Asia’s Great Climate Frontiers: The growing threat of climate change means that more ecosystems now find themselves on the brink of catastrophe. In the first part of a monthly series, CNA looks at the threat of desertification in Mongolia.
DALANZADGAD, Mongolia: Work starts before sunrise in the southern Gobi. Summer has faded here but the sky is still wide and bright ahead of the dark days of the looming colder months.This has been life for decades for herders Nergui Narantsetseg and Munkhtuul Banzragc, a married couple from the desert region close to the Mongolian border with China.
Climate change is colliding with human-driven impacts in the desert. The sands are ever expanding in a phenomenon called desertification. Water is sparse due to worsening periods of drought and more regular sandstorms bring more erosion and send airborne fragments to neighbouring countries. “My camels aren’t doing well, they've gotten really weak. Maybe there are no plants they can eat and no water either. It’s quite bad,” he said.
“If it rains, we will go back. If it doesn’t, there is no way for us to go back. Desertification is everywhere."The experienced herder is right. Desertification is expanding at an alarming rate. Grasslands that have supported animal husbandry for generations are being consumed. “We have heavy rainfall that breaks the soil and it evaporates quickly. So Mongolia is becoming drier and as a result desertification increases,” he explained.The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded that desert and semi-arid areas are strongly affected by climatic impact-drivers such as extreme heat, drought and dust storms.
“We have desertification in Selenge province, which is located to the north; a place with abundant trees and rivers. That is quite alarming,” Mongolia’s Minister of Environment and Tourism, Bat-erdene Bat-Ulzii told CNA. “So with the onset of climate change and with increased human activity, Mongolia will not be able to sustain its traditional way of living -- pastoral herding of animals.
To gain wealth and food security, individual herders have, over time, increased their animal head count. There is competition rather than cooperation out in the pasture lands in this free-market model. It has created an imbalance among herders and with nature. “Gobi herders are moving and migrating constantly. They are losing their sense of community and their right to raise their voices in their own community. As a result, they can’t decide their own governance and can’t decide their developmental fate,” she said.
Instead, the city calls out to them. Already, many of the younger generation are turning their backs on a life of toil on the land.“None of our kids wants to be a herder. These are also very difficult times. How can a kid think it is okay to live in the countryside when they have seen drought for two consecutive years? And the constant moving,” she said.
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