Ancient ways slide toward abyss
Nomadic lifestyle that defines Mongolian identity being lost as herders ditch tradition and head to capital
It was another harsh winter on the central Mongolian steppe, with temperatures dropping to nearly 45C below zero and thick snow covering the rolling grasslands.
More than a million cattle, sheep and goats, already weakened by a dry summer, died, while nomads’ precious horses froze to death on their feet.
“It was very hard, and the snow was deep,” said herder Nyamdorj Tumursanaa, 38, drinking milky tea in the nomads’ traditional circular tentlike home known as a ger. “Even if the animals dug through the snow, there was no grass underneath. We had to buy grass for them, but still many of our animals died.”
On the central Asian steppe, the ancient home of Genghis Khan and his Mongol horde, the nomads are brought up tough. Yet their ancient lifestyle is under threat. Global climate change, local environmental mismanagement, government neglect and the lure of the modern world have created a toxic cocktail.
Every year, thousands more herders abandon the life and head for the capital, Ulaanbaatar, which holds half the nation’s population.
The nomadic culture is the essence of what it is to be a Mongolian, but this is a country in dramatic and sudden transition: from a Soviet-style one-party state and command economy to a chaotic democracy and freemarket economy, and from an entirely nomadic culture to a modern, urban lifestyle.
Climate change is a major culprit, and Mongolia, landlocked and far from the moderating effects of the ocean, is suffering more than most. At the best of times, this is a fragile climate, with little rainfall and huge variations in temperature, which is why this vast territory supports only three million, making it the world’s most sparsely populated country.
Now, government figures show average temperatures have risen by about 2.2C since systematic records began in 1940 — well above the global average rise of about 0.85C since 1880. Summers have become drier, and “extreme climate events” more frequent, says Purevjav Gomboluudev, head of climate research at Mongolia’s Information and Research Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Environment.
The most dangerous event of all is a dry summer followed by severe winter. Drought leaves livestock weak and reserves of grass low, making cold weather deadly. Extreme cases in 1999-2001 and 2009-2010 wiped out a combined 20 million animals.
In the Soviet era, Mongolia, a satellite state, kept nomadism under tight control. Animals were kept under collective ownership, but their numbers were limited, while the state supplied veterinary services, winter fodder and a guaranteed market.
In 1990, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, Mongolia threw off its one-party state and became a democracy. Three years later, it began privatising the herds. What followed was a huge expansion in animal numbers as individual herders valued their worth by how much livestock they held. State support vanished almost overnight.
Today, 66 million head of livestock roam the steppe, nearly three times the 23 million cap maintained in the communist era. Overgrazing is a major cause of pastureland degradation. Rampant, uncontrolled mining also uses huge amounts of groundwater, pushing the water table lower.
Eighty per cent of the livestock is controlled by the richest 20 per cent of owners, among them elite city dwellers who pay others to look after their herds. More than 220,000 Mongolian families depend on herding, but more than half have fewer than 200 animals, government figures show, well below the 250-to-300 threshold considered economically sustainable.
Herders may have solar panels, smartphones and television but life isn’t getting easier. Families are separated for much of the year as children head to boarding schools, sometimes with mothers tagging along.
Mongolians call their country the Land of the Eternal Blue Sky. But their capital has become the land of choking smog, as ger dwellers burn coal to ward off the cold. In winter, the capital has some of the worst air pollution in the world.
Residents of ger districts lack access to running water, while jobs for rural migrants are few and poorly paid.
At festivals and big events, politicians like to don national costume but do nothing to protect the source of that culture, says Ulambayar Tungalag, of the Saruul Khuduu Environmental Research Centre.
“Nobody understands that actually Mongolian identity — being a nomadic person, being close to nature — is being lost.”
Climate change, local environment mismanagement, government neglect and the lure of the modern world created a toxic cocktail.