Asian Geographic 2017

ZIGOR ALDAMA is the Far East Asia correspondent for

Vocento, Spain’s largest media group. His work often

revolves around social and cultural issues.

MIGUEL CANDELA is a photographer currently based in Hong

Kong, specialising in social features across Asia. He won

Best New Talent at the 2012 Prix de la Photographie (Px3)

Paris competition.

Since 1940, temperatures have risen 2.14°C, and rain has
become unpredictable – more abundant in winter and
scarce in summer; the Gobi Desert has expanded about
150 kilometres north.
The Ministry of the Environment expects temperatures
to keep rising throughout the century, with extreme
weather set to become a more common occurrence.
The consequences of this could be a decline in crop yields,
and a threat to livestock on which many nomads rely.
“Without animals, it’s impossible to live in the
countryside,” Ankhtsetseg Bardal confirms. “And you
need at least a herd of 500 heads to make a decent living.”
Since her family couldn’t afford a herd that large, they
decided to journey the 400 kilometres to Ulaanbaatar a few
years ago. With them, the young couple took their newborn
baby girl, and Bardal’s husband’s 89-year-old grandmother.
“She has a hard time adjusting to the city. But we thought
we would be able to offer her a better life here,” Bardal says.
Bardal is pregnant again and her husband struggles to
find construction work due to the crisis that has halted
Mongolia’s economic growth, plummeting from 17.5 percent
in 2011 to 0.1 percent in 2016, according to the World Bank.

previOus spread, Left

Living in isolation on

the frozen steppe is

difficult, particularly for

the youth. Once they

have a taste of modern

life, they don’t want to

continue the nomadic

lifesyle; a nomadic

family in their two-room

winter house

Left Damb Batnasan

and his wife watch TV

and drink local vodka.

With temperatures

reaching –35oC, there

is little outdoor activity

during the winter

season

previOus spread, right

Falconer Hairathan

Sernehan lives in

Bayan-Ölgii, which is

home to the Kazakh

ethnic group; a boy

plays with his toys in

Bayan-Ölgii Province

in the western part of

Mongolia

Their future looks bleak, made more so by the many other

stories that point to a loss of nomadic culture in exchange for

urban survival.

Such was the case for Sukhtogoo. He left the mountains

in the far west in 1965, and he regrets it to this day. He still calls

a ger home in Ulaanbaatar, but this is one of the few remaining

aspects of his former life and heritage. “Once you’ve sold

your herd, there is no return. Hope dies in the city until only

survival is left. People arrive full of dreams, but life turns them

into a nightmare. You can’t blame them for drinking, hitting

their wives, or stealing. Mongolians have always been free and

can’t live behind fences. But we learn that now, when it’s too

late already.” ag