, because it tends to be a pattern they do each year, and they'll move across that same route each year.

So our lesson outline today starts with, "How are traditional ways of life changing?" And then we'll move on to, "How does human activity affect the boreal forest?" So, "How are traditional ways of life changing?" is our first section.

So boreal forests are not densely populated.

That means there's not a huge number of people living there.

But they are home to some people, and these people include Indigenous people.

So two different types of Indigenous people here.

The first type have traditional lifestyles, such as reindeer herding, for this example.

Then we've got Indigenous people who might have less traditional jobs, but they still live in the forest, such as logging, mining, or wildlife research.

Then we've got a third group, and these are the rural people, who are not Indigenous, but may also work in logging, mining or wildlife research, and they live in that boreal forest.

There are many Indigenous groups with their own languages and cultures living in the boreal forests.

Indigenous people have been living in these forests for thousands of years, and you can see here in the photograph, this is somebody who is living in a traditional way, but in modern day times, all right, in a boreal forest.

You can see the tent in which she's in and there's a fire there, but also she's wearing jeans.

This is modern day.

An example of an Indigenous community living in the boreal forest is the Saami.

Saami people live the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and parts of Russia.

You can see this on the map here, and there are many different groups of Saami, and they are shown by the different colours On the map.

You'll notice that there isn't a different community of Saami for each country, and that is because these communities, these cultures, were there before the boundaries of these countries were put in place.

Can you name two groups of Saami in Finland for me? So have a look at where Finland is on the map.

Take a look at the colours shaded in in Northern Finland and work out whether you can see the numbers for those colours.

And then our key on the right shows us which Saami communities are associated with which number.

I'll give you a moment to work that out.

Well done, everyone.

You should have The Northern Saami and the Inari Saami.

These are both located in Finland.

The Saami are traditionally reindeer herders, who use reindeer for food, clothing, tools and crafts.

So they have lived this lifestyle for a really long time, you can see the photograph on the left shows, quite some time ago, Saami living in this way.

The reindeer are herded between coastal and inland areas to ensure the animals have access to the best grazing land throughout the year.

So they still do this, but now there have been changes.

So we can see on the left-hand side at the bottom, the photograph showing a more modern-day Saami person.

And this is now, when we talk about the migration of these reindeer, this is actually now often done using snowmobiles, helicopters, and satellite navigation.

So just in the same way that you or your family might use an app or sat-nav to navigate, to find the route to get to wherever it is you're going, in the car, on the train, however it is you're doing that, that is exactly what they're using now in order to navigate, to find the way to migrate with these reindeer herds.

The Saami are traditional reindeer herders who, is it A, ride reindeers from the coast to inland areas, B, only use traditional methods, no new technology at all, or C, now often use snowmobiles, helicopters, and GPS? Well done, it is C.

So they now often use snowmobiles, helicopters, and GPS.

GPS, by the way, stands for global positioning system.

Traditional ways of life in the boreal forest, like those of the Saami, are changing due to, because we've got commercial projects, climate change, and migration to urban areas.

So we're going to take each of these topics and look at them one by one in the next slides, starting with commercial projects.

So the land through which the reindeer are herded is often under threat from commercial projects such as mining, logging, and road building projects which lead to deforestation.

You'll notice that mining, logging, and road building projects are all projects that will make money, and that is what commercial projects means.

It means a project that will make money.

Private ownership of land also prevents reindeers from migrating through the area.

So if somebody owns a section of land, they won't necessarily allow the reindeer, and the herds obviously, to move through that land.

It might be fenced, for example, or it might just not allow people to move through the land at all.

Climate change is our second reason the traditional ways of life are changing.

So climate change is changing the ecosystems that reindeers rely on, so the food they eat is in danger.

Plants such as moss and lichen that are the reindeers' food source are affected by the warmer winters and less predictable precipitation.

So this means that for reindeer herders, they're finding it quite hard to necessarily guarantee that there will be the right food for their animals as they migrate their normal routes, because of climate change.

And if you don't have the right moss and lichen to feed those animals as they're moving through their migration routes it's actually going to make it quite hard for the animals to survive that route, and it makes it a lot more difficult to do it in that way.

There are people now who have reindeer and they farm them in the same way that you might farm maybe cows or keep horses and things like that, and they would feed them an artificial diet rather than actually taking them to land where they can graze.

So they might just be kept in a field and then fed food that's in a bucket, for example.

So that is one way in which reindeer herders are changing their life.

Not all of them though, there are still people that are herding the reindeer and they're facing these challenges.

Many young Saami have migrated to urban areas, such as Oslo, for education and employment.

So they are not taking the reindeer with them when they do this.

This is very much moving for a different way of life.

One effect of this is that the knowledge of traditional customs and language is gradually being lost.

Which of these are bringing changes to traditional ways of life in boreal forests? Select two answers.

Is it A, commercial projects, B, climate change, or C, migration to rural areas? Well done.

