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I'M PEERING out the window of a Soviet-era Mi-8 cargo helicopter that's hovering 50 metres above Lake Cheko, deep in the heart of the Siberian taiga. This is truly the middle of nowhere: from London it has taken me three flights, two days and a pinch of luck to get here. The nearest city, Krasnoyarsk, is some 600 kilometres to the south-west. Pine and larch forests stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction, a view interrupted only by the serpentine wend of the Kimchu river, which runs like an artery through this wilderness.
From the nearest town, Vanavara (population 3000), there are three ways to reach Lake Cheko: a two-day journey up the river, an even longer trek through swamp and forest, or by air. It's just a short hop in a helicopter, but ...
10:45 10 October 2008Subscribe today at only USD $5.95 for your first 4 issues and get New Scientist, the world's leading science & technology news magazine delivered direct to your door every week
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