The ancient, earth-friendly wisdom of Mongolian nomads

There's a lot we can learn from Mongolian nomads about how to survive in the years to come, says environmental activist Khulan Batkhuyag. Taking us on a journey through the country's stunning rural landscape, she shows how Mongolian nomads have survived in remote areas for thousands of years by virtue of some truly incredible, earth-friendly, zero-waste innovations. There's wisdom here for all of us on how to live more minimally, sustainably and in harmony with Mother Nature.

It's funny how foreigners
ask me the same questions

when they first meet me.

Questions like,

"Wow, you're from Mongolia?

So do you ride horses to go to work?"

"Do you know what Coke is?"

Or, "Do you have chocolates in Mongolia?"

And if I want to have fun with it,

I say things like,

"Oh my God,

I've never heard any of those before.

What are Coke and chocolates?

Can you tell me more about them?"

It always works,

and we have a good laugh about it too.

In reality, our capital city,
Ulaanbaatar, is very urban.

We have commercial buildings,

brand-name hotels

and beautiful art spaces too.

But all too often

foreigners fixate on what Mongolia lacks.

They look at our massive,
untouched landscape,

traditional nomadic lifestyles,

and see it as a sign of poverty.

And I disagree.

In fact, I think there's
a lot we can learn

from ancient Mongolian nomads

that will help us survive

in the years and decades to come.

This is a picture of me playing Mongolia's
most celebrated traditional instrument,

morin khuur,

or horsehead fiddle.

I started playing the instrument
when I was only nine,

and by 11 I was traveling the world

representing Mongolia
at international festivals,

living and studying in places like Japan,
China, Finland, Germany and Sweden.

But then suddenly,

when I was 21,

I lost my loving mother,

and just two years later

I lost my father.

As an only child,

I was devastated and lonely.

At the time, the only thing
I had left was my country,

so I decided to move home.

When I was lost with sorrow,

my country gave me a feeling
of safety and belonging.

I imagined eternal the blue sky
of Mongolia as my father

and the untouched, gorgeous
landscape as my mother.

Having lived in developed countries
for over a decade,

I became very distant
from the nomadic lifestyles,

so I wanted to reconnect
and experience it for myself.

I often journeyed away from the city
toward my grandparents' provinces

in rural Mongolia

to see where my parents and I came from,

and better understand my own identity.

Growing up, I'd always heard stories
about how Mongolian nomads

were the most hospitable people on earth,

and I wanted to see with my own eyes

whether they really feed
and give shelter to a stranger.

So I set off to the countryside,

driving along dirt roads for hours.

What's incredible about Mongolian nomads

is that the neighbors are often
40 kilometers apart,

and there's no private land ownership
of pasture land in Mongolia.

In a way,

Mongolian nomads
have the complete freedom,

moving about the gorgeous
landscape as they wish.

Eventually, I spotted to humble yurts

and I pulled over.

Yurts, or ger,

are a traditional Mongolian dwelling.

They're made from one hundred
percent natural material,

a wooden frame and floor,

leather rope

and thick blankets
made from felted sheep's wool.

And it takes about only
three to four hours

to assemble or disassemble,

and keeps them warm

through the minus 50 degree
Celsius winters.

Outside the yurt,

the kids were playing
with sheep and goats,

and as I greeted them,

their parents welcomed me inside.

The wife poured me nice warm milk tea,

and the husband offered me food

that they had already
prepared on the table.

After some casual chitchat,

the husband politely asked my purpose,

so I replied bluntly

that I was just traveling

and exploring my grandparents' roots

and that I needed a place to stay

as the sun was setting.

And guess what?

He said I could stay
as long as I needed to,

on one condition.

He asked if I would play the morin khuur,

our traditional Mongolian
horsehead fiddle.

In my head, I couldn't believe
it was coming true.

And the horsehead fiddle
was like a ticket.

When Mongolians find out
that you can play morin khuur,

you're instantly respected.

They say its two strings

express all the events of the world.

I ended up staying
with them for nine days,

and they didn't even ask me to leave.