It's commercial projects and climate change.

Just to note, on C, it's not migration to rural areas.

Remember, rural means countryside.

Instead, it's migration of young Saami people to urban areas.

So young people are often moving to the city, and this is a threat to the traditional ways of life.

Right, Task A, this comes in two parts.

Firstly for me, could you please complete the sentences using the correct ending? So on the left-hand side here, we have got black text that shows us the start of the sentences, and on the right-hand side, we have got purple text which shows us the end of the sentences.

However, they're muddled up, so you have to match these correctly.

The second task is, "Traditional ways of life in the boreal forest are changing.

Can you give me three reasons for this?" You might want to do that as bullet points, but make sure you include enough detail in each of those bullet points.

I'll give you a moment to do that now.

Please pause the video.

Well done, everyone.

Let's compare your answers to these answers here.

So the first task, your answers should probably look like this.

"The Saami are traditionally reindeer herds who use reindeer for food, clothing, tools, and crafts.

Reindeer are herded between coastal and inland areas to ensure the animals have access to the best grazing land throughout the year.

This is now often done using snowmobiles, helicopters, and GPS." Our second task was to list three reasons for the traditional ways of life in the boreal forest changing.

So your answer may look like this, it might be a little different and that's absolutely fine, but if you want to steal anything from my answer and improve your own, this is a really good time to do that.

"Traditional ways of life in the boreal forest, like those of the Saami, are being threatened by," so we've got firstly, commercial projects.

So the land required to herd the reindeer through is often under threat from mining, logging, and infrastructure projects.

Secondly, we've got climate change, and this is changing the ecosystems the reindeers rely on.

You might have put a bit more detail there about the food sources, the moss, the lichens, that would be great.

Number three, migration to urban areas.

So this is many young Saami have moved to urban areas for education and employment, meaning that the traditional knowledge and language is being forgotten.

Now, you may have even added in an example such as Oslo there, which would've been great.

Well done, everyone.

Great effort.

I'm really pleased with the work you're putting in here.

Now we're moving on to the second part of our lesson.

How does human activity affect the boreal forest? Boreal forests are important habitats for many species, such as the woodland caribou, and they're important carbon sinks, as they absorb carbon dioxide.

It is worth noting here that, you can see in this photograph, the caribou actually looks quite like a reindeer, and that's because they're part of the same species.

So this is the Rangifer tarandus species.

Both reindeer and caribou are part of that species.

They're subspecies of the Rangifer tarandus.

And the caribou live in North America.

They're a little bit bigger than the reindeer, and the antlers are a little bit bigger.

The reindeer live in Europe and they tend to be a bit smaller.

So they are slightly different.

They are different subspecies, but they're part of the same overall species, which makes sense because they both live in boreal forests.

However, human activities are threatening the boreal forest ecosystem.

So all of these things, these carbon sinks, habitats for many of these species, including the caribou, including the reindeer, this is all under threat.

What might these threats be? Okay, so I'll let you pause the video now if you need to, and just have a little discussion.

What sorts of threats could you think of? Well done, that's excellent discussion.

We're going to have a look at some of these threats now and you can note which ones you thought of.

So to start with, only 12% of the boreal forest is protected, and considering this is the largest biome, that's quite concerning.

What's going on with the rest of that? So there's another 88% of the forest which hasn't been protected.

What's happening there? So deforestation occurs in the boreal forest a lot, the cutting down of trees.

30% of the boreal forest is designated for commercial use, so to make money, including logging, energy production, human development as well.

So in addition, there are now more wildfires destroying the forest due to global warming.

So 30% of the forest is being used for commercial use and only 12% is protected.

Let's see if you remember some of this for our next check.

I'd like you to select the correct statement.

Is it A, more of the boreal forest is designated for commercial use than is protected, B, more of the boreal forest is protected than is designated for commercial use, or C, an equal proportion of the boreal forest is protected and designated for commercial use? Can you remember those percentages? Which one was higher? Well done.

A is correct.

So more of the boreal forest is designated for commercial use than is protected.

So to make land suitable for commercial use, the trees do usually need to be cut down.

But there is an industry that is all about the actual cutting down of the trees regardless of if the land is going to be used for something different afterwards.

And that is logging.

So commercial logging also happens for timber, which is getting wood from the trees, maybe for the construction of furniture, for example, and also the pulp and paper industry in countries such as Canada and Norway.

We've also got deforestation occurring in order to allow for energy production.

So energy production affects boreal forests in locations such as Alberta, Canada, and it includes mining for fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas.

So this can lead to deforestation as well as contamination of the soil when that oil can get into the soil and actually damage the soil, which is an important part of the ecosystem.

You can see on the left here, we've got an oil well pump in Longview, Alberta, Canada.

So this is just one example of what that might look like in reality.

So it's quite a small scale.

Another form of energy production which can impact boreal forests is hydroelectric power.

We've got an example here of the W.

A.

C.

Bennett Dam in British Columbia, Canada.

