Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information CenterSouthern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center
HomeAbout UsCampaignsSouthern Mongolian WatchChineseJapaneseNewsLInksContact Us
 

<Back>

 

Mongolian Herders Going Back to "Otor"

[ From Xinhua News, Translation by Enhebatu Togochog] While driving through Shilin Gol’s former grasslands now turned to desert, we saw tens of hundreds of herders with their livestock moving by motorcycles and jeeps loaded with their simple belongings. According to the local people, this is “ Otor” which means “ nomadic” in Mongolian, the Mongolian herder’s traditional lifestyle suited to avoiding and surviving disasters.

“Following along the path of modernization, herders in our banner have abandoned their traditional lifestyle for the past ten years ago, but today, after the three-year long severe drought, the grasslands where herders lived have completely turned to desert. Herders have to leave their settled dwellings to go on “Otor” with their simple properties,” a local said in Sunid Right Wing Banner of Shilin Gol where we visited.

“We changed 7 places, but we still could not find any grass,” Mr. Unenbilig, a local Mongolian herder on his “Otor”, told the reporter in the desert of Gerelt-Od Sume, Sunid Right Wing Banner. We saw that Mr. Unenbilig’s 5 years old son was watering ten or so emaciated goats with water from a small pot little by little. But it was not helpful, Mr. Unenbilig decided to leave the thin and bony goats in the desert to “grow or die without outsider’s interference”.

According to an official of the banner, there are some 700 other “Otor” families like Unenbilig’s moving from place to place in this banner.

<Back>

 

 
From Yeke-juu League to Ordos Municipality: settler colonialism and alter/native urbanization in Inner Mongolia

Close to Eden (Urga): France, Soviet Union, directed by Nikita Mikhilkov

Beyond Great WallsBeyond Great Walls: Environment, Identity, and Development on the Chinese Grasslands of Inner Mongolia

The Mongols at China's EdgeThe Mongols at China's Edge: History and the Politics of National Unity

China's Pastoral RegionChina's Pastoral Region: Sheep and Wool, Minority Nationalities, Rangeland Degradation and Sustainable Development

Changing Inner MongoliaChanging Inner Mongolia: Pastoral Mongolian Society and the Chinese State (Oxford Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology)

Grasslands and Grassland Science in Northern ChinaGrasslands and Grassland Science in Northern China: A Report of the Committee on Scholarly Communication With the People's Republic of China

The Ordos Plateau of ChinaThe Ordos Plateau of China: An Endangered Environment (Unu Studies on Critical Environmental Regions)
 ©2002 SMHRIC. All rights reserved. Home | About Us | Campaigns | Southern Mongolian Watch | News | Links | Contact Us