by Nomin Lkhagvasuren*

03 August 2002

BONN: Sharavyn Tsendsuren, a 40-year-old widow, lives in Matad soum, a small administrative area in eastern Mongolia. Tsenduren lost her job as a state-sponsored veterinarian after the collapse of the centrally-planned economy in 1990. She moved from job to job, starting as a kindergarten teacher and ending up as a school janitor. Unemployed for a year, she struggled to care for her children, two of whom are disabled.

But her life changed for the better last year when national UN Volunteer Sharavyn Ulzyuduuren, a former mathematics teacher, invited her and nine other unemployed women to help set up a small felt workshop. Ulzyiduuren, together with UN Volunteer Seveengyin Batsaikhan from Chuluunkhoroot soum, secured loans for two felt workshops from the Community Conservation Fund (CCF) under a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) biodiversity initiative. The idea was to use the wool of domestic livestock to produce goods that people need and sell them at affordable prices. This new approach is one of many taken by nine national UN Volunteers in Mongolia working to provide livelihoods and support biodiversity under the project funded by the Global Environmental Facility and the UNDP.

The activities in Matad soum not only help jobless soum residents make a living, they also help protect the environment and assist some of the 1,340 nomadic herders roaming the arid steppes in Mongolia's eastern Dornod province. These nomads sell meat and goat's cashmere, but many have not managed to turn a profit on sheep's wool. As meager earnings do not cover transportation costs, most herders - living hundreds of kilometres from large markets - simply discard the wool from their sheep on the steppes. But with UNV's input, women and herders work hand in hand. Wool becomes felt, while project awareness and profit margins begin to increase all around.

The "Gazelle Enterprise"
Matad soum's felt makers are succeeding by bringing the market closer to the herders. Ulzyiduuren says the felt workshop aims to provide income to herders through the sale of their wool while stopping them from polluting the environment. It also provides work for the jobless - an approach to inspire local people to become environment-conscious as well as productive members of their communities.

The 10 women call their workshop the "Gazelle Enterprise", although the local people mostly refer to them collectively as the "Wool's 10". They were given a felt processing machine valued at US$600, and with the help of their UN Volunteer located and repaired a room. After a month-long training by felt specialists from the capital Ulaanbaatar, the women began making colourful hats, boots, slippers and bags.

They soon realized that most of the demand on the local market is for camel and horse saddles as well as warm felt boots and socks for wearing inside the large traditional Mongolian boots.

Every item they produce is sold with a "Gazelle Enterprise" logo picturing gazelles and carrying a call to protect the unique biodiversity of the eastern steppes, specifically the wild gazelles which are illegally hunted for profit. "We are very happy now that we have a job and we see our future to be bright," says Tsendsuren. She and her co-workers are gearing up to expand. They have agreed with the soum municipality to move into a shower for community members. "We are not only making an income - we are serving our community. We even pay a small tax to the soum administration," says group leader Sharavyn Nansalmaa. They plan to pay back to the CCF the cost of the felt-processing machine before the end of 2002. "People, even from the most remote places, come to see our workshop. They get an idea from what we do and are encouraged by our example."

The soum administration is supportive of the workshop and has offered to provide a loan to buy wool. "Every time we travel to the herders we are ready to get wool down to the soum centre in our car and take back with us the goods that the workshop has produced for herders," says Jamsrangyin Bazarragchaa, the head of the soum administration.

"The example of the Gazelle Enterprise has really inspired us," says Zunduin Nergui, a young woman designer who has already received room for a furniture workshop and has applied for a loan from the Family Capacity Building Council. "They can do it. Why can't we?"

The felt makers appreciate the help of their UN Volunteer, who provides advice on management and marketing. "Ulzyiduuren works for people, and she does it sincerely from the bottom of her heart. This is real volunteerism," says Tsendsuren. The UN Volunteer is currently considering a new project to renovate an abandoned sanatorium near Matad to attract people from nearby provinces. Like the other eight UN Volunteers, she has a feel for development in Mongolia.

"Because the UN Volunteers working with the biodiversity project are all local people living and working in local areas they can have lot more day to day influence on what's happening in those areas than the project staff can," says Gordon Johnson, the senior adviser for UNDP's Environment and Natural Resources Management Team.

Responding to communities
Encouraged by the good start in Matad and Chuluunkhoroot soums, other UN Volunteers are urging their local communities to apply for CCF grants to kick-start ecological and sustainable initiatives. UN Volunteers Majigyin Bazarsad and Sagadain Altantuya from Khentyi province have held a series of community meetings to discuss most urgent actions necessary to improve people's lives without harming the ecological balance of the steppes. Villagers want to repair water wells so herders will move around to various pastures instead of overgrazing area near lakes and rivers. Other Khentyi residents have thought about setting up beekeeping to produce honey, a berry field, a nursery for medicinal herbs and other business ventures that promote sustainable incomes without unleashing harsh effects on wildlife and the environment.

To help achieve this, the UN Volunteers have made training an important part of their work since taking up their assignments in 1999. Alone or in teams, the UN Volunteers have toured the vast eastern steppes to pass along knowledge of biodiversity. "During our training trips in the countryside, we say to local people that nature is for them to use," says UN Volunteer Damdinsurengyin Tuya, who is based in Choibalsan in the centre of Dornod province.

