For more than 200 years, the Dukha have shaped their lives around the needs of their reindeer, crisscrossing the taiga throughout the year in search of conditions that keep the animals healthy. But in 2011, the Mongolian government created a protection zone in the taiga, intended to preserve land that had been increasingly impacted by mining and hunting. For the Dukha, the restrictions have felt like a moratorium on their very existence, a way of life deeply intertwined with the health of the ecosystem.

Changes like these are playing out around the world, from jungles of the Congo Basin to rainforests in Canada to this small population of reindeer herders in Mongolia. Indigenous cultures predate political borders, yet government officials—faced with diminishing resources and looking to protect what’s left—sometimes find it necessary to impose restrictions on native lands. How they make those decisions, where they draw the lines, and whether they include indigenous people in the planning and implementation of conservation regulations can determine whether their efforts will ultimately fail or succeed.

Seasonal migrations across the taiga are in the Dukhas’ blood. They are descendants of nomads from Tuva—a territory in Russian Siberia—who wandered throughout East Asia and Eastern Europe for thousands of years.

Then in the 1930s, the Soviet Union tightened its borders and forced the nomadic herders to remain in Mongolia. For years following the restrictions, many Dukha worked for Mongolia’s socialist government as hunters, trappers, and fishermen, selling meat, pelts, and fish to Russia and China. They used this income to establish a more comfortable way of life and to create a sense of a belonging in their adopted country. But as their small community thrived, the populations of the animals they hunted began to plummet.

When Mongolia’s socialist government collapsed in 1992, areas of the country that were reliant on government subsidies struggled to find their place in a new, market-driven economy. The Dukha, their hunting skills no longer needed and much of their nomadic lands off-limits, were left disconnected from a world that no longer had a place for them.

Some Dukha adapted by finding other means of income—serving in the Mongolian military or by herding commercial livestock, like sheep and goats. Some sent their children to school in neighboring towns. But Dukha who wished to remain close to their reindeer herds and nomadic roots only became more isolated.

As Mongolia struggled to transition to its newly established democratic government, hunting within the taiga continued at an increasing rate. Some of this pressure was attributed to outsiders pouring into Mongolia, eager to exploit the country’s resources.

But Uwugdorj Delger, 62, one of the oldest Dukhas in the region who worked as a ranger at the time, blames it mostly on his tribe. “Honestly, the number of the wildlife rapidly decreased because of us,” he says, explaining that the main issue he encountered as a ranger was trying to change the minds of members of a community who felt entitled to the taiga’s resources. “People used to respond, ‘This is all we have. It belongs to us, so we can hunt whatever we want,’” he says.

When deposits of jade and gold were discovered in the region, the environmental concerns only grew. Both corporations and individual miners began scouring the taiga, eager to strike it rich. The Dukha were no exception, hiring themselves out as guides to independent “ninja miners” (nicknamed for their habit of sneaking into forbidden terrain). Some simply took up a pail and started digging.

Such unbridled exploitation, which, at times, ended in violent clashes, eventually prompted the government to step in.

Over the course of two decades, Jal and his colleagues convinced the local government to cancel 44 mining permits within the province. They also successfully lobbied the national government to establish a zone of three protected areas west of Khovsgol Lake, including Tengis-Shishged National Park. Jal is now the director of this conservation zone.

Tengis-Shishged encompasses nearly 875,711 hectares (3,400 square miles), with its northern edge along the Russian border and its southern edge abutting the Dukhas’ winter camps. At its center is the taiga, where the Dukha have traditionally spent much of the year grazing their reindeer herds and hunting. Grazing is still allowed in the park but now hunting is forbidden. And because borders are sometimes unclear and enforcement inconsistent, distrust and resentment has set in on both sides—among the Dukha and the park rangers. The Dukha say they have been chased out of the park for doing nothing more than grazing their herds, while rangers say they have reason to believe that some Dukha are using their reindeer as cover for illegal hunting activities.

Tsedevdamba, who is herself from Khovsgol Province, points to an example from the Orkhon Valley. Historians consider the Orkhon Valley to be the cradle of Mongolian culture, where archeologists have discovered remains from 6th century Turkish memorials, and 8th century evidence of the Uighur capital of Khar Balgas. But prior to 2014, Orkhon Valley also faced the threat of mining.

People there didn’t know how to begin a dialogue about protecting their cultural heritage, she says. “But historians, iconologists, and researchers all got together and started meeting with local people.”

Spreading education and awareness among the herders in the Orkhon Valley took at least a decade, she says. But today, the indigenous people are considered activists in their own right, well-versed in both the tangible and intangible benefits of the protection.

The protected area—about 122,000 hectares (470 square miles)—now includes territorial boundaries, dedicated ecological sites, important historical locations, and limits on livestock density. Mongolian herders can graze their sheep, yaks, and goats in the Orkhon Valley in a way that reflects the traditions of their ancestors, while protecting the landscape and managing mining and tourism development.

Tsedevdamba says that the Dukhas’ uniqueness—the fact that the survival of their culture depends on the survival of their reindeer, which in turn depends on the survival of the taiga—should similarly qualify their lands as a cultural heritage site. Such a declaration, she says, could create the common ground necessary for environmental protections to be both enacted and respected.

Despite recent tensions between the Dukha and Jal’s rangers, all parties acknowledge the decrease in ninja miners since the patrols began. Jal says that eliminating these outsiders and restoring the animal population were his top priorities, and he believes that these changes will eventually help to bring the Dukha around to his point of view. “We have all experienced how easily animals can disappear,” Jal says.

Now he sees solid evidence showing that, when wildlife is protected against overhunting, their populations can rebound. What remains to be seen is whether his methods of protecting those animals and their land can be compatible with the human culture that evolved alongside them.

Additional reporting for this story provided by Munkhbat Batbekh.