The Tragedy of the Commons and Land in Mongolia
By Paul Sullivan,
Georgetown University
The first time I heard of the Dzudhs was from a Mongolian student of mine a few years ago. He told me that millions of livestock die in certain winters regularly. His description was so stoic that I had assumed that it must have been a common event. Unfortunately for Mongolia it does seem that the dzudhs have become more common and that things could continue that way.
There are dzudhs when much of Mongolia is covered with deep snow. There are others when it is covered with deep ice—after snows have melted and refrozen. There are dzudhs when the land is so dry from low summer rains that the grasses crumple up. Then the harsh cold of the winter moves in. There are many kinds of dzudhs and all of them are deadly. Animals freeze or starve, and often both happen to them. For the herders, these are all shattering experiences.
In the usual strangeness of weather pattern changes, which I first learned about working on a climate change project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1980s, the overall average temperature of Mongolia has gone up about 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last eight decades. However, the Dzudhs have increased in frequency over the last few decades. Mongolia has always been known as a place of weather extremes—both across the seasons and even within days. Weather pattern changes in the country and in the region seem to be adding to the overall difficulties for Mongolians.
Mongolia is an arid place. Most of the land mass of the country is either arid or heading in that direction. Desertification is a growing problem. Water stress is becoming an increasing problem. Poor livestock and pasture management has been an increasing issue since 1990. The old collectivized livestock system of Mongolia vanished quite quickly with the fall of communism. The lands remained in the ownership of the state after 1990. However, livestock became mostly privately owned. Herders could then make their own decisions about how many animals they would own and how they would take care of them.
There were considerable economic dislocations with the fall of communism and the collapse of the industrial and other markets in Mongolia that relied on the USSR. Many factories were either shut or shed a lot of their labor force. Many of these people went into herding without the skills needed to do it sustainably. In addition to this, many of the herding and other environmental skills which were built over the centuries in Mongolia—since even well before the time of the great Genghis Khan, were lost in the forced collectivization projects that started in the 1920s and went on and off until 1990. Decision making was largely taken away from the herders. When the façade of economic success fell away in 1990, the herders suddenly needed to fend for themselves. And it has not been easy.
Somewhere around 40 percent of the workforce, and a much larger percentage of the population of Mongolia, rely on livestock and the results of the efforts of herders. Livestock represents about 80 percent of the agricultural sector of the country. It is about 30 percent of the GDP of Mongolia. One of Mongolia’s most important exports, cashmere, is based on livestock—goats. Mongolia is one of the largest producers of cashmere. The industry and the people working in it suffer when a dzudh kills off millions of goats, as happened in the horrific winter of 2010.
Yes, millions of animals have died in the dzudhs. In the nightmarish dzudh of 1944, close to 25 percent of the animals died. In the years of the multiple dzudhs of 1999-2002 over 11 million animals died. In 2010’s dzudh alone, over 10 million livestock perished. And these are from official statistics. Who knows the actual figures that were not reported?
With mass livestock losses like this, there are the initial effects of the destruction of the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. With a total population of 2.7 million, this is a large chunk of people losing their livelihoods or being otherwise economically and psychologically damaged by the dzudhs.
Some claim that a good part of the losses were due to the overstocking of animals by those who did not have the skills or the wherewithal to take care of them if risky circumstances happened. And in Mongolia risky circumstances seem to always be just around the corner. Many herders have bought extra animals to insure against losses in the next bad times, but have ended up losing everything.
Also, increasing the numbers of animals on the lands has ended up harming the lands in many places.
Desertification is on the increase. Part of the reason for this is that the animals have eaten the grasses, plants, bushes and even tree branches in some areas to the point that the plants could no longer survive. Droughts have also added to this problem. The combination of overgrazing, droughts and other land and water table damage have added to the loss of top soil, increased dust storms in some areas and other environmental problems.
A big part of the land, water and other stresses from herding in Mongolia are the results of the “Tragedy of the Commons.” This is when common resources are not managed properly by those sharing them. Each user tries to maximize what he can from the use of the resource as quickly as possible without considering how this affects the others using the resource or even the sustainability of the resource.
Before I became a professor, writer and adviser, I took on many challenging jobs in my youth. One of them was as a commercial fisherman in New England in the United States. It was a tough job. However, I learned much about the use and abuse of resources from that industry. My brother and I ran the boat. We would often listen on the marine radio to the chatter of the other fishermen. Often it was about what they caught and how they were going to sell them. Over time, however, it turned a lot more to how little they caught and how tough it was to be a fisherman.
The fishing grounds of New England were being drained. The stocks of fish were being worn down by unsustainable fisheries methods. When people like Al Gore—who was a Senator from Tennessee when he started his political push for sustainable resource use, would present ideas for fisheries management and regulations, the radio chatter of the fishermen was not kind to Senator Gore. They did not want regulations.
They did not want their livelihood controlled by the government.
