In the summer of 2022, David Marchetti and I had the opportunity to travel to Central Asia and visit one of the most pristine places we have ever seen: Lake Hovsgol, considered one of the oldest and cleanest lakes in the world. Hovsgol is completely embedded in permafrost and freezes completely for six long months every year when the air temperature drops to minus 40 \u00b0C. The locals even use it as a road. The Hovsgol is home to traditional nomadic families who have lived here for centuries.<\/p>\n
In the summer months, life returns to the lake and with temperatures around 30 \u00b0C, it becomes a hotspot for national and international tourism. Visitors can experience the beauty of the lake, the vastness of the tundra and the tranquillity of the Siberian larch forests, go on horseback rides and hike along the lakeshore. Before the coronavirus pandemic, their number reached up to 140,000 per season. Both professional tourist camps and the “ger camps” run by local nomadic families, where you can spend the night in traditional yurts, are benefiting from the upswing.<\/p>\n
However, Hovsgol National Park has a waste problem. For many years, helpers from our partner ecoDevshilt have supported the park’s employees in collecting waste and taking it to the local Hatgal landfill. Recently, however, they have reached their limits in view of the constantly increasing volumes of waste. Since 2020, the GNF has been cooperating with ecoDevshilt to make local tourism more sustainable by setting up a self-sustaining waste management system.<\/p>\n
We were able to observe one of the project activities at the entrance to the national park: ecoDevshilt distributes garbage bags for a deposit of 5,000 Mongolian Tugrik (approx. 1.50 euros), which the tourists have to bring back to a collection point. This not only helps ecoDevshilt to dispose of waste without transportation costs, it also raises awareness among visitors.<\/p>\n
The impressive commitment and creativity shown to us by our partners – all women, in fact – during the following days in the park makes us optimistic that the establishment of a waste management system for Lake Hovsgol by the end of 2023 is realistic.
\nBefore we left Mongolia, we spoke to Deputy Ambassador Regina Rutenberg at the German Embassy in Ulan Bator. In 2021, Ambassador J\u00f6rn Rosenberg had already visited Hovsgol and our project, which is funded by the BMZ. It is important for us to continue to communicate closely with the federal government and to jointly demonstrate how important the measures implemented are – and thus make a contribution to protecting one of the most beautiful lakes in the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5784,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-6211","reisebericht","type-reisebericht","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n