The Fisherman's Dilemma Comes To Mongolia - Falling Prices, Overgrazing, Habitat Destruction - NYT

[hatrack]

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Sukhtseren Sharav has a herd of 150 goats and 100 sheep, and as they chew their way through everything else, and the sharilj spreads, he must shepherd them ever higher into the mountains to find fresh grazing land.

The lack of foraging terrain is not Mr. Sharav’s only worry. The price for cashmere, the wool made from the fleece of his goats, has plunged 50 percent from last year. The price of flour, his most essential food staple, has more doubled. These are hard times for Mongolia’s cashmere industry, which provides jobs and income for a third of the country’s population of 2.6 million and supplies about 20 percent of the world’s market for the fluffy, feather-light fiber, prized for its warmth, delicate feel and long wear.

To compensate for low prices, herders have been increasing supply by breeding more goats — a classic vicious circle. Mongolia’s goat population is now approaching 20 million, the highest ever recorded. Environmentalists and social scientists say this is destroying biodiversity and pastureland, and undermining herding livelihoods. But goats are hardier than other livestock, breed faster and can survive on sparser resources: so, the more the land is degraded, the more herders are driven to switch from cows, camels or other less destructive herds — another vicious circle.

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But the solution is easier envisaged than done: reduce livestock numbers, when herders are hard up for cash, and introduce modern market management to a country that has never known it. “Everyone thinks there are too many goats. But no one does anything about it,” Mr. Sheehy said.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/business/global/08iht-rbogcash.html?_r=1

[tabatha]

1. The slow demise of capitalism

based on dwindling resources.