Wu Yun, 23, and her father, Bao Zhu, are agropastoral farmers on the brink of modernization. On one side, yurts and lambs. On the other, 300-meter-high (1,000-foot-high) buttes made of tailings from Datan International Shengli Mine, China’s largest brown coal mine, which officials say could become China’s largest open-pit mine in a few years.

This slideshow was made to accompany the article Energy Economy Brings Change to Shepherd Life: Modernization Comes to the Dry Grasslands of Inner Mongolia. Photos and text by J. Carl Ganter director for Circle of Blue. Reach him at carl.ganter@circleofblue.org.

Photo © J. Carl Ganter / Circle of Blue

Wu Yun, 23, stands on the plains of the Mongolian grasslands near Xilinhot, where in summertime she rides her stout horse over the rolling dust. Just 30 meters below her feet are the rich veins of coal that fuel a nation.

By J. Carl Ganter
Circle of Blue

XILINHOT, INNER MONGOLIA — It was here, the vast grasslands of Inner Mongolia, where Ghengis Khan brought his armies to recover, swim in the Nine Bendings River, fatten livestock, and forge swords. In winter, felted yurts protected the Mongols who created the nomadic communities that, for dynasties, have raised sheep on these highlands.

The December day I visit, a frigid blast of razor-sharp ice crystals—some of them blackened from the dust of nearby open-pit coal mines—rolls across the horizon, stopping only to swirl and tear at exposed flesh. Wu Yun, 23, tucks in her mittens and pulls on furry boots to help her father feed the livestock. She hunkers down, unlatches the gate, and lets the sheep out to graze on the fragile, brown stubble. Like minnows, they dart and weave for the open field, protesting the harsh wind with loud baas. An old ram coughs against the cold, stopping for a scratch on the chin.

Wu Yun looks out over the plains, where in summertime she rides her stout horse above the rolling dust. Today the acerbic rasp of smoke from nearby coal-fired power plants winds through the air. On one side, yurts and lambs. On the other, 300-meter-high (1,000-foot-high) buttes made of tailings from Datan International Shengli Mine, China’s largest brown coal mine, which officials say could become China’s largest open-pit mine in a few years.

Brown coal, which has lower energy content than black coal, is the fuel of choice in this part of Inner Mongolia. It is the power source for big electrical generating plants, but it is also piled outside homes, including Wu Yun’s, where it is used for cooking and heating.

Her father, Bao Zhu, breaks loose a few pieces of frozen coal from the pile at the front of their gate. They carry it in together and feed it to the stove in the kitchen. A pot of milk tea boils on the stove, and the heat begins to melt the frost on the windows. In the valley below, they can see the future for Inner Mongolia.

The pile of coal that heats their home in winter is an unmistakable sign of what’s to come.

The shepherd’s life remains simple and raw, guided by the rhythms of the seasons and of the hardy sheep, shaggy cows, and swift horses, able to withstand the -30C (-20F) temperatures and fiercely biting wind. But Xilinhot—an outpost of 177,000 residents that is 600 kilometers (373 miles) and a 12-hour train ride north of Beijing—is at the forefront of China’s energy economy. Just 30 meters (100 feet) below the family farm are the rich veins of the coal that fuel a nation.

Within the next three years, says Wu Yun’s family, the mining company will come to develop the seam. There will be a fair offer they can’t refuse, and they will accept it willingly. They will pack their giant pot of milk tea, sell their horses, cows, and lambs, and move to the city, to an apartment near relatives that have already made the migration.

“When family comes here to visit, they catch cold,” says Bao Zhu. “When we go to the city, we are too warm.”

Modernization in an Energy Economy
Wu Yun puts down her cup of milk tea and prepares for the day. Her generation is part of the urban movement, and she’s already made plans. Wu Yun is studying accounting and wants to open an upscale clothing store to serve Xilinhot’s newest residents, the families of the well-paid miners and workers who come to mine the brown gold. But the city will also need water, to hydrate its growing population, as well as the thirsty mines.

