Comments by "Peter Jacobsen" (@pjacobsen1000) on "The ultimate barbecue feast of Mongolian nomads" video.
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4:12 "But with fewer nomadic herders to move the animals, the land now has less time to grow". In itself that sentence doesn't make sense, as it makes the assumption that animals need more people to help them move. Clearly that is not the case, as animals in the wild have no problems moving long distances without the assistance of humans.
Rather, the real reason for 'the land now has less time to grow', or more accurately, the loss of grasslands, is directly related to the environmental pressure from increased herds. According the the UN Development Programme, animal herds have doubled in size over the last 30 years, putting immense pressure on the land. There are simply more animals than the land can sustain, and this leads to overgrazing and desertification as a result. As marginal lands become deserts, the herders move to more fertile areas, putting even more pressure on them, creating a destructive cycle. The solution to this is a combination of changing lifestyle by moving to urban areas, and a change in the practice of herding. Animals need to be penned (for most of the year) and the food brought to them, rather than the other way around. Only this way can the land stay productive. For this to happen, some form of mechanization if probably necessary, harvesting the grass and storing it for later use as animal feed.
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