Sunday, August 11, 2013

Working Day and Night to Increase the Population of Mongolia

A Wild Ride Through Mongolia's Resource Boom - Circle of Blue | A huge country with a tiny population navigates the problems of modern development. ULAN BATOR — A hard rock and coal mining boom that really got rolling about a decade ago is literally leaving Mongolia's capital in the dust. ...Enkhtuya Oidou, the Nature Conservancy's Mongolia program director and an American-educated economist, told me today that Mongolia also lays claim to developing the world's first national park in 1778, under the country's religious leadership, to safeguard Bogd Khan mountain and the high forested mountain range that flanks Ulan Bator's southern boundary. Though history scholars in the U.S. could argue the point, that's still almost a century before Yellowstone National Park was established by Congress in 1872. Yellowstone is commonly regarded as the world's first national park. ...Orchibat Chuluunbat, the 55-year-old deputy minister for economic development and a veteran banker trained in the Soviet Union, said that mines and mine-related activity accounts for half of Mongolia's $10 billion annual economy, and half of the $4 billion national government's revenue. When I asked him about how much priority the government gives to managing the water used by the mines, Chuluunbat said that issue is gaining higher priority. He also said Mongolia needs to do a better job of quantifying national water supply, as well as water use by the mining industry. ...He closed by noting that Mongolia needs more people. "We work hard to increase the population," he said, smiling, "day…and night."