NeShonda+D

=__**Projects**__=







**__Coal Mining in Mongolia__**
 Coal mining impacts more of the environment than most people realize. In Mongolia, 20 hectares were stripped and left nothing but an open field of barren land. Inner Mongolia is the China's top coal producer.70% of China's energy comes from coal and the minerals in this area were easier and cheaper to extract than in other areas. //“Coal in Inner Mongolia is in shallow ground and very easy to mine," Li Ting, a coal analyst for the Distribution Productivity Promotion Center of China Commerce, said. "Many of the mines are above ground and have low amounts of gas, which means there's less risk of explosions."// Australian mining companies also took the opportunity and built mines on Mongolia’s large amounts of untouched, mineral packed land. Many investors quickly became millionaires and the rush for coal and money led to the disregard and neglect of the Mongolian land. The mining process removed nutrients from the once rich soil and polluted and depleted the water sources necessary for the people and animals living on the land. Many Mongols have had to relocate because of the conditions of the area, //“My animals only have so much land to graze,"//  said Wang, who earns about $9,000 a year. //"In the winter, I'm cut off from the closest city. When it's windy, we get covered in coal dust because it's an open mine. And the water level keeps dropping every year. It's not suitable. There's really no point living here anymore." // Protests and riots started when there were two deaths near the local mining plant and loss of cultural practice rights because of lack of land. After many failed attempts, a restoration project was put in place to restore **some ** of the land. The population of 2.8 million, makes Mongolia the least densely populated country in the world, leaving its mineral resources "untouched" which is why there's a large amount of resources that mining companies are after. Many Mongols depend on livestock production for their survival and have been living a nomadic culture based lifestyle for centuries; the people regain the use of this land for grazing through this restoration project. Funds were available through the wealth the mines brought to the country. Workers were recruited to help rebuild the land, re-vegetation methods were developed to bring back the nomadic lifestyle of Mongolia. The project created a stable land with native species and soil that complied with the Mongolian Minerals Law. Water wells and ponds were added to bring lost amounts of water back to the area. Although conditions aren't quite as they were before, the land is slowly but surely returning to a stable suitable state.

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