Xilinhot is at the center of the Xilin Gol Grassland, one of China’s largest prairies and livestock production regions. As Circle of Blue first reported in 2006 and again in 2010, the Xilin Gol Grassland has suffered severe sand encroachment and desertification. But now the deliberate and unhurried lifestyle of pastoral farmers faces yet another hurdle.

Coal from Xilinhot—where proven reserves number around 30 billion metric tons (33 billion short tons), while provincial and academic authorities say unproven reserves total to hundreds of billions of metric—travels to power plants as far away as the Yangtze River Delta region. Large wind farms are also located near Xilinhot, with 200 turbines currently operated by seven different energy companies and another 200 turbines are expected to be built in 2011.

Additionally, more than 30 kinds of minerals have been found in the area, one of which is germanium.

The rare-earth mineral, a semi-conductor metalloid, is a byproduct of the pulverizing process of Xilinhot’s brown coal. The crushed coal rumbles along kilometers of conveyor belts in the local mill. The factory hisses and moans, churning out the white powder, which, ironically, is a key ingredient in the production of solar cells and the circuitry that controls the high-tech and cleaner energy alternatives like wind farms and smart grids.

In 2006, the worldwide production of germanium was roughly 100 metric tons (110 short tons), and, in 2007, recycled germanium met 35 percent of global demand, according to High Beam. Worldwide reserve figures are not currently available, though the China Daily reports that Xilin Gol may have China’s largest deposit of germanium. In contrast, the U.S. is estimated to have 500 metric tons (550 short tons) of germanium reserves.

While the Shengli Mine could soon become China’s largest open-pit mine, plant managers at the Shangdu Power Plant in Zhenglan, only 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, hope to expand the facility to be the largest power plant in all of Asia, according to the China Daily.

Standing in their way, though, is the region’s limited supply of fresh water, which is needed to mine and wash the coal, as well as to cool coal-fired power plants. There are nine rivers and 28 lakes in Xilinhot, and the total annual water resources tally to 260 million cubic meters (68.7 billion gallons), with 160 million cubic meters (42.3 billion gallons) available for use. More than 90 percent of this is groundwater, with only 11.3 million cubic meters (3 billion gallons) available to use as surface water.

So, while Bao Zhou has to drive 15 kilometers (9 miles) every few days to fetch water for his herd—groundwater on the plains has dropped precipitously and much of it is contaminated by heavy metals, chemicals, and the city’s sewage—energy companies will, nevertheless, secure what they need. There are plans to bring water to the dry northlands to feed the thirsty mines:

• A 600-kilometer (400-mile) pipeline from eastern China’s Bohai Sea, where 340,000 cubic meters (90 million gallons) of seawater would be desalinated daily for the mines and processing plants.
• The western line of the North-South Water Transfer Project, currently in the planning stages, which, when finished in 2050, would transfer 22 million cubic meters (5.8 billion gallons) per day to Qinghai, Gansu, Shaanxi, and Shanxi Provinces, along with the Ningxia Hui and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regions.

It is this scale of design and thinking—highly controversial, too—that underscores China’s water-energy challenge and the huge infrastructure that the nation is looking to put into place, starting in the cold and snow-blown fields of Xilin Gol Grassland.

J. Carl Ganter is director and co-founder of Circle of Blue. Reach him at carl.ganter@circleofblue.org.

Contributions by Aubrey Ann Parker a Traverse City-based editor, and by Jennifer Turner, Washington, D.C.-based director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Photo © Sean Gallagher

A tourist tries on traditional Inner Mongolian dress on the degraded grasslands. Click image to enlarge.

By Molly Walton
Circle of Blue

Soaring temperatures, brutal winds and deeper droughts are becoming the new norm in Inner Mongolia, the Chinese Autonomous Region distinguished by a sea of grass that climate change is steadily turning into an ocean of dust.

Two years ago Circle of Blue published “Reign of Sand,” the most thorough online multi-media account of the causes and consequences of the perilous “Yellow Dragon,” the choking spring dust storms that start in Inner Mongolia and sweep across China, affecting breathing and manufacturing as far away as Japan and both Koreas.