You can see this in the photograph here.

The construction of a hydroelectric power dam creates a reservoir of water upstream of the dam.

Can you see where the arrow is pointing on that photograph? So the dam here is the wall across the river, and the reservoir behind is that big lake.

So all the water has been trapped behind.

This can flood the forest, so trees will die if they are flooded.

And obviously, the whole ecosystem will entirely change.

The flow of water is likely to be altered, which will impact ecosystems in the river itself as well.

So for example, fish and other species won't be able to migrate upstream or downstream in the way that they used to.

So true or false? Hydroelectric power can cause flooding of the forest and alter water flow.

Is that true or false? Well done.

It's true.

The construction of hydroelectric power dams creates a reservoir water upstream of the dam, and this can flood the forest.

Our third way in which human activity is affecting the boreal forest, now.

So human development such as road construction, that you can see in the photo on the left, and the laying of pipelines, which we can see on the right, requires large stretches of forest to be cleared.

And these are often in long, thin strips as you can see in the images, and that just divides the forest into smaller separate sections, and that can prevent animals from migrating and moving from one section to another, can make the habitat a lot smaller, or could provide a hazard crossing these boundaries.

So it's not ideal for ecosystems. Woodland caribou in Canada rely on the dense cover of boreal forests for survival.

Deforestation and human development has led to the woodland caribou habitat being split into smaller areas.

This has disrupted their routes for moving through the forest and their access to essential food resources.

There are people and organisations taking action to protect boreal forests and replant areas of forest.

So Indigenous knowledge significantly contributes to this.

So we can see here on the map, the example of the Cree Nation who have worked with the Canadian government to create conservation areas and manage the forest.

In Broadback Forest in Quebec, Canada, key areas of woodland caribou habitats were protected by restricting logging and other industrial activities.

Right, time for a quick check now.

How does fragmentation of boreal forests affect woodland caribou? Choose two From these options.

We've got A, it splits their habitat into smaller areas, B, it clears the forest to make it easier for caribou to move around, or C, disrupts their access to food resources and makes it harder for them to move freely in the forest.

Which do you think are correct? Remember, you're going for two.

Well done.

So we should have A and C.

So splits the habitat in smaller areas and disrupts the access to food resources, making it harder for them to move freely in the forest.

Task time, now.

We've got our second task of the day.

I would like you to design an information leaflet to explain how human activities affect the boreal forest.

I would like you to include keywords.

You might like to look back to the keyword slide at the beginning of the presentation to help you with that.

Explanation, so words such as and, therefore, consequently, can really help you develop your explanation and make sure you've got the depth that you need.

And then evidence.

This means facts.

In this case, it might be specific names of locations, or specific species, the names of a specific group of people.

Good luck with this.

I believe you've got this, and I'll see you in a bit.

Please pause the video so that you've got enough time.

Well done, everyone.

Let's have a look at my answer compared to yours and see if there's any improvements we can make.

So how human activities affect the boreal forest.

First, we've talked about logging.

So some logging can occur in its own right for timber and the pulp and paper industry.

Deforestation occurs in the boreal forest and leads to a loss of habitats.

We might have linked in the caribou, for example, here, the woodland caribou in Canada could be a great example of a specific subspecies that we could use to give some more evidence here.

Or you might have used the evidence that I have, only 12% of the boreal forest is protected.

Nice fact.

Next, we're going on to energy production.

So energy production such as mining for fossil fuels can lead to deforestation and the contamination of soil, whereas construction of hydroelectric power dams can lead to flooding and alteration of the water flow.

So you might have even put an example of hydroelectric power dam in there.

We could have said, for example, the W.

A.

C.

Bennett Dam in Canada.

That would be a good example.

You might have talked about oil drilling, for example, in Alberta, Canada.

That would've been another good example to add in there and that would improve your answer further.

We've also got the construction of roads and pipelines fragmenting the forest.

So this means that wildlife, might wanna mention caribou here, cannot move around their habitats or migrate without crossing dangerous roads or passing through large areas with no food source or shelter.

So I've mentioned the caribou in my answer a little bit further down.

We said that deforestation has disrupted species' migration roots and access to resources and has led to the fragmentation of the woodland caribou habitats in Canada.

I hope you found something that you could add in or use to improve with your own answer.

I'm sure your answers are amazing and there's going to be sections that you've done differently and may well be far better.

And that's brilliant.

There's lots of different ways to approach this question.

Thank you so much for joining me this lesson.

Let's do a little review now.

So we've got Indigenous communities such as the Saami live in parts of the Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Russian boreal forest.

They're traditionally reindeer herders.

Traditional ways of life in the boreal forest are being threatened.

Deforestation is rapidly reducing the size of the boreal forests to make way for human activity.

And lastly, deforestation has led to the breaking up of the woodland caribou habitat and has disrupted their access to food resources.

Thank you so much for joining me today.

It's been lovely working through this with you, and I hope to see you next time.