Does this sound familiar? 1849 California ring a bell? Well, things have changed in the gold digging game since then. The gold-panning 49ers left the Californian scenery intact, relatively, that is. The unlicensed “Ninja” miners of Mongolia, as t hey are called, supply roughly 20% of Mongolia’s gross domestic product while trashing the landscape. Thus the authorities, for the most part, leave the Ninjas on their own.

Perhaps the government ought to watch these illicit miners a bit more closely. The Ninjas employ all manner of chemicals, like mercury and cyanide, in their attempts at hard rock mining. It’s sad, but most of the ex-herders in the grasslands dig up only a few specks of gold at any given time. This after destroying once lush plains and causing streams to go dry. A group of herders-turned-activists claims that over eight-hundred rivers have gone dry because of the Ninjas’ chemical use, in addition to just about 1000 lakes, or so say the demonstrators. Mining regulation could not come amiss or too soon for them.

In the streets of Ulan Butor, Mongolia’s capital, the demonstrators use bullhorns and a hunger strike to get their message across. Some of them have come to the city prepared to die, to starve to death. By and large, they have nothing to lose but their lives. Their potential to make a living has vanished and they can see no reason to return to their ruined grazing lands. Nevertheless, the country is profoundly dependent on its gold production now and the government is unlikely to listen to the herders’ grievance. Not even the glut of grave-shaped holes the Ninjas excavate in the grasslands impact on the nation’s politicos.

Mongolia, the land of Genghis Kahn and his Golden Horde, survived under the Soviet Union’s tender care for several generations. In early 1990 the Mongolian people rose in a democratic revolution against what passed for the Soviet Union by then. Freedom and life under the Mongolian Democratic Republic have not been exactly kind to Mongolia’s nomadic herders either. The now displaced herders earned about $60 a month.

The country is made up of 1,564,116 square miles. After Kazakhstan, it’s the world’s second largest land-locked country. With around a 3 million population, it is also the least peopled independent country on the globe. The land is mostly steppes, except where there are mountains in the north or the desert. The Gobi Desert occupies the southern region of the country. “Gobi” is Mongolian for “steppe desert.” Mongolians are a very to-the-point, no-nonsense sort of people, I’d say. Of course, the predominant religion is Buddhism so they probably keep their more complex thoughts to themselves.

Mongolia’s national hero is Damdin Sükhbaatar, a leading actor in the 1921 war for Mongolian independence. Before his military service, from the age of 16, he was an Örtöö rider, a sort of mailman on horseback, like the Pony Express guys. His skill with horses and his knowledge of the Russian language, although sketchy, brought him the respect of his fellow soldiers and the then overlords. Damdin involved himself in the several wars for Mongolia’s independence before 1921's endeavor. He died in 1923 at the age of 30, possibly poisoned. It looks like no one will ever know for sure. What we do know is that the Mongolian people stood up to totalitarianism, both Russian and Chinese, a number of times until they became members of the free world. The nation has so much going for it that the present troubles are a miserable disgrace. What’s happening to the ecosphere is outright appalling. Not just the herders and their dependants suffer on the pock-marked steppes. There are as many displaced animals as people.

I tried hard to discover whether or not Mongolia has mockingbirds before I initiated this article. I found pictures of Mongolian butterflies and they are gorgeous, like everyone else’s, as well as exceedingly abundant. But I found nothing to tell me whether or not mockingbirds occupy any part of the country. I’m pretty sure they don’t. I guess I presumed that a place openly compared to Texas should be required to contain residential mockingbirds. Ah well, one of the 400-plus bird species that actually live in Mongolia, or those that pass through on their way to another place, will have to substitute for the engaging mimus polyglottos, if there’s any place left to stand when or if the Ninjas run out of gold.

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About the author Cate Lane: Born in Minnesota and raised a temperate progressive, I was carried off to Texas 10 years ago by the tsunami that was my husband's retirement. Texas is not Minnesota, not by a long shot. However, I hear that Minnesota isn't Minnesota anymore either.

Writing was always my first choice in life. I began writing at the age of 8, small books about pioneers heading west. Little did I know then that I would be living in the most "western" of all the states, Texas. No one told the Texans that they are simply Southerners who, like Bugs Bunny, took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and wound up here.

I am sneaking up on 70 years of age and now own a vast store of useless knowledge. Happy to share any or all of it with you all.

Email: CthlnLn@aol.com

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