美国国家公共电台 NPR The Deadly Winters That Have Transformed Life For Herders In Mongolia

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Mongolia is undergoing a dramatic change, and some of that change is driven by extreme weather. The country is tucked between China and Russia. It is a largely rural nation. And in Mongolia, harsh winter storms combined with a decade of drought have forced tens of thousands of herders to abandon their livelihoods². NPR's Above the Fray³ fellow Emily Kwong begins a three-part series on Mongolia's changing environment in the grassland⁴ steppe with a natural disaster.

(SOUNDBITE OF BIRDS CHIRPING)

EMILY KWONG, BYLINE⁵: The steppes of Mongolia are a vast, yellow-green grassland home to millions of grazing animals.

(SOUNDBITE OF SHEEP BLEATING⁶ AND BIRDS CHIRPING)

KWONG: But 19 years ago, Mongolian herder Oyutan Gonchig saw a very different scene. He rose at first light to check on his animals after a harsh winter storm.

OYUTAN GONCHIG: (Through interpreter) Everything was covered by white snow. There was no way to distinguish the sheep trails. And everywhere, there were corpses⁷ of dead animals.

KWONG: The herder lost his entire livelihood¹ to a phenomenon Mongolians call dzud. Spelled D Z U D, dzud is a winter so harsh that animals die in masse. And it's often linked to drought in the summer. When grasses dry, animals grow thin. If the winter is harsh in any way, they don't make it.

GONCHIG: (Through interpreter) Some of the surviving animals were trying to find something to eat but couldn't. It was very difficult to see this.

KWONG: Mongolia weathered back-to-back dzud winters around the turn of the century and again in 2010, all against the backdrop of a drought linked to climate change. Twenty-one million animals died. It was a catastrophic era in a country where 1 in 4 people own livestock⁸.

So the question for Oyutan - Mongolians go by their first names - became is this lifestyle even sustainable anymore? The whole community was talking about it with their voices and with their feet.

GONCHIG: (Through interpreter) Many migrated because it was just impossible to make a living. The winter and snow was too hard.

KWONG: So he left the steppe and moved to Ulaanbaatar in 2002. Mongolia's capital city saw a net inflow of 40,000 people that year. Dzud was a migration⁹ driver, shifting population from the countryside to urban centers.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Mongolian).

KWONG: We're having this conversation inside Oyutan’s ger, perched on the northern edge of Ulaanbaatar. A ger is a circular tent, typical of semi-nomadic herders. But Oyutan is here to stay. He's a taxi driver now, married with four daughters.

(SOUNDBITE OF SEWING MACHINE OPERATING)

KWONG: Oyutan's mother, 70-year-old Tserenkhand Damba, breaks out her Soviet-style sewing machine, while two of his four children clamor to get in on this interview. They whisper a message into their dad's ear.

What is she whispering?

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Whispering in Mongolian).

GONCHIG: (Speaking Mongolian).

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Laughter).

KWONG: Tell her we know how to milk cows and make good yogurt, they croon. The girls are growing up in the city but still have a relationship to the countryside. Eight-year-old Mungunsaran then breaks into song, treating my microphone like a karaoke machine.

MUNGUNSARAN: (Singing in Mongolian).

KWONG: She stops suddenly...

MUNGUNSARAN: (Crying).

KWONG: ...And starts crying because the tune¹⁰ reminds her of her mother, Oyutan's wife. The family hasn't seen her in months. She went to work in Japan at an ice cream factory after struggling to find a job in Ulaanbaatar.

Forging an economic livelihood out of environmental loss isn't easy. Oyutan says a lot of the rivers and creeks¹¹ from his childhood have dried up.

GONCHIG: (Through interpreter) It is hard for rural people. We think it is maybe because of global warming.

KWONG: Greenhouse gas emissions¹² have rendered Mongolia a drier, hotter place than it was 80 years ago, more prone¹³ to drought and more vulnerable to dzud. Dzud is also linked to overgrazing, as animals chew up the pasture land and degrade the environment.

(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORNS BEEPING)

KWONG: We meet with Dr. Tungalag Ulambayar at sundown. The 55-year-old researcher led a disaster response team for the United Nations Development Programme during the 2010 dzud. Her colleagues in Geneva couldn't wrap their minds around dzud as a natural disaster. Shelters weren't destroyed. No one died.

TUNGALAG ULAMBAYAR: So it's not disaster, they said. And then we said, no, it's disaster because someone is losing their total livelihood, you know?

KWONG: Mongolia hasn't experienced this scale of dzud since 2010. And much has happened since then, from winter preparedness policy on the national level to trainings on the provincial¹⁴ level. Herders are trying to learn practices for sustainable rangeland management.

(SOUNDBITE OF HORSEHEAD FIDDLE¹⁵ PLAYING)

KWONG: And they're being rewarded for those efforts. Around Lunar New Year, local officials honor the best herders in the country with home visits broadcast on national TV. In the Arkhangai province this winter, that distinction went to 44-year-old Nergui Davaajav. The career herder was showered with speeches and musical entertainment.