This week, Circle of Blue updated its special report and found that conditions are no better in some places, and that the deterioration is accelerating in most of Inner Mongolia, an arid and nearly treeless plain of about half the size of the United States.

In March, China’s capital city, Beijing, was coated by a layer of orange dust from a sandstorm that originated from the deserts of Inner Mongolia. In June, several provinces in northeast China issued an orange alert, the second highest level for heat.

Drought gains a stronger grip on the region, likely the consequence of climate change, according to a report by McKinsey & Co. If the drought persists, nearly 13.8 million metric tons of Chinese crops could be lost by 2030, according to the report. Last month, the UN secretary general called for the international community to renew its commitment to tackle desertification and land degradation.

Photo © Sean Gallagher

Tree-planting in KunlunQi in eastern Inner Mongolia by the NGO Roots & Shoots whose aim is to plant 1 million trees in the area to combat desertification. 2010

Over Grazing, Over Population, Over Everything
Sean Gallagher, a British photojournalist working on a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, spent much of 2009 documenting desertification in Inner Mongolia, He said in an interview this month with Circle of Blue that overgrazing, overpopulation, drought and increased demand for groundwater threaten the health and livelihood of the nearly 24 million residents of Inner Mongolia and hundreds of million outside of Inner Mongolia.

“For many city residents, the only acknowledgment that there is a problem with the nation’s deserts comes in the spring when sandstorms descend on the capital,” Gallagher said.

The recent sandstorms that inundated Beijing in March prompted the authorities to issue a level-five pollution warning–signaling that it is hazardous to breathe–that closed parks and open spaces to morning exercise. Meanwhile, spring storms in northern Chinese provinces west and east of Inner Mongolia proved disastrous.

A storm in April in the northwest Shandong province, China’s fruit and vegetable production base, killed three people, damaged the property of 1.5 million residents, caused 4,000 homes to collapse and ruined several thousand greenhouses. That same month, a sandstorm hit Qinghai in the northwest part of the country, while the Hexi Corridor experienced its worst sandstorm in 9 years.

Photo © Sean Gallagher

Traditional life has long since dissapeared in Inner Mongolia. Traces of nomadic life only remian hanging on the wall of local farmers' homes. 2009

Forests and Abandoned Land
“As the effects of desertification have increased, farmers in rural areas have been forced to abandon their land. Levels of rural poverty have risen and the intensity of sandstorms, which batter northern and western China each year, continue to intensify,” Gallagher said.

The changing climate is a big factor, scientists say. The regional meteorological bureau reports that almost 40 percent of the region’s land area is experiencing drought. Another recent McKinsey report also found that drought decimated 4.5 million hectares in eight provinces in northern China in early 2009. In August of the same year, drought caused the destruction of 10 million hectares of crops and dried up the drinking water of 7 million people in central and northern China.

In April the drinking water of more than 250,000 people in Chifeng City in Inner Mongolia grew short, according to local news reports. This year Chifeng experienced the worst drought in a decade as 62 percent of the city’s small and mid-sized reservoirs dried up, and the volume of major rivers declined by 77.4 percent.

“Water scarcity is a problem, which both rural and urban dwellers are starting to feel acutely,” Gallagher said. “Dropping water tables in some rural areas has led to the complete disappearance of underground water and many reservoirs which supply water to the major cities are exhibiting reduced levels.”

Aware of the ramifications of failing to act, China has aggressively adopted campaigns like the Sloping Land Conversion program, which rehabilitates degraded and desertified farmland. The central government also is pursuing reforestation. By the end of 2009, according to CCTV, the state television, China had reached its goal of covering 20 percent of the nation’s land with trees. Late last year, President Hu Jintao committed the country to add 40 million hectares of trees by 2020.

Molly Walton is a reporter for Circle of Blue. Reach her at mollyw@circleofblue.org.

KDianhua Paper Mill discharged 2.5 million tons of untreated industrial wastewater every year into a lagoon that ruptured near an Inner Mongolian village, killing sheep, sickening people, and damaging grasslands. A group of herders brought suit and won a small settlement. The contamination persists.

