Tree Time

These photos are of larch trees in Northern Mongolia, near Lake Hovsgol.

  SIT, the program through which I am studying here, is unique amongst study abroad programs for a few reasons, most notably for the final month of the program.  In this last month (which I have just started), SIT students embark on a month long research project of their choosing.  Students have the choice to study all over the country, to reach out to different community members, and to pursue what really interests them.  Within my class, students are studying railroads, maternal health, artisan miners, environmental policy, hydropower, and Mongolian students’ motivations in learning English.  I have decided to study trees.  And much more than that.

My research will take the form of three questions.  First, what is nature’s role in national Mongolian identity? Second, how does this identity influence Mongolian people’s relationship with the pine tree forests near Russia? And finally, what are the environmental impacts of that relationship?  My hypothesis is that Mongolian people’s traditional connection with nature is changing as a result of globalization and capitalism, and I think that this changing connection is having negative impacts on Mongolia’s forests.  (Illegal logging, fuelled by Chinese and domestic demand, is a particular challenge here.)  So, for the next month, I will be chasing down interviews here in Ulaanbaatar and in Selenge Aimag, Sukhbaatar City, the border town closest to the forest I am interested in.

I have already spent one week researching in UB, reading lots of information on identity, Mongolia, and Mongolian identity.  Today (Sunday), I am taking the night train up to Sukhbaatar, where I will remain for a week.  I chose to study Sukhbaatar’s forests because in Mongolia, they are unique.  Most of Mongolia is covered in larch forests; the forest I will study is pine.  I hope that my project will incorporate aspects of Mongolia’s past and quickly changing present cultures, the environment and environmental policy, and social and environmental impacts of people’s relationship with nature (particularly the forests).  In the past week, I’ve realized that one month is not enough time to do this topic justice, but I guess that means I have an excuse to come back!