"It's theirs, but not only: it also belongs to their children, grandchildren and all the generations to come."

The UN Volunteers advise the people on prudent hunting practices. "If they smoke out whole marmot families during the spring and summer hunt, killing them without differentiating the females and young animals, they will have fewer marmots left for their consumption for next year," she says. "Sustainable development without hazard to nature and environment is the only way to prevent an ecological catastrophe. This is the most important message we bring to people."

According to Tuya, informing people about the animals helps bring about a change of behaviour with respect to nature. "After our lectures and meetings with people, the herders ask for the posters, information and printed materials on ecology and biodiversity. Moreover the herders volunteer to distribute these materials to their neighbours," she says. "People understand our message very easily since a highly respectful attitude to nature is in the Mongolian nomadic tradition."

The volunteers also conduct field research. According to Tuya, most of the environmental destruction does not come from local herders, but rather from greedy traders. For example, merchants holding permits to hunt 50 marmots often end up killing 500 animals for fur and skins. In some cases travelling traders give poor families guns to heighten the level of killing. Tuya says that the most difficult people to talk to are the traders; their children are often "the strongest tools for making these traders think about the future".

Preserving willows in Choibalsan
The threat to Mongolia's biodiversity is not restricted to animals. "Before 1999, there was no understanding about nature preservation and volunteerism among people. It was more of a competition about who could consume what nature has to offer first," Tuya says. She explains how large numbers of riverside willow bushes in Choibalsan were cut down over the last 10 years and burned by the city's poorest families who live in the national felt dwellings, known as gers, and could not afford to buy wood or coal to cook and keep warm.

"Ten years ago a jeep signaling from the other side of the river could not be heard - so thick were the bushes protecting the river from drying out and the soil from desertification," says Tuya. "But now we have only a few wild willows left, and consequently the level of water in the Kherlen River, our main source of clean water, has been going down."

Due to Tuya's awareness raising activities involving the voluntary support of some local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Dornod's Union of Retired People (DURP) and the Scouts, the thin row of bushes has survived. The local people actively embraced her idea to clear the river of garbage and to protect the few remaining willows. "The results were stunning," she says. The city municipality allocated 10 million Tugrugs (US$10,000) in 2000 to clean up the garbage and semi-annual clean-up drives have been reintroduced. Moreover, 20 persons from two local NGOs, plus the city's nature protection ranger and Tuya herself, have carried out regular patrols along the river, measuring the willows and stopping anyone attempting to cut down the bushes.

"We were not that actively involved in the nature preservation activities before we met our UN Volunteer. Now we work together with her and regularly ask for advice," says Togoogyin Dorjjugder, the head of DURP. DURP members have launched a project to grow and popularize rare medical herbs in Dornod and remain active in protecting the willow bushes. Most of the city's secondary schools are also involved in this initiative. "A person struggling alone gets frustrated, but when we get together out of free will we put a beginning to a brand new way of living that leads to a change for better for the whole community," says Tuya. Her advocacy efforts resulted in the passing of a city governor's resolution protecting the Kherlen River and calling on residents to keep the city's streets, squares and parks clean.

But the challenge of offering alternative fuel to the city's poor remains. In Chuluunkhoroot soum, UN Volunteer Seveengyin Batsaikhan spearheaded a community effort to save the willows. "We faced a problem of poorer people using the riverside willows as fuel. Our soum lacks wood, so together with the soum administration we have created a coal distribution point where people can buy coal 40 per cent cheaper," says Batsaikhan. "Our administration was able to make a good deal with the nearby coal mine. This has notably reduced the number of people cutting down the willows."

Furthermore, Batsaikhan with the help of the volunteers from the community, identified the 10 poorest families who were often seen cutting down the riverside bushes for fuel. The idea was to mix cinders from burned coal with livestock dung to prepare a brick fuel that allows the coal to burn longer with less waste. A small CCF grant for a pilot project supplying forms to produce the brick fuel was given to the soum. After receiving the forms from Batsaikhan, the families agreed to participate in the biodiversity conservation work, in particular, by urging others not to burn the willows. "I know for sure that these 10 families have not burned willows last winter," says Batsaikhan.

Learning to diversify
The national UN Volunteers share their work results and experiences with each other when they get together on field trips or during nature conservation training for local people. "Because all of us have our own individual style of work, it's always inspiring to get together and share with others the findings and challenges that we've been facing in our work," says Chimeddorjyin Chinbat, the UN Volunteer in Dashbalbar soum.

The input of the UN Volunteers in working with local communities is highly appreciated by the biodiversity project. "I do not imagine our work without the help of the UN Volunteers," says project manager Dogdomyn Dagvasuren. The UN Volunteers, he adds, have shown "remarkable initiative and creativity" in getting the word out on ways to protect nature and to live in harmony with it. Target communities are taking note of their message. As a 10-year old school boy, Khatanbaataryn Khatanbold in Undurkhaan soum of Khentyi province, puts it: "When I see people breaking trees I ask them not to do it. If there weren't flowers and trees we would not have air to breathe. I'd like our rivers to be full of fish, I'd like our town to be green and blossoming and I'd like to have the fresh air to breathe for all of us".

*Nomin Lkhagvarsuren is a freelance journalist