Mongolians, Russians celebrate commonality with Navajos

Gallup Independent, November 4, 2016

By Kathy Helms, Cibola County Bureau cibola@gallupindependent.com

CHURCHROCK — Mongolian and Russian delegations from communities affected by mining have been visiting the Red Water Pond Road community since 2010. On Saturday, they were back at the home of Bertha Nez to compare notes on how their water and land have been affected by mining.

The International Water and Mining Exchange — coordinated by Paul Robinson, research director for Southwest Research and Information Center of Albuquerque — is in its sixth year.

This year’s participants from Mongolia included Khatanbaatar Ravdan, a member of the Mongolian Parliament and the board of directors for the Center for Civic Education in Ulaanbaatar, and Narangerel Rinchin, who also became a member of Parliament and is now executive director of the Center for Civic Education and policy adviser for the Mongolian Environmental Civil Council in Ulaanbaatar.

Russian participants from the Buryat Region included Margarita Erbajeva, a geologist and paleoecologist with the Geological Institute at the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Solonga Namsaraeva, a graduate student at East Siberian Technical University. Erbajeva and Namsaraeva are also technical advisers for the Buryat Regional Organization on Baikal, or BRO-Baikal.

Natalya Stukova, of Albuquerque, served as translator for the group.

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