Short Wave - A Decade of Dzud: Lessons From Mongolia's Deadly Winters

Episode Date: January 29, 2020

Mongolia has a many-thousand year history of herding livestock. But in the past two decades, tens of thousands have left the countryside because of a natural disaster you may have never heard of. "Dzud" kills animals en masse during winter. Short Wave reporter Emily Kwong brings host Maddie Sofia this story from the grassland steppe, capturing how an agrarian community has adapted to environmental change. Follow host Maddie Sofia @maddie_sofia and reporter Emily Kwong @emilykwong1234 on Twitter. Email the show at [e-mail]. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. So for people who don't know, I totally know, where is Mongolia? Mongolia is in Central Asia, right between Russia and China. The landscape to me looks a little bit like a mixture between Montana and Mars, if you can picture that. Delightful. So this time last year, before you were Shortwave's reporter, we don't like to think about that time, you went to Mongolia. It's true. Why would one go to Mongolia in the winter?

All the travel guides discourage it. I might discourage it. But I purposefully went there then because winter is at the heart of this whole story. So how cold are we talking here? It's super cold. Freeze your nose hair is cold. I actually had to tape hand warmers all over my microphone, you know, so it wouldn't freeze. Wow, it is cold.

Oh. I found this great piece of tape of me complaining about it. Mine is 18 degrees right now. It's just really cold. I can tell from the way you say, Cool. How cold you are. Yeah, it wasn't acting.

But some types of winters are so extreme, Maddie, that they actually have an official name. So in Mongolian, it's called a zud. That's when a winter is so bad, it kills a significant number of livestock. And in Mongolia, or one out of four people make their living hurting, that has huge consequences. I'm Maddie Safaya.

And I'm Emily Kwong. Today in the show, we head to Mongolia to learn about the brutal winters, known as zuds, and how these natural disasters have changed. a country's way of life. Okay, so Mongolia is periodically affected by this extreme weather event that happens in the winter called a Zod. What does a Zod look like? Yeah, so to understand Zud, I wanted to meet someone directly impacted by it.

This man is named Oyatan Gonchik. He's a father of four, super good dad. He braids his daughter's hair, gets them ready for school and everything. He was born a herder. in eastern Mongolia, and in January 2000, Oyitin, as he tells it, woke up at sunrise to check on his animals. Snow had fallen in the night, about a foot. They were riding out a bad winter storm, and he was really worried about his herd. So he cracked the door of his gear.

Those are these circular felt-cover tents that herders live in. And it was eerily quiet outside, blindingly white from all this snow. What does he see when he opens the door? He sees carcasses. A dozen of his sheep and goats had died in the night, though still alive, he had about 100 animals at the time were trying to find grass to eat. But the land was literally locked in by snow. It was really difficult to see this, he's saying. It was horrifying.

And it happened every few days. Goyton's animals would succumb to starvation, illness, exposure. By the end of the winter, he essentially lost his entire herd. Wow. The type of Zud that came to his doorstep is called Sagan Zud, which in Mongolian means white death. Wow, I think a loss at this level, I imagine it's not purely financial. Absolutely. I mean, this isn't the same, but there are dairy farmers in my family, and you kind of like build relationship with your cows.

You literally like have them from birth to death. So I have to imagine it would be devastating like on multiple levels if you just slowly lose them over time. Right. They're not just economic assets. And the loss of those animals is a social loss. It's a spiritual loss. Experts I spoke to in Mongolia described Zod as a slow-onset natural disaster, different from a rapid-onset natural disaster, like a hurricane or an earthquake.

