For the last several decades thousands of herder families have moved to the cities. Life in the countryside can be harsh. A particularly bad winter, called a dzud in Mongolian, is an extreme weather phenomenon which regularly results in massive livestock deaths which in turn forces herders to abandon their nomadic way of life to look for work in the cities.
With already very high unemployment, job prospects in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar are very few, often forcing these once proud and independent people into poverty in the ger districts surrounding the city. The ger districts have almost no modern services like running water and basic infrastructure. Because of this people living there must burn coal and trash just to stay warm through Mongolia's brutally cold winter. The smoke from these fires has transformed Ulaanbaatar into one of the most polluted cities in the world. In 2016, Ulaanbaatar overtook both New Delhi and Beijing as the capital with the highest wintertime air pollution in the world.
The constant migration of herders from the countryside continues to feed this catastrophic pollution with no end in sight. Our repatriation program aims to help reverse the downward spiral of nomads into the city and help them return to a life in the countryside.
