HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — An extreme weather phenomenon known as dzud has killed more than 7.1 million animals in Mongolia this year, more than a tenth of all livestock farms in the country, endangering livelihoods and livelihoods. life of pastors.
The Dzuds are a combination of perennial droughts and harsh, snowy winters and are becoming harsher and more frequent due to of Climate Change. They are most associated with Mongolia, but also occur in other parts of Central Asia.
Many deaths, especially among malnourished females and their cubs, occur during spring, which is calving season.
Pastoralism is fundamental to Mongolia’s economy and culture — contributing to 80% of its agricultural production and 11% of GDP.
In Mongolian, the word dzud means disaster. Dzuds occur when extremely heavy snows cause impenetrable layers of snow and ice to cover Mongolia’s vast grasslands so that animals cannot graze and starve to death. Drought at other times of the year means there is not enough forage for animals to fatten up over the winter.
Dzuds used to occur once every decade, but are becoming more severe and frequent due to climate change. This year’s dzud is the sixth in the last decade and the worst so far. There followed a dzud last year and a dry summer. The snowfall was the heaviest since 1975.
The number of livestock casualties in Mongolia soared, with 2.1 million heads of cattle, sheep and goats killed in February, rising to 7.1 million in May, according to state media.
Thousands of families lost more than 70% of all their livestock. And the total death toll could rise to 14.9 million animals, or nearly 24% of Mongolia’s total herd, said Deputy Prime Minister S. Amarsaikhan, according to state media.
Nomadic herding it is so vital to the 3.3 million people of resource-rich Mongolia that its constitution refers to the country’s 65 million camels, yaks, cattle, sheep, goats and horses as its “national wealth”.
Livestock and livestock products are Mongolia’s second largest export after miningaccording to Asian Development Bank.
“The loss of livestock was an irreversible blow to economic stability and intensified people’s already dire circumstances,” said Olga Dzhumaeva, head of the East Asia delegation at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescents or IFRC, in an interview with A Associated Press.
High costs of fuel, food and fodder have made the situation much worse for herders like Gantomor, a 38-year-old herder from the mountainous province of Arkhangai. Like many Mongolians, he has a name.
Warnings from a dzud led Gantomor to sell his entire flock of around 400 sheep. He just kept his hardier yaks and horses, hoping he could move them to pastures that wouldn’t be as affected, said his sister-in-law, Gantuya Batdelger, 33, a graduate student.
Even after spending more than $2,000 to transport the remaining 200 or so animals 200 kilometers (124 miles) to a place he thought would be safer, he did not escape the dzud. Seventy yaks died and 40 horses left the herd, leaving them with fewer than 100. “By selling the sheep, (the family) wanted to save some money. But they spent it all,” Batdelger said.
Batdelger’s brother-in-law was better off than others. A friend had all but 15 of her 250 yaks killed.
Rural Mongolia was littered with hundreds of carcasses, piled high in the melting snow, she said.
Disposing of carcasses quickly to ensure they do not transmit disease is another major challenge. By early May, 5.6 million, or nearly 80%, of the dead animals had been buried.
Higher temperatures can trigger wildfires or dust storms. Heavy runoff from melting snow increases the risk of flash flooding, especially in urban areas. Many pregnant animals, weakened by winter, lose their offspring, sometimes because they cannot feed them adequately, said Matilda Dimovska, UNDP resident representative in Mongolia.
“It’s really devastating to see how (the cubs) cry for food,” she said.
The dzud is a perfect example of how climate change is intertwined with poverty and the economy, she said. Shepherds who lose their flocks often migrate to cities like the capital, Ulaanbaatar, but find few job opportunities.
“They get into the cycle of poverty,” she said.
The increasingly routine nature of dzuds has increased the need for Mongolia to develop better early warning systems for natural disasters, said Mungunkhishig Batbaatar, national director of the nonprofit People in Need.
Combining technology with community-level approaches works best: “Countries with limited early warning coverage are estimated to have eight times higher disaster mortality than countries with substantial to comprehensive coverage,” he said.
However, international aid has been “very insufficient,” Dzhumaeva said. An IFRC appeal launched in mid-March did not reach even 20% of its target of 5.5 million Swiss francs ($6 million). Budgets strained by urgent responses to crises like Ukraine or Gaza are a factor, she said, “but this leaves little room to address the devastating effects of dzud in Mongolia.”
Mongolia needs help, but it also needs to adapt to dzuds with strategies like better weather forecasts and measures to end overgrazing. Pastoralists need to diversify their incomes to help cushion the impact of livestock losses.
Khandaa Byamba, 37, a camel herder who lives in Dundgobi province in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, said in an online interview that she learned from her elders and also from the difficult experience of repeated dzuds.
Seeing the first signs of yet another dzud, she let her camels roam, trusting her own instincts to find pasture. The family previously decided to just herd camels to cope with climate change, drought and deteriorating grasslands that are turning into deserts. Khandaa Byamba’s husband followed the animals for the first 100 kilometers (62 miles), while she stayed behind with some younger animals.
As the snow accumulated, other families reported losing many animals. But after winter, most of the camels returned. They lost just three adult camels and 10 younger ones in their herd of more than 200 animals.
“This year has been the hardest,” she said.
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