Not to rain on everyone’s parade here, but despite how legitimately cool the intersection of modern and traditional life is in Mongolia, there is actually a major societal and economic crisis happening there right now.
The environment, which Mongolia’s largely nomadic population relies on, is being absolutely wrecked by a combination of global warming and overgrazing. Mongolia is currently stuck in a cycle of dry summers and extreme winters called a dzud. The cycle is unique to Mongolia and has happened in the past, but every year since 2015 has had a dzud. The result has been a complete environmental disaster for Mongolia’s nomads. Dry summers mean less food for starving herds and extreme winters mean the weakened herds freeze to death in temperatures reaching -40 degrees Fahrenheit. According to an article from national geographic, over 9.7 million heads of livestock were killed in 2017. 700,000 heads of livestock were killed in the first two months of 2018 alone.
The effect on Mongolia’s nomadic people has been severe. Here are some excerpts from interviews with local residents:
“We used to have four seasons, but now we only have three,” Batjargal told Nicholson. “Before, June, July, and August were warm and with rain. Different types of grass would grow, and the animals would get fat. Now, we have no rain and the wind dries up the grass. It is not what it used to be.”
- from an interview with a local governor by national geographic in 2018
“We are trying so hard to keep them alive,” 50-year-old herder Bayankhand Myagmar says, talking about her dead sheep and goats. “But nothing we do is working.”
Dogoonoo lives with 13 others in three small gers in Uvs Province. The 72-year-old started this winter with 230 livestock but 210 of those have died since January. "Watching the animals die is breaking us apart,“ she said. “But even if I have only one animal left, I will do everything in my power to keep it alive.“
- from a bbc article in 2016
About one fifth of Mongolia’s population has abandoned the nomadic lifestyle and moved to Ulaanbaatar, the capitol, where they live in ger (yurt) districts which make up two-thirds of the city. The districts have no running water and since there is no electrical grid families have to burn coal and wood to stay warm. This has resulted in some of the worst air quality in the world, causing a wide variety of respiratory health issues, especially in children.
So people literally can’t live like their ancestors did 1000 years ago.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/mongolias-nomadic-way-of-life-threatened-by-climate-change-neglect-modernity/2018/07/06/4a22490e-68cb-11e8-a335-c4503d041eaf_story.html?utm_term=.753ef5ef48ad
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35983912
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mongolia-agriculture/mongolian-winter-dzud-kills-700000-head-of-livestock-idUSKCN1GQ12L
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/mar/10/climate-change-mongolia-destroying-pastures-nomadic-herders-dzud
https://reliefweb.int/disaster/cw-2016-000004-mng
http://time.com/longform/ulan-bator-mongolia-most-polluted-capital/
https://eurasianet.org/mongolia-harsh-winter-wiping-out-livestock-stoking-economic-crisis-for-nomads
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