To Be or Not to Be: Mongolia’s Herders

Mongolia is one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries, facing impacts unlike sudden disasters in other countries that strike and recede within hours.

For Mongolian herders, the effects of climate change unfold over years, with no chance for recovery, as cycles of drought and harsh winter repeat almost every year. Summers bring dwindling vegetation, causing animals to lose weight and milk and meat production to decline—changes that accumulate over decades. This gradual degradation threatens the traditional herding way of life, pushing younger generations to abandon it altogether.

In her documentary film, Herders at the Edge, Delgerzaya Delgerjargal explores this slow unraveling of Mongolia’s herding tradition through the lens of the Naadam summer festival horse race.

While many climate stories about Mongolia focus on its extreme winters, Delgerjargal highlights the critical role of summer grazing in determining livestock survival during the winter. The summer of 2023 exposed this vulnerability starkly: insufficient vegetation and overgrazing, compounded by a harsh winter, resulted in the loss of 7.2 million animals. By focusing on the summer season’s cascading impacts, Delgerjargal sheds light on a less visible but equally devastating facet of climate change.