Mongolian herders struggling to fight climate change
Mongolian herders are struggling to fight climate change.
Mongolian herders are struggling to fight climate change. Mongolia is experiencing climate warming at three times the global rate. Increasingly, unpredictable weather patterns of dry summers and harsh winters, called dzud in Mongolian, are destroying livestock and ruining the livelihoods of many herders -- the backbone of the Mongolian economy. The latest dzud from November 2015 to March 2016 killed 1.1 million head of livestock and affected roughly 250,000 people. Contributing to the problem is the degradation of Mongolia’s once-lush pastures. Due to unstable herding practices, roughly 78% of Mongolia’s pastures are degraded or becoming dersertified. In response, herders in regions suffering from desertification have begun to band together in work collectives called “pasture user groups,” to share resources and self-regulate their impact on the environment. Most of these groups were piloted and supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation or SDC, as part of its Green Gold Project. Herders join pasture user groups in the hope to find new ways to deal with the land.
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