How a Former Herder Protected Mongolia’s Vast Grasslands

e360: Are there as many herders now as before, or is everyone heading for the cities to have an easier life?

Batmunkh: There are more people in the cities, but herding is not dying out at all. When I was young, the headcount of livestock in Mongolia was 22 million, but these days it is as much as 70 million. There are more herder families too, maybe 200,000. It is lovely to be able to say that these days the quality of people’s lives on the steppe is much better. The herders are younger than they were. Many young families choose this lifestyle away from the cities, where they can enjoy the fresh air and looking after the animals.

e360: With many more livestock, is there a shortage of land? Is there overgrazing? 

Batmunkh: I wouldn’t say that. There is a big concern about desertification, especially in the Gobi area. But this is mostly because of the mining, which has caused a lot of land degradation and fragmentation of the pasture lands. Desertification is a global problem, and Mongolia cannot escape it. But the mining makes it worse. 

e360: I know you love the land, but when you were young you had big ambitions away from herding. What was your education, and how did you get to become an engineer?

Batmunkh: I had my first education in local schools in Dornogovi Province. But in the year before I graduated from high school, I competed in Mongolia’s National Mathematics Olympiad. It was a big event, and I was the overall winner from my province, one among 20 winners from across the country. Our prize was the chance to study abroad. I could choose whichever country, university, and course I was interested in. I chose to study in Russia, at the technical university in Irkutsk, which is just over the border from Mongolia, in Siberia. I trained there to become an electrical engineer. 

e360: But that was only the start of your international travels. As a Russian-trained engineer you were in high demand, I think. 

Batmunkh: I took my opportunities. From 1981 to 1984, I was one of five specialists who went to Laos in Southeast Asia to help build hospitals. Then, in 1988 Armenia in the Soviet Union suffered a huge earthquake. Buildings were destroyed in many cities, and Mongolia extended its help. I worked as an electrical engineer in the town of Spitak, which was the worst hit, for four years, rebuilding schools and kindergartens. I came home in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, and began working in the construction and mining industries here.

e360: Dornogovi, your home province on the edge of the Gobi Desert, has more mines than anywhere else in Mongolia. A tenth of it is under license for exploration or active mining. So you must have had a lot of work. But when did you start becoming concerned about its effect on the environment and wildlife?

Batmunkh: I first became concerned in 2005. That was when the government began issuing massive numbers of mining exploration licenses. The industry just took off, and it began eating up the grazing lands where I had grown up. I became much more active, after 2010, when huge new mining concessions were handed out in the area where my family herded their livestock. I had worked for mining companies in Dornogovi for 15 years, so I had firsthand experience of the damage they were doing. 

e360: What had you seen?

Batmunkh: There was huge damage. They mostly just dug into the earth and left piles behind when they finished. They didn’t bother to restore the land afterwards. They took huge amounts of underground water, created dust, and caused huge damage to the pastures. It was chaos, a real mess.   

I could see that many laws were being broken. The companies were failing to carry out their operations according to the country’s laws or their own licenses, which were intended to protect the environment. So I decided to monitor as best I could what they were doing, and whether they were working properly according to the law. I traveled around, often on foot, to survey everything. I found that many of the companies falsified their records and should have had their licenses revoked. But the Mineral Resources and Petroleum Authority, which implements the laws, did nothing.

In the beginning, documenting this was very challenging, because I lacked experience. I was an engineer, not an ecologist. But, working with the herding families in Khovsgol, my home district, I gained knowledge about the land and what was going on. I kept sending official letters to the relevant regulatory bodies, informing them about the degradation of the land and the pastures. 

One thing that distinguished me from other environmentalists, I think, was my knowledge of the law relating to the mining sector. I made myself an expert. For instance, I found there is a law that means you should not touch any land where there are cultural or historical artifacts.  We have a lot of them, which we could map with the help of local herders. And I brought expert help from people in scientific organizations, cultural heritage centers, and ecologists. In this way, I could identify the violations, either by the mining companies or the government regulators, document them, and take them to the authorities.   

e360: But you went from documenting this, to action.

Batmunkh: Yes. I started thinking about how to stop the number of license holders from increasing. They were growing month by month, almost day by day. I decided we needed to put many potential mining areas under national or local protection, so they were set aside for traditional herding and wildlife. We began to get good results, through peaceful and legal means. 

e360: That’s amazing. Mongolia has a lot of gold and copper, coal and uranium. Some people call it “Minegolia.” And China is right next door, so these minerals are valuable, and money talks. How did you persuade the government to place them off-limits to mining? People say you are rather stubborn.

Batmunkh: I don’t know if I am stubborn, but I did this work consistently and diligently. I did not give up. But it was a joint effort, with fellow residents and herder families. In the end, we put the companies and regulators in an impossible position. They had to agree.

The more successful we got, we pursued it further and further. I was passionate, almost greedy, about the size of the areas that we wanted to get under protection. By 2020, we had protection for 24 local areas in Dornogovi for herding and wildlife. 

e360: Then, the government gave permission for mining exploration in 66,000 acres around the Khutag Mountain, which I think is culturally sacred.  Did that spur you on even further?

Batmunkh: Oh yes. In 2020, I submitted proposals to the government to protect the whole of the area around Khutag Mountain. The mountain is special. It’s the highest point in Dornogovi and is home to wild sheep, wolves, gazelles, wild asses, and Mongolian antelopes. And it is a sacred place for us. In April 2022, we succeeded in getting future mining there banned. This gave us a total of 1.24 million acres protected in the province, as a result of our efforts. That is more than half the province.

e360: Is that when you were proposed for the Goldman Prize? 

Batmunkh: I never aimed for any national or international prizes. But during my work, I met the Nature Conservancy, who were advising the Mongolian government on biodiversity protection. It turned out that, quite independently, we were proposing protection of almost the same areas, and I helped them a lot in their work. Then early this year, I heard that they had nominated me for the Goldman Prize. 

The nomination is for my work for the area around Khutag Mountain. But I see it as being for my work over all these years, which of course was done with many local herders and community members. I hope it will become an example for the people of Mongolia more widely, and for other countries too. 

e360: So what future do you see for Mongolia? You have many rare species. Can they survive?

Batmunkh: Yes, that is very feasible, especially in the Gobi Desert region. It is a vast area of sand dunes and underground springs, with only a very few people. So I hope that will happen.

e360: And will future generations still be livestock herders?

Batmunkh: Being a patriotic citizen of Mongolia and loving my country, I hope so. These days, the country is heavily reliant on mining. It is 90 percent of our exports. That is not good. Mining should be just one sector in the economy. We should invest much more in other things, such as animal husbandry to produce meat, wool, hides, cheese, and other things that we could sell to the international market. I hope we will go that way. Mining ruins our pristine natural resources. Instead of degrading the land, we should be protecting the land and its wildlife, and diversifying our economy.