Gobi Desert - Conservation, Ecology, Economy

Conservation, Ecology, Economy

The Gobi Desert is the source of many important fossil finds, including the first dinosaur eggs.

Despite the harsh conditions, these deserts and the surrounding regions sustain many animals, including black-tailed gazelles, marbled polecats, bactrian camels, Mongolian wild ass and sandplovers. They are occasionally visited by snow leopards, brown bears, and wolves. Drought-adapted shrubs in the desert included gray sparrow's saltwort, gray sagebrush, and low grasses such as needle grass and bridlegrass. Several large nature reserves have been established in the Gobi, including Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park, Great Gobi A and Great Gobi B Strictly Protected Area.

The area is vulnerable to trampling by livestock and off-road vehicles (effects from human intervention are greater in the eastern Gobi Desert, where rainfall is heavier and may sustain livestock). In Mongolia, grasslands have been degraded by goats, which are raised by nomadic herders as source of cashmere wool. The economic trends of livestock privatization and the collapse of the urban economy have caused people to return to subsistence rural lifestyles, away from urbanization.

Large copper and gold deposits located at Oyuu Tolgoi, about 80 kilometers from the Chinese border into Mongolia, are being investigated for development as mining operations. The Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold mine, under construction by Rio Tinto in the South Gobi Desert, is expected to begin operation in early 2013, and is the biggest economic undertaking in the country's history. Rio Tinto estimates that taxes, royalties and dividends generated by the Oyu Tolgoi project is expected to add a third to the country's gross domestic product by 2020. Rio Tinto forecasts average annual production of 450,000 tonnes of copper and 330,000 ounces of gold, and with 1.4 billion tonnes of reserves and a resource of 3.1 billion tonnes, the mine is expected to last for more than 50 years.

The mine has been and remains controversial. There is significant opposition in Mongolia's parliament to the terms under which the mine will proceed, and some are calling for the terms to be renegotiated. Specifically, the contention revolves primarily around the question of whether negotiations were fair (Rio Tinto is far better resourced) and whether Rio Tinto will pay adequate taxes on the revenues it derives from the mine (an agreement was reached whereby the operation will be exempt from windfall tax.