Tsaatan people are reindeer herders and live in northern Khövsgöl Aimag of Mongolia. Originally from across the border in what is now Tuva Republic of Russia, the Tsaatan are one of the last groups of nomadic reindeer herders in the world. They survived for thousands of years inhabiting the remotest Ulaan taïga, moving between 5 and 10 times a year.

The reindeer and the Tsaatan people are totally dependent on one another. The Tsaatan depend on the reindeer for almost, if not all, of their basic needs:  their reindeer provide them with milk, cheese and transportation. They sew their clothes with reindeer hair, reindeer dung fuels their stoves and antlers are used to make tools. This makes their group unique among reindeer-herding communities. As the reindeer populations shrink, only about 40 families continue the tradition today. Their existence is threatened by the dwindling number of their domesticated reindeer. Many have already swapped their nomadic life for urban areas. Some Tsaatan say that if the reindeer disappear, so too will their culture.

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