Mongolia’s reindeer herders fear lost identity after hunting ban

Erdenebat Chuluu, a migrant herder, yells uplifting statements to the reindeer he is riding. "Chu!, Chu!," he calls, asking the creature out of a cedar wood and onto a plain in the southern scopes of the Mongolian Taiga. Once in the open, they carefully advance over fallen trees and explore brooks of softened snow, absent to the pre-spring chill.

Chuluu has carried on with all his life in the hundreds of years old convention of his Dukha precursors, famous for their reindeer-grouping and seeker gathering aptitudes in the woodlands of the tough Sayan Mountains straddling the Russian outskirt. Be that as it may, the Dukha fear they are losing their character even with a preservation arrange that bans unlicensed chasing on the vast majority of their conventional land.

A reindeer lies in the snow in the camp of herder Erdenebat Chuluu at dawn. Exceeding stallions in this lofty and frigid landscape, reindeer have permitted the Dukha to avoid a significant number of the changes that have generally burdened individuals in the swamps, from Genghis Khan to Communism. The Dukha feeling of group and exercises are attached to the reindeer, which are infrequently murdered but instead raised for their milk.

Ethnic Dukha wanderer Jargal Gombosed holds her grandkid outside her family's reindeer pen. The Dukha, around 280 of them, are spread out crosswise over 59 family units. The meat in their eating regimen originates from diversion chased around the Taiga. In 2012, Mongolia's administration assigned the dominant part of their customary grouping grounds as a component of a national stop trying to ensure an attacked biological community.

Amid late decades, a Soviet-period amount framework for chasing, which gave a living to individuals like the Dukha and kept up natural life numbers, separated. Forceful chasing of creatures like moose and red deer for the Chinese market exhausted numbers. Presently, the legislature pays the herders a month to month freebee to make up for the boycott, yet numerous Dukha feel they have lost portion of their character.

Neighborhood specialist Davaajav Nyamaa rides a reindeer to visit wanderers in the backwoods. The chasing custom has constantly characterized a man in the Taiga, said Chuluu's neighbor Naran-Erdene Bayar, "It feels like we’ve lost something because we can’t move to whichever area we like in this land, which has been handed down to us from our ancestors."

Tsetse, six-year-old girl of Dukha herder Erdenebat Chuluu, sits among her family's reindeer in a backwoods close to the town of Tsagaannuur. A run of the mill typical day for the Dukha includes discharging the reindeer from their expansive wooden pens in the mornings after breakfast. In the wake of brushing till twelve, the herders bring the reindeer back in, and the day's tasks are finished while the creatures are tied.

Reindeer lick the salt off the layer of a Dukha wanderer in the camp of her family. A moment brushing happens after an evening rest and keeping in mind that the group fills the clearing, noses snuggling the snow-made progress looking for greenery, the ladies at the camp get ready dinner or staples from reindeer drain yogurt and cheese.

Tsetse drives a reindeer by the chain as she acquires the crowd before sunset. "It's our will to keep up the custom of crowding the reindeer similarly as our predecessors did," her dad Chuluu told.

Smoke ascends from the fireplace of the family tent of Dukha herder Erdenebat Chuluu. The head officer of the National Park, Tumursukh Jal, experienced childhood in the territory and knows the Dukha's history well. Notwithstanding the Dukha's worries, he demanded they should take after the law. "It’s not about Dukha or Mongolian, it’s about people illegally hunting," Jal said.