Reporting From: Mongolia
In Reporting From, we bring you insights from USAID disaster experts who tell us what they see and hear while on the ground in disaster-affected areas across the world. For this installment, we sat down with Joe Curry, Regional Advisor for USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, who recently returned from Mongolia where he saw first hand the impacts of this winter’s dzud.
The well-worn dirt tracks are gone, covered in snow and ice as far as the horizon. There are no trees or any other markers in sight to guide the convoy of vehicles to its final destination. Along the route, yaks following herders lumber by in search of grass or feed. Some will find it and survive the winter. Many will not.
That is because Mongolia is in the midst of a dzud, a slow-onset climate emergency that occurs when a summer drought is followed by a harsh winter. The result is the mass death of livestock from exposure to the extreme cold and the inability to find food or water.
Joe Curry, Regional Advisor for USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, was a part of a recent assessment mission to Zavkhan and Arkhangai, two areas currently experiencing white dzud and iron dzud conditions — two of the five different types of dzud. Along with USAID partner World Vision and local government officials, he met with herders who live in remote and isolated areas. Their mission was to gauge the impact of the current dzud and examine potential ways for USAID to help.
This winter’s dzud is the second to hit Mongolia in two years and the fifth to occur in the past decade. A single dzud is dangerous, but the compounding effects of back-to-back dzuds are much deadlier, with animals and herders still under extreme stress from the previous year as they enter the harshest winter months. The low rainfall in the summer likely impacted the plant growth, which in turn limits the animals’ ability to put on fat reserves needed to survive winter months. It also means the price of animal feed will rise.
The communities are worried.
“Cows have already started dying,” Curry reported. “This is obviously not a good sign. Typically cows are more resilient, but everyone is saying the mortality is happening early this year because of the early snow that never melted. Now we are starting to see the effects of that.”
The life of a herder is hard, even in good times. The increasing frequency of dzuds is making it worse. According to estimates from Mongolia’s Information and Research Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology, and Environment, dzuds are now expected to occur every four to five years rather than every 10 years. This is significant in a country with 63 million livestock that support the livelihoods of roughly 30 percent of the workforce.
Building up the communities’ resilience and ability to withstand the harsh conditions is key to USAID’s work in Mongolia. Year round USAID works with partners like World Vision to support herders. This includes providing veterinary services, restoring livestock shelters so animals can keep warm in the winter, delivering livestock feed, and developing local disaster plans. We’re also working with communities to diversify their income streams and promote the growth of vegetation around their homes during warmer months to keep their animals alive in the winter.
In addition, USAID just announced new funding for cash assistance, additional animal feed, and protection services to support vulnerable herding households to cope with the ongoing dzud and maintain their livelihoods.
This assistance couldn’t come at a more critical time as temperatures continue to dip well below zero and the true impacts of this year’s dzud won’t be known until spring.
