MONGOLIA/CHINA: Mongolian nomads move to the city as the desert swallows up their homes

Desertification is forcing Mongolia's nomadic tribes to move nearer to cities as their native homeland deteriorates into an arid and uncultivable desert. Times are changing for the nomadic tribes of Mongolia living in remote areas as the mighty Gobi desert is slowly swallowing their land, forcing them and their cattle closer to the capital. The long term impacts on Mongolia are harrowing. Livestock are dying in large numbers due to lack of grazing ground, people struggle for water as groundwater levels reach all-time lows, goats eat each other's coats in a desperate search for nutrition, and the threat of mass migration to the cities grows with each season. The Gobi desert, one of the world's greatest deserts is eating into Mongolia's indigenous nomadic tribes' livelihood. It stretches over much of Southern Mongolia and measures over 1500 kilometres from southwest to northeast and 800 kilometres from north to south. Every year temperatures soar to 40 degrees Celsius in summer and then dip to minus 40 in winter which makes it uninhabitable Each year, the desert swallows more of the grasslands that are vitally necessary for these people to maintain their way of life. 69-year-old Dariimaa Damdindoo and her husband Tsogladraleh had, until recently, lived as nomadic farmers in the village of Altai Aimak (1,000 km south of Ulan Bator), which lies on the fringes of the Gobi desert. However, desertification, drought, over-grazing and unemployment has forced them to move to the outskirts of Mongolia's capital. Dariimaa, who's six children and eight grandchildren helped move their modest family belongings and erect their traditional ger (traditional tent), said moving closer to the capital has its advantages. However she does not understand why the environment has changed so dramatically since her childhood. "Compared to my youth the nature is acting completely differently. The grass is sparse and short. When we were children the grass was great, everything is sparse these days, even water. I don't know why," she said while preparing tea in the field. Climate change and global warming are often cited as causes for the Asian continent's grasslands drying out, but there are causes much closer to home. The traditional nomadic grazing pattern gave the grasslands time to recover as tribes and herds moved on to new pastures once the grazing ran out. Now, nomadic traditions are no longer followed, families tend to settle in one place and enclose their animals in fenced pastures which quickly tires out the grass as it no longer has a seasonal break to rejuvenate. Also, the industrial boom in the cities caused some herders to move closer to enjoy the increasing prosperity. This new migration complicates the whole deseritification situation in the country as overgrazing on these new pastures speeds up erosion and brings the desert one step closer to the city. Horse breeder and farmer Urjinjav Dondog, was forced to move to the outskirts of Ulan Bator because the encroaching desert had over-run his regular grazing fields in the Ulziit Khoroo region (1,000 km south east of Ulanbator). Urjinjav complained he was unable to sell his race horses this year as they were to thin due to lack of food. "Of course I am worried about desertification. The desert area is moving from the south and coming closer and closer to us," he said. According to Mongolian assistant researcher, Mandakh Nyumtseren, at the Division of Ecological Studies of the Geological Institution based in Ulan Bator, studies made in 2005 showed that 74,5 percent of the Mongolian territory is affected by desertification, of which 6,8 percent is irreversibly affected. But Mandakh insists climate change is not the only threat. "Yet it's wrong to think that desertification in Mongolia is caused by climate change alone. In the last seventy years the number of livestock has increased by almost seventy percent. In the last fifteen years alone it has increased by forty percent which is a dramatic increase. Now Mongolia has thirty five million head of cattle. A a consequence we have a loss of the traditional grazing pattern," she said. Mongolia's neighbour China is covered by almost 40 percent of grassland. The country announced a nationwide grazing ban in early April to help prevent over-grazing. Conservationists in Inner Mongolia created a Green Great Wall, a wide belt of healthy trees and grassland which, since due to a strict grazing ban, is expected to hold the desert at bay. Former herders in the area are encouraged to switch to agricultural farming on fruit trees in order to conserve the land's condition. The Gobi desert can expand outwards at a rate of 3 kilometres per year and this does not only destroys local livelihood. Each spring the desert sands are whipped up into dust storms that reach across most of Northern China and occasionally stretch as far as Japan. Reclaiming desert land is possible but very expensive and the government has to work hard to prevent further expansion. Desertification is believed to affect around one fifth of the world's population.

ITN Source | July 4, 2007

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