So how many other herders were affected by the white death that year? That year, the 2000s did, it claimed about 3.5 million livestock quite a bit. It's 11% of the national herd. And when you consider that at the time, one out of a few people, one out of the world, every two households made their living hurting. It's significant. Animals represent wealth. So it would be as if your life savings were to slowly disintegrate. So what did the herders actually do? In response, some rebuilt their herd, those who could, but others who lost everything, they left, gave up herding, fled the countryside, seeking jobs

in urban areas, uprooting their lives. You know our good herding dad, Boyington? Hairbraided guy? Yeah. He was one. of those who left. Many migrated, he's saying, because it was impossible to make a living. And it shows in the population in Ulambata, that's Mongolia's capital, it has tripled in the past 30 years, exploded. Zud is one of the many migration drivers bringing people to the city. And I could see this when I live there. I was reporting and living in this apartment building. And when I looked off my balcony window, the hills were just covered in gairs, those felt-covered tents that herders live in.

It was a picture of all of these people who had moved to the city and settled there, and the city just couldn't contain all the new arrivals. Are the zuds still happening? A zud on this scale that hits every corner of the country? Not that common. Prior to 2000, it happened about once a decade. But what was weird about 2000 is it happened the next year and the next year. And again in 2010. So by the end of the decade, there were four zuds.

And 21 million livestock died in that period. It totally overwhelmed Mongolian people, the government, tens of thousands of families packed up and left. That is horrifying. What is going on? Like, what is causing this? Okay. So it's tempting to blame climate change. And that is, in fact, the biggest culprit in this whole Zod affair.

Mongolia is indeed a warmer, drier place than it was 80 years ago. But what I found is that Zod is actually caused by a cocktail of other factors like overgrazing and deforestation. Basically anything that destroys the grassland is bad for animals. You need that grassland. That grassland is food. It's a goat's buffet table. And to not have it sets them up for Zud because summer is a time when they fatten up. And if the grass is gone from drought or other things, they're even more vulnerable when the winter is bad.

Oh, a little bit of science here. Yes. Drought, okay, means less grassland. And in Mongolia, less grassland creates even more drought. Vicious cycle. Yeah, because Mongolia, it's landlocked, right? So the vast majority of precipitation, rain, snow, it comes from the land. It comes from the grass.

Water is transpired by plants into the atmosphere. So without grass, Mongolia is even drier. So given all of this, is herding still considered a good way to make a living in Mongolia? I think Mongolians are trying to figure that out. You know, there's fewer herders, but they're better prepared. And trying to manage the pasture land more sustainably, local communities are training herders to brace for a bad winter. Do things like make extra hay for their animals to eat, purchase livestock insurance,

and pool their resources. So the individual costs aren't so high. All right. So that sounds great. But are herders still kind of on edge? Are they, like, freaked out, anticipating the next Zud? You know, so I used to report in rural Alaska in a fishing community. And herders, they kind of remind me of fishermen.

They know they're at the mercy of the weather, but they're very tough and resourceful within their own lives. And herders are doing the same. They're trying to make the most of what they have. They're kind of cultural heroes for practicing this way of life that's become increasingly less common. And the state broadcaster actually gives these awards to the best herders in the nation. Please tell me you went to a Best Herder Award ceremony. I absolutely went to a Best Herder Award ceremony. And the championship herder who I met in the Arhungai province was this man named Nirgu Davajav.

And I talked to him right after he got his award. He was practical about the threat of it. He said, you know, nature is unpredictable. It's hotter. There's less rain. Animals can't get fat. But if we prepare extra hay, we can overcome such natural disasters. We don't have to be afraid.

This spring, their animals gave birth to hundreds of babies. I went back to visit during the birthing season in March. This pen is just full of like a hundred lambs, just these tiny little cotton balls. Did you put this in here to make us feel better about this? Do you mind? No, I just don't appreciate being manipulated. But I wanted to show you the opposite of Zid, right? So not death, but life.

And what it signals for the next generation of herders who are continuing to do this. I'm picking up what you're putting down, Quang. Thank you. All right, Emily Kwong, thank you for bringing us this story. Absolutely, Maddie. This episode was produced by Rebecca Ramirez, edited by Viet Le, and fact-checked by Emily Vaughn. This is shortwave from NPR. We'll see you tomorrow.