About Mongolia
An overview of the country, the nomadic lifestyle, the problems and the nature of our projects helping to find long lasting solutions.
Some 30% - 750,000 of the population are nomadic pastoralists thinly spread across vast areas of steppe and desert. The collapse of the country's economy in 1992, combined with a series of devastating dzud winters and drought summers (1999-2004) when between 10 and 12 million herd animals (around a third of the country's total) died, left thousands of rural nomadic families living at or below subsistence level. The current global financial crisis has hit Mongolia harder than many other countries that are similarly mining-dependent on copper and gold, due to its internal financing structures. Unemployment is high, as too is inflation. Herders are additionaly badly affected by heavy falls in world cashmere prices.
They depend entirely on their herds, the fewer in number, the poorer they become and there is a crucial relationship of animal welfare and health to a herding family's survival, explaining why many are still in or close to poverty. To manage even a small herd of mixed animals, a family may need between 10 to 15 horses. In addition to herding duties, horses are the only means of transport, to get children to school, to reach the nearest village/town for medical aid, to obtain or sell goods, or just to socialise. This total dependence on fit healthy horses is how CAMDA sees them as a vital resource in need of its veterinary support..
It is an understandable but mistaken perception for anyone to see this work as just animal welfare, it being aimed at supporting people - families, whole communities - unable to afford veterinary care for their horses which have many arduous demands put on them, in a harsh environment of climate extremes, accompanied by numerous endemic health hazards, mostly parasite-borne that can weaken or kill them. Any gains to the horses are outweighed by the benefits provided to their owners.
To escape the apparent futility of this tough lifestyle as perceived often by younger generations, and forced by insufficient animals to sustain just the basics of life, many have given up herding to go to towns in search of work. The populations of especially Ulaanbaatar and of smaller towns is steadily increasing, much due to herding being no longer viable. The latest dzuds (2010) will inevitably exacerbate what is already an economic burden for the city, with thousands more now expected to be forced to migrate there having lost their herds - their only way of life.
This puts increasing economic pressure on the capital and other urban regions, where because of a slack economy and now the global downturn, there is not sufficient work for those leaving herding. Unemployment in towns is already high and herders then face another kind of poverty but in alien urban conditions and circumstances, or take work in often illegal, hazardous and unpredictable mining operations. Given the right support, it is possible for herding to still be a viable way of living, but only where there is provision of essential resources to support the means to herd successfully, if only at a basic level.
Such resources are fodder, adequate water supply, and healthy animals able to withstand the many hazards they encounter - parasitic infections, and extreme weather conditions. It is not possible to control the weather, but it is possible for us to assist them with these resources, and with your help.
Our aid projects are proving successful in giving back to poorer communities the ability to keep families together as traditional nomadic herders. It is the only lifestyle they wish to have and to keep.
They depend entirely on their herds, the fewer in number, the poorer they become and there is a crucial relationship of animal welfare and health to a herding family's survival, explaining why many are still in or close to poverty. To manage even a small herd of mixed animals, a family may need between 10 to 15 horses. In addition to herding duties, horses are the only means of transport, to get children to school, to reach the nearest village/town for medical aid, to obtain or sell goods, or just to socialise. This total dependence on fit healthy horses is how CAMDA sees them as a vital resource in need of its veterinary support..
It is an understandable but mistaken perception for anyone to see this work as just animal welfare, it being aimed at supporting people - families, whole communities - unable to afford veterinary care for their horses which have many arduous demands put on them, in a harsh environment of climate extremes, accompanied by numerous endemic health hazards, mostly parasite-borne that can weaken or kill them. Any gains to the horses are outweighed by the benefits provided to their owners.
To escape the apparent futility of this tough lifestyle as perceived often by younger generations, and forced by insufficient animals to sustain just the basics of life, many have given up herding to go to towns in search of work. The populations of especially Ulaanbaatar and of smaller towns is steadily increasing, much due to herding being no longer viable. The latest dzuds (2010) will inevitably exacerbate what is already an economic burden for the city, with thousands more now expected to be forced to migrate there having lost their herds - their only way of life.
This puts increasing economic pressure on the capital and other urban regions, where because of a slack economy and now the global downturn, there is not sufficient work for those leaving herding. Unemployment in towns is already high and herders then face another kind of poverty but in alien urban conditions and circumstances, or take work in often illegal, hazardous and unpredictable mining operations. Given the right support, it is possible for herding to still be a viable way of living, but only where there is provision of essential resources to support the means to herd successfully, if only at a basic level.
Such resources are fodder, adequate water supply, and healthy animals able to withstand the many hazards they encounter - parasitic infections, and extreme weather conditions. It is not possible to control the weather, but it is possible for us to assist them with these resources, and with your help.
Our aid projects are proving successful in giving back to poorer communities the ability to keep families together as traditional nomadic herders. It is the only lifestyle they wish to have and to keep.