The blowing sand in Inner Mongolia is more evidence of the consequences of the irrational duel China fights daily as it promotes rapid industrial development while exposing land, water, communities, and people to levels of pollution, waste, and resource diminishment never before seen on the planet.

Traditional nomadic culture on the steppes of Inner Mongolia was defined by the insistence of wind, herding, and the search for water. A ballad, performed by Maidar, celebrates what’s left: Air that is rarely still and great expanses of tall grass unfurling like a great waving sea beneath surpassingly huge skies.

By W. Chad Futrell
Special to Circle of Blue

Before the Dianhua Paper Mill moved from Hebei Province, just outside of Beijing, to Jirigalanggazha Village in Inner Mongolia, it had already earned a reputation with its neighbors and government authorities as a terrible water polluter. The mill was closed in 1999 because, rather than pay for an expensive water filtering and treatment system, the owner decided to relocate the factory to an area that welcomed polluting industries.

Inner Mongolia was a natural choice. The central government had launched an ambitious Western Development campaign, which since 1998 aimed to promote economic growth in China’s poorer western and northern regions, but often without regard to the environmental consequences. The policy and investment led to industrialization that accelerated the ruin of fragile water and grassland ecosystems.

It also harmed people, among them Damulinzabu, an Inner Mongolian herder, who was living a quiet life of purpose near Jirigalanggazha Village when the mill set up shop in 2000. By the time Dianhua Paper Mill left almost six years later, his land had been ruined and Damulinzabu had assumed new roles as an activist, legal plaintiff, and court room pioneer in the mismatch that exists in China between polluting industries seeking profits and citizens determined to protect their land and families.

One Day, A Polluter Comes to Town

The Dianhua Mill arrived with little notice in Dongwu County, Xilingele Prefecture, on the relatively water-rich Wuzhumuqin Grasslands. The county government was looking for a company to occupy a building previously occupied by a bankrupt horse meat processing company. Other inducements included conveying land to the Dianhua Mill that had originally belonged to 18 Mongol herders, returning any income taxes to the mill for the first seven years of its operation, and agreeing to levy annual charges of just 50,000 Yuan ($6,400) for water and another 20,000 Yuan ($2,600) for wastewater discharge.

As is often the case in China, the paper mill started production in March 2000 without undergoing any kind of formal environmental evaluation. The mill excavated 640 acres — one square mile — to serve as a wastewater lagoon. It discharged 2.5 million tons of untreated wastewater into the lagoon every year, and did so without any regard to whether it seeped into the aquifer below.

It was not long before the discharges raised official concern. The Dongwu County Water Conservancy Bureau and Environmental Protection Bureau investigated and estimated that the mill was using between 2 million and 3 million tons of groundwater a year, thus draining local aquifers and harming the nearby grasslands. The Environmental Protection Bureau also found the wastewater discharge was loaded with toxic pollutants.

Herders Protest

Damulinzabu was among the local herders who complained to authorities of headaches, dizziness, and nausea from the noxious odors. The herders said that the grass around the lagoon was dead, a sign that the wastewater was seeping into the groundwater. Damulinzabu and his neighbors filed the first of a number of petitions to local village Communist Party members and cadres. They wanted the land used by the mill to be returned to herders, and that measures be enacted to protect the water supply and grasslands.

Lastly, they wanted to be compensated for damage to their herds they believed was caused by pollution. “I would not let my sheep go anywhere near that pond,” said Damulinzabu. “They were losing weight, and they stopped lambing. All of the herders around here had the same problems. Some of the sheep even stopped producing wool.”

Not surprisingly, the herders were viewed as upstarts and the early petitions were rejected. But the herders did not give up and carried their appeal to higher levels of government, even to the top government office in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Doing so carried considerable risk and challenged Damulinzabu’s self-effacing spirit.

He said in an interview that he was reluctant to file the petition and continue with the arduous appeal process. “I did not want to cause any trouble,” he said. “I have been a cadre member for a long time. But that smell! I was dizzy and my wife was vomiting all the time.”

Then came calamity. In December 2001, eighteen months after the legal process began, a dike holding the wastewater ruptured, contaminating 700 acres of land and killing 2,000 livestock belonging to 18 herders.

