DreamLand - environmental migrants’ hope
Dream Land is one of the new residential districts of Ulan Bator built to cope with the demographic boom that has seen the population of the Mongolian capital double in the last 10 years.
The effect of climate change, the environmental impact of the mining industry and over-exploitation have caused a degradation of the pastureland and have forced many herders to abandon the traditional nomadic lifestyle to seek new opportunities in urban areas.
The so-called environmental refugees are migrants who move not to richer nations, but to urban areas of their countries of origin, already overcrowded and often very poor, with serious social, economic and environmental consequences. According to the UN, this phenomenon will affect 200 million people by 2050.
In the last 70 years the average temperature in Mongolia has grown by 2.1° C, one of the highest increases recorded on Earth. According to experts, climate change, industrialization and pressure due to pastures, drained Mongolian land. These environmental and social factors, made Mongolia lose some of its most extraordinary centuries-old traditions, changing an entire culture and an entire territory.
In Ulan Bator, the herders have settled in the so-called "Ger districts" which currently are home to 800,000 residents without electricity, heating and running water. The uncontrolled overpopulation has made Ulan Bator one of the most polluted cities on earth.
Dream Land evokes the hope of environmental migrants to find a better life in the capital. The project is a journey into Mongolian daily life, from families in the Gobi Desert willing to continue the steppe traditional lifestyle despite all the struggles due to climate change and the mining industry, to people who have abandoned the nomadic life with the hope to find happiness in the urban lifestyle, but whose dreams of a different future often turned into a contradictory reality.
Read MoreThe effect of climate change, the environmental impact of the mining industry and over-exploitation have caused a degradation of the pastureland and have forced many herders to abandon the traditional nomadic lifestyle to seek new opportunities in urban areas.
The so-called environmental refugees are migrants who move not to richer nations, but to urban areas of their countries of origin, already overcrowded and often very poor, with serious social, economic and environmental consequences. According to the UN, this phenomenon will affect 200 million people by 2050.
In the last 70 years the average temperature in Mongolia has grown by 2.1° C, one of the highest increases recorded on Earth. According to experts, climate change, industrialization and pressure due to pastures, drained Mongolian land. These environmental and social factors, made Mongolia lose some of its most extraordinary centuries-old traditions, changing an entire culture and an entire territory.
In Ulan Bator, the herders have settled in the so-called "Ger districts" which currently are home to 800,000 residents without electricity, heating and running water. The uncontrolled overpopulation has made Ulan Bator one of the most polluted cities on earth.
Dream Land evokes the hope of environmental migrants to find a better life in the capital. The project is a journey into Mongolian daily life, from families in the Gobi Desert willing to continue the steppe traditional lifestyle despite all the struggles due to climate change and the mining industry, to people who have abandoned the nomadic life with the hope to find happiness in the urban lifestyle, but whose dreams of a different future often turned into a contradictory reality.
