![]() ![]() Since they obviously wouldn’t go for his first approach, he decided to focus instead on encouraging the herders to grow more fodder. The Mongolian herders take great pride in their livestock, and their reputations are tied to the sizes of their herds, authorities said. ![]() He came to the conclusion that the only way to save the grasslands from further erosion was to either reduce the size of the livestock herds or to grow more food for the animals.Ĭoming up with proposals was one thing, but getting them approved by Chinese authorities was another. Sheehy made frequent trips to the grasslands to talk with local herders and study the vegetation. Not one to stay holed up in his office, Mr. “Everyone would come to see what we looked like.” “Initially, we caused quite a stir when we’d go someplace,” Mr. No foreigners had ever lived there before. For the next three years, they spent six months a year - the growing season - at the commune, where the residents live in mud houses and travel by donkey cart. Sheehy, along with his wife Marcie and their children, set out in the spring of 1985 for the remote commune of Yihenoer sumu, located in a windswept buffer zone between China and Russia. ![]() ![]() Sheehy, the opportunity seemed almost too good to be true. His mission was to help preserve the Mongolian grasslands - the lifeblood of the people there since the days of Genghis Khan - which are slowly but steadily deteriorating because of overgrazing. At other times, it meant trudging across wind-swept grasslands and talking to herdsmen who were skeptical about the cowboy-scientist from the West. “I would have to show that I was really interested in their culture and where they were coming from before they would take my ideas seriously.”Īt times, that meant being willing to get his ego bruised - not to mention his back - as he was repeatedly hurled to the ground during wrestling bouts with the sporting locals. “From the moment I first went to the commune, I figured just being a scientist wasn’t going to be enough,” he says. Sheehy explains in the documentary, building the trust of the Mongolian people was crucial to getting his message across. (Schedules vary, so viewers should check their local listings.) The award-winning film was produced by Oregon State University and has already been shown on that state’s public-television system.Īs Mr. Sheehy’s story is the subject of an hour-long television documentary called “The Cowboy in Mongolia,” which is scheduled to be shown nationally by the Public Broadcasting Service this month. He also had a wife and three children who were willing to pack up their belongings and spend three years living as the only foreigners in a primitive commune 400 miles northeast of Beijing. He was an experienced rancher with an impressive array of academic credentials, including bachelor’s degrees in Asian studies and Mandarin Chinese and a doctorate in rangeland management. Sheehy, who is now a visiting assistant professor of range science at Texas A&M University here, had just the kind of background the Chinese government was looking for when it decided to hire someone to help save Mongolian grasslands that were turning into desert. He is a Vietnam veteran who nearly lost his life in a rice paddy and who, 20 years later, made good on a promise to return to Asia in a more constructive role. College Station, Texas - At home on his eastern Oregon ranch, dressed in blue jeans and a cowboy hat as he corrals cattle, Dennis Sheehy could almost pass for the Marlboro Man.īut a glance at his resume reveals another side to this soft-spoken, ruggedly handsome cowboy, who has a Ph.D. ![]()
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