On August 13, 2020, more than 300 Mongolian herders from Southern Mongolia’s Durbed Banner took to the streets of the banner capital to protest government-backed pig farming. At least three herdswomen were beaten by the police at the protest scene in front of the government building.

Holding long banners reading “No to pig farming on grasslands, no to destruction of natural environment,” herders shouted slogans in front of the government building: “We don’t want pig farms! We want our grasslands protected!”

Video clips the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC) received from the protesters show that local police attempted to block the marching herders from entering the government premises and confiscated their banners.

“Police twisted our hands and confiscated our banners,” a herdswoman said in a cell phone video clip she took at the scene. “Two elderly ladies’ hands were badly injured, and I am in severe pain.”

According to a local herder at the protest named Hasbaatar, the Durbed Banner government recently made a deal with a Chinese investor to set up seven pig farms on the local herders’ grazing land without the free, prior, and informed consent of local Mongolian communities.

“As a result of our strong protest, all seven pig farms suspended their operations 70 days ago,” Mr. Hasbaatar said in an audio statement. “But three days ago, the largest of the seven resumed operation again. This is why we are here today to protest.”

As part of the larger campaign of eradicating the traditional Mongolian way of life in Southern Mongolia, the Chinese government has promoted large-scale pig farming on grasslands, sparking a series of protests in rural Mongolian pastoralist communities.

According to the Chinese Agricultural Net (www.ny160.com), the Chinese Ministry of Land and Resources announced a new policy allowing Chinese animal farming industries to appropriate land without any approval process.  An article entitled “The Central Government’s Special Approval: Starting September, Agricultural and Pig Farming Land Appropriation Needs No Approval!” published on the Chinese Agricultural Net on August 29, 2019, says that “no local government shall restrict or ban any large-scale animal farming in the name of expanding rural villages or recovering ecosystems” (see original source here: http://www.ny160.com/news_1222_37.html).

“The Chinese are free to do whatever they want on Southern Mongolian land. They are free to raise pigs. They are free to cultivate grassland. They are free to plunder our natural resources and free to destroy our land,” Mr. Sechenbaatar, a Southern Mongolian writer and activist, said in an audio statement via WeChat. “Southern Mongolian land is open for everything except for the traditional Mongolian way of life.”