Some of the smartest fishermen were getting the point. If there are no fish, there are no jobs for fishermen. Many of the fishing boats and fishermen of New England ended up moving on to other jobs or moving to places like Alaska to fish. As the fish stocks dropped, being a fisherman became an even harder job. We knew of people who lost their houses and more due to mortgaging their fishing boats to keep their fishing businesses going. And this was during times when the big picture told us the way things were being done by all was harming all.
The “Tragedy of the Commons” in Mongolia is the tragedy of the land. As more and more herders have bought more and more animals, in turn the grasses, bushes, trees and land have become more damaged.
Each herder wants to feed his animals as much as possible and as quickly as possible. The end result is that in some areas the herds have little or no food. Previously sustainable grasslands are no longer sustainable.
Just as people lost their boats and houses in New England, Mongolians have seen huge migrations from the countryside to the cities and towns, most particularly to Ulaanbaator, by former herders. They now live in gers on the hills and other areas. Their lives have been hugely changed. Many now work menial jobs in cities where they do not feel comfortable. They have added to unemployment, budget deficits, air pollution and more. Their lives are likely much less than what they once were.
Is overgrazing to blame? It is partly to blame. However, the dreaded dzudhs were the last straw for many of them. I sometimes imagine what it must be like to be stuck in a ger in the city when one was once free with his animals in the open mountains, hills and fields of Mongolia. My heart sinks when I think about it.
I remember how hard it was to be a fisherman even in our good circumstances. I also learned how much harder it was for the fishermen who had less choices day to day. The freedom of the ocean is amazing, but the results of the tragedy of the commons can turn hope on its head and bring misery to many. I was one of the lucky ones. I studied hard. I had lots of opportunities. My forays into fishing were for a few months each year before heading to college. My life now is not one of dodging flying hooks, battling rogue waves, fighting against storms on the sea, or trying to stop fights on the boat.
However, I feel for those who live the lives that are often controlled by the tragedy of the commons. These lives can be made better from thoughtful regulations, better resource management, diversifying opportunities, education and training, and rebuilding lives in different directions.
When weather or even climate changes are added into the mix of pressures put on herders and fisherman it surely seems time to think of developing different economics and different economies for these people who live the hard life.
Mongolia has a real chance for this given its potentially huge wealth in the future.
I understand the need to keep traditions alive. However, it is also important to allow and help people to have better lives – and to give them a chance to learn about and apply themselves to new opportunities.
Mongolia of the future could be a place with wealthier, healthier and less risk-enduring herders. It could also be a place with a healthier, wealthier, better educated, and less risk-enduring population overall.
It is up to the Mongolian people to study, research, think about, and act upon what the next steps will be. These could be some of the most important decisions they will need to make.
Short URL: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=924
Georgetown University
The first time I heard of the Dzudhs was from a Mongolian student of mine a few years ago. He told me that millions of livestock die in certain winters regularly. His description was so stoic that I had assumed that it must have been a common event. Unfortunately for Mongolia it does seem that the dzudhs have become more common and that things could continue that way.
There are dzudhs when much of Mongolia is covered with deep snow. There are others when it is covered with deep ice—after snows have melted and refrozen. There are dzudhs when the land is so dry from low summer rains that the grasses crumple up. Then the harsh cold of the winter moves in. There are many kinds of dzudhs and all of them are deadly. Animals freeze or starve, and often both happen to them. For the herders, these are all shattering experiences.
In the usual strangeness of weather pattern changes, which I first learned about working on a climate change project at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1980s, the overall average temperature of Mongolia has gone up about 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last eight decades. However, the Dzudhs have increased in frequency over the last few decades. Mongolia has always been known as a place of weather extremes—both across the seasons and even within days. Weather pattern changes in the country and in the region seem to be adding to the overall difficulties for Mongolians.
Mongolia is an arid place. Most of the land mass of the country is either arid or heading in that direction. Desertification is a growing problem. Water stress is becoming an increasing problem. Poor livestock and pasture management has been an increasing issue since 1990. The old collectivized livestock system of Mongolia vanished quite quickly with the fall of communism. The lands remained in the ownership of the state after 1990. However, livestock became mostly privately owned. Herders could then make their own decisions about how many animals they would own and how they would take care of them.
There were considerable economic dislocations with the fall of communism and the collapse of the industrial and other markets in Mongolia that relied on the USSR. Many factories were either shut or shed a lot of their labor force. Many of these people went into herding without the skills needed to do it sustainably. In addition to this, many of the herding and other environmental skills which were built over the centuries in Mongolia—since even well before the time of the great Genghis Khan, were lost in the forced collectivization projects that started in the 1920s and went on and off until 1990. Decision making was largely taken away from the herders. When the façade of economic success fell away in 1990, the herders suddenly needed to fend for themselves. And it has not been easy.
Somewhere around 40 percent of the workforce, and a much larger percentage of the population of Mongolia, rely on livestock and the results of the efforts of herders. Livestock represents about 80 percent of the agricultural sector of the country. It is about 30 percent of the GDP of Mongolia. One of Mongolia’s most important exports, cashmere, is based on livestock—goats. Mongolia is one of the largest producers of cashmere. The industry and the people working in it suffer when a dzudh kills off millions of goats, as happened in the horrific winter of 2010.
