Today, I received a very interesting message from Mr. Khurelbaatar BILGUUN, Environmental Officer Southgobi Sands LLC, a Subsidiary of SouthGobi Energy Resources Ltd.
“I am writing to you from Ovoot coal mine, located at Gurvantes soum of Umnugobi aimag, Mongolia, to tell you about one local herder.
There is one local herder Mr. Davaa who lives 10 km to the southeast of our main camp. He started tree planting activity in 1991-s to make a green shield for his ger and livestock animals.
Mr. DAVAA
He used ordinary 20 cm long branches of poplar, willow and some seedlings of elm to create them. Today, it became a little forest and it looks beautiful. It now protects his family and livestock animals from the wind.
Green shield and herder camp
I am an environmental officer here and have some hydro-geological information of these areas (the complete study of which was made by a wellknown western company). All the surface water sources here flow from the underground water table and many springs in this area are relatively stable even in drought years. And this area has many springs in contrary to other desert regions of Mongolia.
Mr. Davaa uses the water and water fed wet lands of the Sukhant spring to create his grove. And this is a desert region. Annual precipitation is 80 mm or less. I saw that his little forest started to help him solve even some firewood problems. That is why, in my opinion, his little forest gave courage to many other local herders in Gurvantes soum to plant trees, who also live near the spring waters.
Inside Mr. DAVAA’s grove
He is still continuing to plant trees, but faces many problems from harsh nature. For example, waterflow of heavy rain washes away his little trees. During last year he lost some ten thousand seedlings… And what Mr. Davaa wants is to make the water management for this area better, so that he can grow trees without any worries.
When I meet him, he always asks if there are organizations or people able to help the herders and farmers to plant trees, to give advice and, maybe, to support them financially for buying equipment for the work, like water pumps etc.
I am happy to have found your website, because next time when I meet him, I am going to tell him that I sent this letter to many good people.
Wish you all good luck.
Regards,
Bilguun Khurelbaatar
|Environmental Officer|Southgobi sands LLC|
|A Subsidiary of SouthGobi Energy Resources Ltd.|
|Tel:+976-11-312-337|Fax:|Cell:+976-99619293|
|EMAIL:bilguunkh@southgobi.com| “
———————————-
MY COMMENT (Willem)
My sincere thanks go to Kh. BILGUUN for his valuable information.
This is a very nice example of “best practices” to combat desertification. Generally speaking, people think that huge and costly programs are needed to afforestate or reforestate a region. Yet, very simple actions can be extremely successful.
Already in 1996, I had the honour of meeting Mrs. WANG Guoxiang, former Vice-Governor of Dalate County (Inner-Mongolia, P.R. China). Together with the villagers she has been continuously planting trees in the drylands of her county. Nowadays, the area is completely green. She became one of the “heroes” of the P.R. China and has been invited a couple of times to address the Conference of the Parties of the UNCCD (United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification). A remarkable lady, indeed, who, with almost no means, has afforestated an impressive area.
Here, Mr. DAVAA’s is visibly on the same way to achieve wonderful things for the environment in Mongolia. He deserves to be helped in his efforts. Within the limits of my personal possibilities, I want to help him. I will see with Kh. BILGUUN what we can do to carry these valuable actions forward.
But I am sure that other people with a lot of field experience can contribute to such a “small scale” project. Who will join us ? Please let us know !