Lawsuit Filed

Damulinzabu lost fifty sheep. The next day the herders filed another petition and made it known that they would pursue a lawsuit if nothing was done about the Dianhua Mill. Officials from the county government spent the next month visiting the homes of the herders, trying to convince them to give up their petition and telling them that the mill was too important to the local economy to shut down.

After 18 months of fruitless appeals, Damulinzabu and six other herders brought suit against the Dianhua Paper Mill with the help of a Beijing-based law firm. The lawsuit, filed in August 2002, sought 3.15 million Yuan (approximately $400,000) in compensation. The Intermediate People’s Court of Xilingele Prefecture accepted the case, requesting the Dongwu County government to appear in court as a third party.

The county government responded by again visiting the homes of the seven herders to try to pressure them to drop the case. The county also issued five copies of the State-owned Land-use Right Certificate, officially transferring the herders’ land to state-owned assets, and then leased the land to the Dianhua Paper Mill. In other words, the county took their land and, in effect, tried to eliminate their legal standing in the case.

“We could not believe the county government would do such a thing,” said Damulinzabu. “Our ancestors have been living on these grasslands for generations, but it was like we were squatters on our own land.”

The pressure prompted four of the seven herders to drop out of the lawsuit. But Damulinzabu and two others did not back down. In March 2004, the Intermediate Court ruled in favor of the herders, ordering the Dianhua Mill to pay the herders over 170,000 Yuan ($22,000) for damages. The court also ordered the Dongwu County government to compensate the herders with over 50,000 Yuan ($6,400) as well as legal fees.

Unsatisfied, the three herders appealed to the Supreme People’s Court of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, asking for more compensation as well as the return of 1,760 acres of the collectively owned land occupied by the mill.

Victory, With Consequences
In 2004, the Supreme People’s Court ruled in favor of the herders, ordering the Dianhua Paper Mill and Dongwu County government to pay the herders 360,000 Yuan ($45,000) as compensation for the damage caused to the herders and their livestock. However, the Supreme People’s Court dismissed their petition to return the occupied land, nor were they fully compensated for the damaged grasslands.

The Dianhua Paper Mill operated as usual for another year until public pressure forced it to close in October 2005. Months later it reopened in another part of Inner Mongolia, where the plant owner received similar tax incentives and subsidized water.

“I want my sons and other herders to know that they can stand up to people destroying the grasslands,” reflected Damulinzabu, looking out over the inky black pond that abuts his lands.

The noxious odors still give him and his wife headaches and nausea. “Who is going to clean this up? Who?” he asks. For Damulinzabu, there is no victory, no solace. The court settlement was enough to buy some land outside of the village where he and his family plan to rebuild their herd. “The money is not enough for us to have the same life we had before the mill came, but it is the best we can do,” he said.

The legal victory also made him famous among the Mongol herders of eastern Inner Mongolia. “China is becoming a nation of laws, but these laws only matter when we use them,” he said. “I hope my sons and other herders will learn from my example to stand up for their rights. Herders have to learn Chinese. We have to read and understand the laws because that is the only way we can protect the grasslands.”

But the irrefutable fact is that he will soon follow the mill, which left Jirigalanggazha Village. “We can’t drink the water, and our sheep still can’t put on weight, so how could we stay? These grasslands were some of the best in the region. We have a lot of water, which is why that paper mill wanted to come here. Now the water is ruined.”

W. Chad Futrell is a Ph.D. candidate in development sociology at Cornell University. He recently completed two years of fieldwork on transnational environmental cooperation to prevent desertification and protect wetlands in Northeast Asia, funded by Fulbright-Hays and Korea Foundation fieldwork fellowships. Reach him at wchadfutrell@gmail.com.

Research and editing assistance for this article was provided by Jennifer L. Turner, the director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Reach her at cef@wilsoncenter.org.

The interviews and events described in this report occurred during a five-day trip in August 2007 from Beijing through the eastern region of Inner Mongolia. The trip leader, Chen Jiqun, a prominent Han Chinese artist, had distinguished himself as a noted environmental activist and grassland expert. Palani Mohan, an experienced photojournalist from Australia who has spent considerable time in China, and Eric Daigh, an American multi-media producer from Circle of Blue, joined us.

