Tsaatan
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The Tsaatan are a small culture of reindeer herders living in northern Khovsgol, Mongolia.
Only 44 Tsaatan families remain, totalling somewhere between 200 and 400 people. They ride, breed, milk, and live off of reindeer, though the reindeer population has dropped to approximately 600 since the 1970s, when it was an estimated 2000. Since the democratization of Mongolia, no governmental programs have been in place to replenish reindeer herds with animals from Siberia, direly endangering the Tsaatans' way of life. Much of the Tsaatans' income today comes from tourists who pay to buy their crafts and to ride their domesticated reindeer.
The Tsaatan are also the focus of a classic problem in "eco" tourism. Genuine Tsaatan stay high in the mountains during the summer months where the cooler temperatures, fewer flies and abundant lichens for feed provides the best and most natural environment. In the last few years a family who claim to be Tsaatan have purchased reindeer and moved their tent to the shores of Lake Hovsgol, a much more convenient location for attracting tourist dollars. Local Mongolian owned tourist companies actively advertise a visit to the Tsaatan as part of a tour to Hovsgol National Park. Tourist are charged five US dollars to take pictures and buy handicrafts, many of which are not traditional. What tourists don't realize is that they are supporting a tourism "show" which is destructive in many ways and the only justification is to make it EASY for tourists to see Tsaatan. The National Park has repeatedly tried to evict the fake Tsaatan family because they have no permits to be "working" within the Park and their reindeer, in whom brucellocis is endemic, are a threat to endangered species in the bordering mountains like Argali sheep and Ibex. The fake Tsaatan make so much money from tourists they just ignore the laws or pay off the fines and stay.
More importantly, each year up to one third of the fake Tsaatan's animals die because the conditions at the shore of the lake are all wrong for reindeer in summer. Heat, flies and improper food result in suffering and deaths for these animals, something that is hidden from tourists. Reindeer are arctic animals and the temperature on the lake in summer can easily be in 80-90 degrees fahrenheit for days on end. Put bluntly, tourists are killing the very reindeer they have come to see and appreciate.
Another destructive aspect of this fake "eco" tourism is that so much money is earned that the fake Tsaatan can afford to buy replacement stock from the herds of the true Tsaatan, further diminishing the number and quality of those endangered herds. This excess of money and the monopoly that the fake Tsaatan family maintains with threats of violence and evil spells (the woman of the family claims to be a shaman but that is scoffed at locally) causes envy and jealousy in a culture already battling poverty, alcoholism and disease. As one can imagine the "shaman" has found her claim to shaman status only increases the adulation she receives from tourists and the money she can charge. If tourists could speak Mongolian they would be shocked to hear the contempt with which the family discusses the tourists and the vitriol they heap on any Mongolian tourist guide who refuses to be activily helpful in the "milking" of tourists for funds and gifts.
Most important of all, at a time when the Tsaatan culture is challenged on many fronts, this divisive and exploitative "business" threatens to undermine efforts for the real Tsaatan to gain the kind of support and assistance they need, while turning the culture into a sideshow, a convenient one day outing for tourists either too gullible or too lazy to learn the truth about what they are perpetuating.
On the bright side, a new project of the Ministry of Nature and Environment is helping the genuine Tsaatan to create a "Tipi Hotel", a system where tourists can arrange to stay in a larger version of the Tsaatan tent and get meals, horse rentals and arrange to take days trips riding reindeer. This project will still require more effort of tourist but will mean that tourism and proper herding techniques need not be in conflict.
This is a pattern that can be found in many parts of the developing world, where the desire for tourists to have "authentic" experiences propagates false and exploitive behavior by local interests.
