Martin Patience at BBC News reports that a resource boom in Inner Mongolia has brought pollution, scarred the grasslands, and threatened the nomadic lifestyle of its people:
Occupying 12% of the country’s land mass, Inner Mongolia is rich in resources – coal, gas, rare earth metals – which are being mined to fuel China’s breakneck economic growth.
The region now accounts for a quarter of domestic coal production.
But the huge mining projects have scarred the landscape and brought pollution to a once pristine region. Mongols say that mining, along with desertification, is ruining their grasslands. [Source]