Our start in Beijing came amid a landscape that bears the marks of history and the severe water shortages that characterize all of northern China. Old canals, empty of water, run between rock formations that are, in some ways, reminiscent of the American southwest. Mountains of burnt-orange clay are ringed by withered trees in neat rows, testament to countless ineffective planting campaigns to hold back the desert.

Northern China is drying out, and there is little to suggest that the situation will change for the better. Roughly 500 million Chinese lack access to safe drinking water and modern sanitation, according to a World Bank study published earlier this year, most of them in northern China. Even the extraordinarily ambitious South-to-North water transfer project, a $62 billion plumbing job aimed at diverting 12 trillion gallons of water annually from the Yangtze River, and transporting it in three canals hundreds of miles north to the Yellow River, will not slake the region’s thirst. Northern China relies on wells drilled to tap groundwater, and aquifers are steadily dropping as northern China’s population and industrialization grows.

You can see that on the freeway from Beijing to Inner Mongolia, which is packed with big trucks. They follow the Yellow River westward towards central Inner Mongolia and Shanxi Province, the heart of China’s coal country. The economies and cities of northern Shanxi and central Inner Mongolia are growing rapidly as factories and mines compete for money earmarked for the Western Development Campaign, the central government’s big push to relieve population pressure along the coast by industrializing the west.

The idea is to reduce income inequality, and power the fastest growing industrial economy in the world. But the quickening and turbulent wave of economic development that has raised the quality of life for 400 million Chinese has also generated resource scarcity, enormous pollution, and waste not only for China but for the rest of the world. Almost 70 percent of China’s growing demand for electricity is fueled by coal. The country this year rushed past the United States as the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, a culprit in global warming. Global climate change is a factor, say climatologists, in northern China’s steadily increasing desertification. The wheel of prosperity that is lifting millions of Chinese out of abject poverty also is soiling the land and the water at a rate never before seen in history.

In East Umchjin County, A Competition For Resources

Most of our reporting occurred in East Umchjin County, near the border with Mongolia, a place renowned for what Chinese scientists call “typical grasslands.” Grass and sky stretched for miles and miles in every direction. In the distance mountains outlined the horizon. The wind, steady as a train, bore down from Mongolia and Siberia.

In 1949, 5.6 million people lived in Inner Mongolia, many of them nomadic herders, guiding flocks of sheep and herds of goats and cattle and horses from one traditional grazing area to the next. Today, according to the central government, 24 million people live in the enormous province, which covers an area nearly twice as large as France, and is China’s third largest. Most are non-native Han Chinese either pushed by the central government or attracted to the region by industrial and agricultural sector jobs.

Our trip reflected that demographic and industrial evolution. Two hundred miles from Beijing, as we entered Inner Mongolia, windmills were replaced by oil wells and coal mines, many of which have been built since 2000. We passed a dam and a reservoir that have enabled the city of Xilinhot, a city of 50,000 in 1990, to triple in size to 150,000 residents. Despite the reservoir the city, like so many others in northern China, faces a water shortage.

A World of Grass and Sky

A day’s drive from Xilinhot another world opened to us at Nomad Family, a cultural tourist site, where men and women in full traditional Mongol dress greeted us. Nomad Family village is five white yurts standing in a line, with a larger yurt in the back. A small windmill whirled, its wires tied to solar panels that met at the batteries that provide almost all of the yurts’ electricity. The fact that these people’s lives are extraordinarily energy-efficient was further reinforced by the pile of dry cow dung, used as fuel, that lay alongside the kitchen yurt.

Indeed, it is rare to see a Mongol herder house or yurt without a small windmill and solar panels. Given how little it rains and the near constant wind, living off the grid is a common way of life. In most of the province, there is no grid.

The serious water shortages that are swiftly converting much of Inner Mongolia to desert were apparent at a personal level at Nomad Family. Water for drinking, bathing, and washing is collected from a well a mile away using a wagon and a stubborn cow pulling a large water container. The men at Nomad Family made the trip on horseback. Women walked.

