CorpWatch : Mongolian Nomadic Herders Worry About Impact of Rio Tinto's Gold Mine: "Mongolian livestock herders are worried that a series of massive gold and copper mining projects will dry up scarce water reserves and exacerbate desertification in the delicate Gobi Desert when operations begin next year to tap one of the world’s largest copper and gold deposits.
A landlocked country of 2.8 million caught between China and Russia, Mongolia is home to the first "cowboys" - nomadic herdsman. Even today, two out of five people in Mongolia still make their living herding livestock, and the same number live in poverty.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, Mongolia’s major former trading partner, the government encouraged free market development and expansion of mining in the gold, copper and uranium-rich country, on the advice of the World Bank. Last year the country’s economy grew 17 percent from mining alone - faster than any other in the world and twice as fast as China."
'via Blog this'
