Mongolia: Its Future?

After reading through this article, posted Wednesday April 7 to the BBC News website, I couldn't help but be sad for my other homeland.

Mongolia does indeed boast a glorious hoard of natural resources, including exactly what the article says: gold, uranium, copper, iron ore, oil and more.

But the predicted boom over the next several years will, I fear, completely and perhaps irrevocably alter the cultural and natural landscapes of the Land of the Blue Sky.

Even though Mongolia's government has been democratic in form for about 20 years now, it has been and is perennially plagued with corruption at every level of government--and that with only about $5 billion in national revenue per year. A sudden and hugely dramatic increase in government monies will not magically solve the serious problems of crime, homelessness, substance abuse, disease and human trafficking that regular Mongolians deal with on a daily basis. These exciting new mining developments will only lead to a greater divide between the rich and poor and perhaps almost entirely obliterate the emerging middle class.

Not only that, but as one who has traveled across the country multiple times I can say that it is without a doubt the most naturally beautiful place I have ever seen. Once outside the capital's sprawling ger districts, pollution, jumbled power lines and power plants and the perpetual honk of frustrated drivers, it is as if one has stepped back to a time when fences, electricity, motors, gas, roads and bright lights had not yet replaced nature. Grass, rolling hills, majestic mountains, dirt, sky, flowers, streams and wild horses all survive essentially unspoiled by man-made intrusions.

This Mongolia--the harsh, extreme, beautiful habitat of generations of nomadic herders--will be replaced by a corporate Mongolia that knows nothing of true Tsagaan Sar (White Month) traditions, the vast unbridled plains, countryside hospitality or even the Blue Sky.

This I fear; but this I trust: "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before Him...."