Resource development projects have brought severe contamination and destruction to the ecological environment across the grasslands of Mongolia. The everyday life and livelihood of local residents, including herding communities, is under excessive threat. Grassroots action to protect the grasslands and livelihoods have become increasingly strident in response to this escalating environmental pollution. My research focuses on case studies of informal life politics in Mongolia, including the country of Mongolia (Outer Mongolia) and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (Inner Mongolia). Both regions have experienced rapid industrialization over the past decade, which involved a huge number of large-scale resource development projects
Along with environmental degradation in Inner Mongolia in the late 1990s, grassroots environmental protection activities have gradually emerged and developed. It expanded slowly to fight against industrial pollution on the grasslands and to protect herdsmen’s rights on their own land. This is an open network which involves people from different walks of life, such as local herdsmen, educated youth from Beijing, young ethnic Mongolians living in cities, professors, people from environmental NGOs and public interest law firms. The network plays an important role in linking environmental activities in diverse forms and various locations.
From here, I would like to introduce a story of educated youth. The situation of industrial pollution in the grasslands and the plight of local herdsmen have caught the attention and sympathy of educated youth, city dwellers sent to live on the rural Inner Mongolian grasslands during the cultural revolution between the 1960s and 1970s. Most of them were from Beijing and therefore returned to Beijing after the Cultural Revolution.
When they saw the beautiful grassland where they lived being polluted, and their old friends and local herdsmen suffering from these changes, many educated youth stood up and actively involved themselves in grassland protection activities. One of them is Chen Jiqun, who is an artist living in Beijing. Over ten years, he travelled multiple times between Beijing and Eastern Ujimchin grassland, one thousand kilometers to the north of Beijing, to engage in a range of activities to help the herding community to win their case. He created and operated the website ‘Echoing Steppe’, to release information on the situation of industrial pollution in Eastern Ujimchin through photos and videos. Through the website, he also reports the functioning of surveillance on environment issues by the Eastern Ujimchin government. In addition, he provides herdsmen with legal assistance and helps them to conduct independent investigations. For instance, Chen Jiqun offers to help herders to contact lawyers, organize the translation of law books from Chinese to Mongolian, and distribute these books among the local community. Meanwhile, he has facilitated collaborations between scholars from Beijing, Outer Mongolia and Korea, as well as Eastern Ujimchin local herdsmen to conduct independent investigations on industrial pollution and desertification of the grassland.
Mongolia has its own cultural and historical background, distinct from other cultural groups in the region. A study of grassroots action in Mongolia requires interpreting case studies in their historical context. Outer Mongolia and Inner Mongolia bear different and distinctive historical footprints. Inner Mongolia has adopted an economic development strategy focusing on resource development since the 1990s. Development projects in Inner Mongolia were often accompanied with a huge influx of Han immigrants into the grasslands, which has brought not only tangible damage on the environment but also intangible pressure on Mongolian language and culture.
Post by Wuqiriletu. Find out more about Wuqiriletu’s research work.