Erdenebat Chuluu, a nomadic herder, shouts words of encouragement to the reindeer he is riding.
“Chu!, Chu!,” he calls, as he urges the animal out of a cedar wood and onto a plain in the southern reaches of the Mongolian Taiga, a predominantly forested area some 200 km from the nearest paved road.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Erdenebat Chuluu travels with his animals to visit neighbours.
Once in the open, the beast and its rider gingerly step over fallen trees and navigate creeks of melted snow, seemingly oblivious to a late winter chill.
Chuluu has lived all his life in the centuries-old tradition of his Dukha ancestors, renowned for their reindeer-herding and hunter-gathering skills in the forests of the rugged Sayan Mountains straddling the Russian border.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Ethnic Dukha Jargal Gombosed holds her grandchild outside her family's reindeer pen.
But the Dukha fear they are losing their identity in the face of a conservation order by the government that bans unlicensed hunting on most of their traditional land.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
A reindeer stands in the evening sun after an afternoon of grazing.
Reindeer outdo horses in this steep and snowy terrain and have allowed the Dukha to evade many of the upheavals that have historically afflicted people in the lowlands, from Genghis Khan to Communism.
Chuluu's people, around 280 of them, are spread out across 59 households, about a day's ride from the village of Tsagaannuur.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
A Dukha nomad drives a herd of reindeer.
"It's our will to maintain the tradition of herding the reindeer in the same way as our ancestors did," Chuluu told Reuters in April.
In 2012, Mongolia's government designated the majority of the Dukha's traditional herding grounds as part of a national park in an attempt to protect an eco-system ravaged in the preceding couple of decades.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Ethnic Dukha Jargal Gombosed talks with her daughter and granddaughter in their tent. "In my day, everything, like rice and flour, were really rare. But now, as long as you have money, you can get anything, any clothes," Gombosed said. "Things were different in the past," she said. "When I was young we didn't have any such thing as a phone so you would only hear news when you went down to the village centre. But now people have phones and also TVs."
During that period, a Soviet-era quota system for hunting, which had provided a living for people like the Dukha and maintained wildlife numbers, broke down. The Dukha and other locals began to aggressively hunt animals like moose and red deer for the Chinese market, seriously depleting their numbers.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Davaajargal Taivan's family decided to use government's monthly handout to rent a house in the village so that her mother can be with her and her brother while they attend school.
Now, the government pays the herders a monthly handout to compensate for the hunting ban, but many Dukha feel they have lost half of their identity.
The hunting tradition has always defined a man in the Taiga, said Chuluu's neighbour.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Tsetse, six-year-old daughter of Dukha herder Erdenebat Chuluu, spends many hours every day darting through the forest on reindeer back. Because of their lighter bodyweight, children train young reindeer to get them used to carrying a rider and responding to a combination of vocal commands, prodding, heel-kicking and pulling the leash.
“It feels like we've lost something because we can't move to whichever area we like in this land, which has been handed down to us from our ancestors," said Naran-Erdene Bayar, 26.
The head ranger of the National Park, Tumursukh Jal, grew up in the area and knows the Dukha’s history well. He insisted they must follow the law.
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. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Local doctor Davaajav Nyamaa uses a telephone to call patients. The nomads use large antennas which they attach to the trees to connect to the 3G mobile network.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Local doctor Davaajav Nyamaa visits a patient in her family's tent.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Shaman Kyzyl-ool collapses after performing a ritual. "When I begin the ritual I know what I'm doing, but when the spirit comes to me, I'm not in control any more. When the spirit comes, I feel like I'm going into a dark hole," he said after performing a ritual marking the first day of the lunar month in his tent.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
"At the beginning I often thought, why me? I didn't like carrying these spirits, but I can't do anything about it, because I was chosen," Kyzyl-ool said about becoming a Shaman.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Reindeer feel most comfortable in cold climate which is why the Dukha move their camps higher up the mountains in summer.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Tsetse rides a reindeer.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Local doctor Davaajav Nyamaa is an ethnic Darkhad, herders of northern Mongolia who historically inhabit the steppe that borders the Taiga forests. He grew up around the Dukha, whom he visits as a doctor for checkups and treatments in their tents on a regular basis.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Reindeer lick the salt off the coat of a Dukha nomad.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Erdenebat Chuluu walks through a forest.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Natalie Thomas
Erdenebat Chuluu's daughter Tsetse rides a reindeer.
. Ulaan Uul, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Ethnic Dukha Purevjav Roslov sells jewellery made from wolf ankles to tourists."We kill the wolves to protect the reindeer and to earn money from the tourists," he said, adding that this was his main business, as it is more lucrative than herding reindeer.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Pupils leave the village school. People who are between 35-40 years old, belong to the last generation that speak the Dukhan language, linguist Elisabetta Ragagnin said. Together with the head teacher of the school in Tsagaannuur, she is writing grammar and textbooks in the nomad's native tongue to help preserve traditional knowledge, she said.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
"Tuvan... I don't really know... my parents sometimes speak it as they're older and I've picked up a few words but even though I know a bit, I can't say a full sentence," Otgonkhuu Tseveen (right) said about the native language of the Dukha. "I regret that I don't know how to speak this traditional language that my parents speak."
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Baigalmaa Munkhbat dresses Tsetse as her husband Erdenebat Chuluu watches. "My husband is a very good person, he provides for us in every way," Munkhbat said. "My daughter is very smart for her age. I want to make sure my only daughter has all the skills she needs for life."
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
The diet of the nomad consists mainly of meat and products made with flour, like dough to make dumplings and a local type of pasta.
"It's not about Dukha or Mongolian, it's about people illegally hunting," he said.
Meanwhile, on the Taiga, herders release hundreds of reindeer from a pen to graze.
After lifting the beams of the hold, the herd pours into the clearing and the animals, snouts nuzzling the snow-covered ground in search of moss, disappear from view as the evening light fades.
. Tsagaannuur, Mongolia. Reuters/Thomas Peter
Smoke rises from the chimney of the family tent of Erdenebat Chuluu.