Yes, millions of animals have died in the dzudhs. In the nightmarish dzudh of 1944, close to 25 percent of the animals died. In the years of the multiple dzudhs of 1999-2002 over 11 million animals died. In 2010’s dzudh alone, over 10 million livestock perished. And these are from official statistics. Who knows the actual figures that were not reported?
With mass livestock losses like this, there are the initial effects of the destruction of the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of people. With a total population of 2.7 million, this is a large chunk of people losing their livelihoods or being otherwise economically and psychologically damaged by the dzudhs.
Some claim that a good part of the losses were due to the overstocking of animals by those who did not have the skills or the wherewithal to take care of them if risky circumstances happened. And in Mongolia risky circumstances seem to always be just around the corner. Many herders have bought extra animals to insure against losses in the next bad times, but have ended up losing everything.
Also, increasing the numbers of animals on the lands has ended up harming the lands in many places.
Desertification is on the increase. Part of the reason for this is that the animals have eaten the grasses, plants, bushes and even tree branches in some areas to the point that the plants could no longer survive. Droughts have also added to this problem. The combination of overgrazing, droughts and other land and water table damage have added to the loss of top soil, increased dust storms in some areas and other environmental problems.
A big part of the land, water and other stresses from herding in Mongolia are the results of the “Tragedy of the Commons.” This is when common resources are not managed properly by those sharing them. Each user tries to maximize what he can from the use of the resource as quickly as possible without considering how this affects the others using the resource or even the sustainability of the resource.
Before I became a professor, writer and adviser, I took on many challenging jobs in my youth. One of them was as a commercial fisherman in New England in the United States. It was a tough job. However, I learned much about the use and abuse of resources from that industry. My brother and I ran the boat. We would often listen on the marine radio to the chatter of the other fishermen. Often it was about what they caught and how they were going to sell them. Over time, however, it turned a lot more to how little they caught and how tough it was to be a fisherman.
The fishing grounds of New England were being drained. The stocks of fish were being worn down by unsustainable fisheries methods. When people like Al Gore—who was a Senator from Tennessee when he started his political push for sustainable resource use, would present ideas for fisheries management and regulations, the radio chatter of the fishermen was not kind to Senator Gore. They did not want regulations.
They did not want their livelihood controlled by the government.
Some of the smartest fishermen were getting the point. If there are no fish, there are no jobs for fishermen. Many of the fishing boats and fishermen of New England ended up moving on to other jobs or moving to places like Alaska to fish. As the fish stocks dropped, being a fisherman became an even harder job. We knew of people who lost their houses and more due to mortgaging their fishing boats to keep their fishing businesses going. And this was during times when the big picture told us the way things were being done by all was harming all.
The “Tragedy of the Commons” in Mongolia is the tragedy of the land. As more and more herders have bought more and more animals, in turn the grasses, bushes, trees and land have become more damaged.
Each herder wants to feed his animals as much as possible and as quickly as possible. The end result is that in some areas the herds have little or no food. Previously sustainable grasslands are no longer sustainable.
Just as people lost their boats and houses in New England, Mongolians have seen huge migrations from the countryside to the cities and towns, most particularly to Ulaanbaator, by former herders. They now live in gers on the hills and other areas. Their lives have been hugely changed. Many now work menial jobs in cities where they do not feel comfortable. They have added to unemployment, budget deficits, air pollution and more. Their lives are likely much less than what they once were.
Is overgrazing to blame? It is partly to blame. However, the dreaded dzudhs were the last straw for many of them. I sometimes imagine what it must be like to be stuck in a ger in the city when one was once free with his animals in the open mountains, hills and fields of Mongolia. My heart sinks when I think about it.
I remember how hard it was to be a fisherman even in our good circumstances. I also learned how much harder it was for the fishermen who had less choices day to day. The freedom of the ocean is amazing, but the results of the tragedy of the commons can turn hope on its head and bring misery to many. I was one of the lucky ones. I studied hard. I had lots of opportunities. My forays into fishing were for a few months each year before heading to college. My life now is not one of dodging flying hooks, battling rogue waves, fighting against storms on the sea, or trying to stop fights on the boat.
However, I feel for those who live the lives that are often controlled by the tragedy of the commons. These lives can be made better from thoughtful regulations, better resource management, diversifying opportunities, education and training, and rebuilding lives in different directions.
When weather or even climate changes are added into the mix of pressures put on herders and fisherman it surely seems time to think of developing different economics and different economies for these people who live the hard life.
Mongolia has a real chance for this given its potentially huge wealth in the future.
I understand the need to keep traditions alive. However, it is also important to allow and help people to have better lives – and to give them a chance to learn about and apply themselves to new opportunities.
Mongolia of the future could be a place with wealthier, healthier and less risk-enduring herders. It could also be a place with a healthier, wealthier, better educated, and less risk-enduring population overall.
It is up to the Mongolian people to study, research, think about, and act upon what the next steps will be. These could be some of the most important decisions they will need to make.
Short URL: http://ubpost.mongolnews.mn/?p=924
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