But there was also a genuinely elegant rhythm to life at Nomad Family. At night we were invited to a meal of beef and lamb, homemade cheese, yogurt, butter, and milk tea. Inner Mongolians eat only what they make themselves. Afterwards we stepped into the wind outside, to a darkened sky and a breathtaking canopy of stars.

W. Chad Futrell is a Ph.D. candidate in development sociology at Cornell University. He recently completed two years of fieldwork on transnational environmental cooperation to prevent desertification and protect wetlands in Northeast Asia, funded by Fulbright-Hays and Korea Foundation fieldwork fellowships. Reach him at wchadfutrell@gmail.com.

Research and editing assistance for this article was provided by Jennifer L. Turner, the director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Reach her at cef@wilsoncenter.org.

Between the congested and heavily polluted neighborhoods and industrial zones around Beijing, and the trackless and drying grasslands of Inner Mongolia lies the rocky “sandy lands,” where the Circle of Blue team made what would be the first of many stops to talk to Mongol herders, a minority in their own land. Less than one in five Inner Mongolians is a native Mongol, according to Chinese census figures.

We had just passed a lake when our leader, Chen Jiqun, an environmentalist and prominent Chinese artist, spotted a Mongol herder house along the road. We pulled onto the dirt and mud drive leading to a small patch of fenced-in green grass. A Mongol woman and her 20-year old son looked at our minivan suspiciously. They did not receive many unannounced visitors, especially a Han Chinese and three foreigners.

“Sain Baina Uu!” yelled Chen, showing a smile we would see often over the next five days. He talked with the woman, Qiqige, for a couple of minutes in fluent Mongolian before she turned and walked back into her house. The rest of us followed. It was time to drink milk tea and eat homemade cheese.

Her shy son disappeared to find his father, who joined us. Qiqige and her family live in one of the areas subject to Inner Mongolia’s policy of enclosing herds and herders, which has forced them to rely upon a small pasture. The grass gets shorter every year. Indeed, sand dunes surround their pasture, and Qiqige fears the dunes may take over even more of their allotted land. The enclosure policy not only has created a disastrous environmental effect, it has also cut divisions into Mongol herder communities.

Previously they had grazed their sheep and cows along with 70 other families. In winter, they would stay in their house and use pastures close by. In summer, they would migrate with the other families, to a different place every year so the grasslands recovered.

“Before, we would move with many families,” she said. “But now it is just our family and we don’t see the other families very much.” The change in herding practices means that women are much more isolated than men. While men can still ride their horses or motorcycles to see friends, the work of women preparing and cooking food and daily chores, effectively confines them to the house. From churning the milk into butter for cheese and yogurt to making beef jerky, women are busy all day.

“In the summertime, when we moved together, we would prepare and cook food together, looking after each other’s children,” said Qiqige. “We worked and told stories. There were always interesting stories.” She smiles at the memories. Instead of a summer full of friends and stories, she heads back to her house to prepare dinner, alone. Qiqige and her husband were not optimistic about the future of herders and hoped that their son could do well enough in school to go to college.

When we asked about the water supply, Qiqige said, “We don’t have a problem with water because we have a well, and it is not even that deep yet.” Some of her friends, though, are not as fortunate, she said. They must now travel long distances to either a friend’s well or a water source that is not fenced off.

Before leaving, Chen handed them a slip of paper with his contact information, along with translated copies of several Chinese laws pertaining to the grasslands, property rights, and desertification. This meeting, like others, was a time to recruit support and provide guidance.

W. Chad Futrell is a Ph.D. candidate in development sociology at Cornell University. He recently completed two years of fieldwork on transnational environmental cooperation to prevent desertification and protect wetlands in Northeast Asia, funded by Fulbright-Hays and Korea Foundation fieldwork fellowships. Reach him at wchadfutrell@gmail.com.

Research and editing assistance for this article was provided by Jennifer L. Turner, the director of the China Environment Forum at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC. Reach her at cef@wilsoncenter.org.