I think if I tried
to stay there for two months,

they would have let me.

And here's the thing:

before I met them,

I assumed that Mongolian nomads
were hospitable out of kindness

like anybody else.

But then I realized it was more than that.

It was about surviving as a community.

Because nomads live
in extremely remote areas,

they are completely
at the mercy of nature.

Heavy snowfall,

a sudden flood

or a raging storm

can devastate a nomadic family.

Today, it's a stranger who needs help,

but tomorrow, it could be you.

That's why they look out for each other

and welcome anyone in need of help.

This really touched my heart,

because I feel like we humans
are becoming more and more selfish.

Staying with a truly nomadic
family awakened me.

It was nothing like I've ever seen
in developed countries.

The wife of the family

showed me how they produce
organic dairy products from scratch,

like white cheese, yogurt, tsegee,

and even a traditional vodka
made from cow milk.

And every tool they use
is made from natural material by hand.

And inside the yurt,

we burned dried cow dung to stay warm

instead of using fuel.

Everything stood in sharp contrast

to my city life
filled with plastic and steel.

And this was a five-senses
experience to me,

a completely different
form of sophistication.

The more I traveled across remote
and rural destinations in Mongolia,

the more I understood

how ancient nomadic lifestyle
was powered by Mother Nature.

Nomadic life is truly zero waste.

Over the course of six years,

I visited more than 20 families,

and my experience was always the same.

They invited me in, offered me food

and gave me a place to stay
if I needed it.

I was surprised by how little they owned.

At first, I thought it was because
they moved about four times a year.

OK, that's a very simple
logic to understand.

You only carry what you need.

But then I learned

there's a deeper philosophy behind it.

Historically, nomads believed

that we are only
passing through this life,

that people come and leave naked,

so they believe that there's no point
in building anything that destroys nature

or in being greedy
for materialistic things

when your life expectancy
is only less than 100 years.

Instead, they invest in tradition,

heritage, history,

and pass it from generation to generation.

This ancient nomadic philosophy
made me realize that I should think bigger

and further than my own
convenience and comfort.

In the Mongolian countryside,
I felt a true form of freedom,

and every time I came back to the city,

I looked for ways to live more minimally.

I digitalized all of my company's
paper procedures.

What once took 20 packs of A4 paper

now takes just one.

I downsized my apartment,
reduced my carbon footprint

and picked up a habit
to rethink my actions,

like purchasing, choosing transportation,

and many other lifestyle choices
at home and work.

And most importantly,

I stopped working on fast-moving
consumer-goods marketing projects

and now work with organizations
that promote sustainability.

But by far the biggest change

is that I've started to see development

with fresh eyes.

In cities,

living in a traditional yurt as a nomad

and having less

is often interpreted as a sign of poverty,

not just abroad

but at home in Mongolia too.

We think that the end goal
for every developing country

is to become the next Tokyo
or New York City,

with their skyscrapers,
big shopping malls and toll roads.

Communities around the world are
abandoning their traditional lifestyles

in pursuit of material wealth.

But let's not forget,

the developed countries

are the ones most responsible
for climate change.

So we have to ask ourselves,

why do we keep on following
the same blueprint

when we know it causes harm to the world?

We've all experienced
the consequences of our choices

over the past eight months.

So doing right by Mother Nature

and focusing on earth-friendly,
zero-waste habits

is not an option anymore.

And who knows the key ingredients
better than our ancestors,

the ones who survived without the media

or technology

but with wisdom alone?

As a citizen of Mongolia,

I grew up hearing

that developing countries are inferior,

and I really took it to heart.

But today, I want to say loud and clear

that I don't see disadvantages
from developing countries anymore.

On the contrary,

I see countries that have
the biggest opportunity

to do things in the right way,

countries that can define
their own kind of development

and have the most advantage
to build a better and safer environment

for everyone.

What worked for our ancestors
for thousands of years

can work for us now,

and in the future,

when combined with the latest innovations.

After all, we're all guests in this world,

so let's do right
by the earth and each other

just like the ancient
Mongolian nomads did.

Thank you.