Help Mongolian Nomads from Climate Calamity

After enduring a harsh winter last year that killed almost half of her 1,000 head of livestock, Baatariin Erdenechimeg moved halfway across Mongolia in search of a new start.But this winter has been no better

"Our animals could not survive that kind of cold," said Erdenechimeg, a 42-year-old mother of two."They collapsed in the snow and died overnight. Our remaining animals are just skin and bones."Erdenechimeg, one of hundreds of thousands of Mongolians who lead nomadic lives and depend entirely on livestock for a living, is grappling with the country's second straight dzud  a severe winter after a dry summer.

The rare double-barreled weather phenomenon -- one of the worst on record in Mongolia often leads to food shortages for the livestock that generations in the landlocked, impoverished Asian nation have depended upon for survival.More than 3.5 million animals  cows, sheep, goats, yaks, horses and camels have died so far, with 60 percent of the country still buried under deep snow.

The frozen carcasses of these animals now lie scattered across the Mongolian steppes, their twisted bodies half buried in the snow drifts.
January was the worst, with the mercury frozen at -40 degrees Celsius (-40 Fahrenheit) for three straight weeks, Erdenechimeg said.
To keep their herd alive, she corralled the animals into tight pens while her husband Batdorj trudged into the darkness and blowing snow to look for strays.

Their eight horses quickly succumbed, along with scores of sheep and cashmere goats. The lambs only survived because Erdenechimeg kept dozens of them inside the family ger, the circular felt tent-home used by nomads.More of her animals will die before winter is out because she simply has nothing to feed them. The lifeless and frozen ground will not see green shoots for another six weeks at the earliest.

"We've just had a string of bad luck. Last year we lost a lot of animals so we moved to new pastures. But the dzud has followed us," she said.

Severe winter weather has killed 1.7 million head of livestock and left tens of thousands of families facing food shortages in Mongolia, international aid agencies said on Tuesday. The winter disaster, or "dzud" in Mongolian, has left livestock unable to feed because of deep, frozen snow covering grassland and sent temperatures down to below minus 40 degrees celsius in some areas, the agencies said.

The severe weather is "threatening the livelihoods of 21,000 most seriously affected herder families and putting them at risk of food insecurity," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said.
An FAO survey of some of the worst-hit areas found that emergency aid valued at about 6 million dollars would be needed over the next three months in the vast landlocked nation.

Without aid, the Mongolian government estimates that livestock deaths could reach up to 4 million head, the FAO said. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it allocated 382,000 dollars for immediate assistance to 1,200 families in the five worst-affected provinces.