(SOUNDBITE OF HORSEHEAD FIDDLE PLAYING)

UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing in foreign language).

KWONG: Feasting on roasted lamb to the thrums of horsehead fiddle music, Nergui sits in the middle of it all beaming. Preparing for the possibility of a bad winter has become a regular part of his summer routine.

NERGUI DAVAAJAV: (Through interpreter) Nature is unpredictable, as summer gets hotter and there's less rain. But if we prepare hay fodder¹⁶, we can overcome such natural disasters. We don't have to be afraid.

KWONG: Basically, he builds a food reserve. He's determined¹⁷ to stay a herder for the rest of his life.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAMBS AND GOATS BLEATING)

KWONG: Snow did come to this region, but it wasn't a bad winter by any stretch. And if the sound of dzud is silence, the opposite of dzud is this.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAMBS AND GOATS BLEATING)

KWONG: All across Mongolia this March, animals were giving birth.

OK, this pen is just full of lambs, like 100 lambs - just these tiny little cotton balls with brown heads, black heads.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAMBS AND GOATS BLEATING)

KWONG: The babies call to their parents, one generation to the next. There's baby goats, too. Nergui moves quietly among them. They follow like a cashmere-clad entourage as he helps the newborns stand up and feeds the adults by hand, touching¹⁸ each one. The work couldn't be more personal, both in moments of loss and in moments of life.

Emily Kwong, NPR News, Arkhangai, Mongolia.

1 livelihood   

n.生计，谋生之道

参考例句：

• Appropriate arrangements will be made for their work and livelihood.他们的工作和生活会得到妥善安排。
• My father gained a bare livelihood of family by his own hands.父亲靠自己的双手勉强维持家计。

2 livelihoods   

生计，谋生之道( livelihood的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• First came the earliest individualistic pioneers who depended on hunting and fishing for their livelihoods. 走在最前面的是早期的个人主义先驱者，他们靠狩猎捕鱼为生。 来自英汉非文学 - 政府文件
• With little influence over policies, their traditional livelihoods are threatened. 因为马赛族人对政策的影响力太小，他们的传统生计受到了威胁。

3 fray   

v.争吵；打斗；磨损，磨破；n.吵架；打斗

参考例句：

• Why should you get involved in their fray?你为什么要介入他们的争吵呢？
• Tempers began to fray in the hot weather.大热天脾气烦燥。

4 grassland   

n.牧场，草地，草原

参考例句：

• There is a reach of grassland in the distance.远处是连绵一片的草原。
• The snowstorm swept the vast expanse of grassland.暴风雪袭击了辽阔的草原。

5 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

6 bleating   

v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说

参考例句：

• I don't like people who go around bleating out things like that. 我不喜欢跑来跑去讲那种蠢话的人。 来自辞典例句
• He heard the tinny phonograph bleating as he walked in. 他步入室内时听到那架蹩脚的留声机在呜咽。 来自辞典例句

7 corpses   

n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The living soldiers put corpses together and burned them. 活着的战士把尸体放在一起烧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Overhead, grayish-white clouds covered the sky, piling up heavily like decaying corpses. 天上罩满了灰白的薄云，同腐烂的尸体似的沉沉的盖在那里。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

8 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

9 migration   

n.迁移，移居，（鸟类等的）迁徙

参考例句：

• Swallows begin their migration south in autumn.燕子在秋季开始向南方迁移。
• He described the vernal migration of birds in detail.他详细地描述了鸟的春季移居。

10 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

11 creeks   

n.小湾( creek的名词复数 )；小港；小河；小溪

参考例句：

• The prospect lies between two creeks. 矿区位于两条溪流之间。 来自辞典例句
• There was the excitement of fishing in country creeks with my grandpa on cloudy days. 有在阴雨天和姥爷一起到乡村河湾钓鱼的喜悦。 来自辞典例句

12 emissions   

排放物( emission的名词复数 )； 散发物（尤指气体）

参考例句：

• Most scientists accept that climate change is linked to carbon emissions. 大多数科学家都相信气候变化与排放的含碳气体有关。
• Dangerous emissions radiate from plutonium. 危险的辐射物从钚放散出来。

13 prone   

adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的

参考例句：

• Some people are prone to jump to hasty conclusions.有些人往往作出轻率的结论。
• He is prone to lose his temper when people disagree with him.人家一不同意他的意见,他就发脾气。

14 provincial   

adj.省的，地方的；n．外省人，乡下人

参考例句：

• City dwellers think country folk have provincial attitudes.城里人以为乡下人思想迂腐。
• Two leading cadres came down from the provincial capital yesterday.昨天从省里下来了两位领导干部。

15 fiddle   

n.小提琴；vi.拉提琴；不停拨弄，乱动

参考例句：

• She plays the fiddle well.她小提琴拉得好。
• Don't fiddle with the typewriter.不要摆弄那架打字机了。

16 fodder   

n.草料；炮灰

参考例句：

• Grass mowed and cured for use as fodder.割下来晒干用作饲料的草。
• Guaranteed salt intake, no matter which normal fodder.不管是那一种正常的草料，保证盐的摄取。

17 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

18 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。