A third of all land on earth is composed of grasslands, supporting pastures for nomadic herders and providing crucial ecosystem services. The Nenets of Yamal Peninsula are one such nomadic community that have their own indigenous knowledge system revolving around reindeer herding. Transhumance is their way of life and a key ecological function. Due to a rise in temperature anomalies there has been an emergence of methane mounds known as pingos across the peninsula, and an increase in the extraction of natural gas by corporate giants. These changes have resulted in transmigration routes becoming threatened. The Russian Arctic, once a wasteland, has now become a zone of confluent resources disrupting the once stable ecology and transhumant lifestyles.

Autonomous Transhumance proposes a new way of herding while responding to a warming Arctic by non-invasively territorialising and regenerating the landscape with a family of two autonomous robots. AuRoRaH is a robotic shepherd that guides reindeer to seasonal pastures by triggering their sense of smell. While AuRega is a robotic landscape acupuncturist that regenerates the landscape by relieving methane build up. The project performs through a strategy of local interventions, networking the living and non-living agents in a tight rope act that balances the ecology. The regenerated landforms are visual markers of a changing Arctic due to global climate change.