Saruul Agvaandorjiin has a vision: she would like to realize a more environment- and people-oriented mining industry and cleaner air in her country. That is why the chair of the Mongolian Green Movement in Ulan Bator packed her bags and flew to Berlin with her laptop under her arm. Saruul will live in a two-room apartment in Berlin for one year – and repeatedly put up with the 6,195-kilometre and nearly nine-hour flight to commute between Mongolia and Germany. She is a woman of modesty with high ideals.
The 46 year old will be in the German capital for the coming months not only as a guest of the Bundestag parliamentary group politician Andrea Schwarzkopf of the Alliance 90/The Greens. The highly qualified political scientist and German studies specialist has also been awarded an International Climate Protection Fellowship by the prestigious Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. The programme for prospective leaders, which was initiated for the first time this year, is supporting Saruul in her project. She would like, among other things, to ensure that the aspect of responsibility is covered by Mongolia’s 34 environmental laws. “I would like to contribute to making mining firms, citizens and decision-makers more aware of their responsibility through legislative changes,” says the Mongolian woman who joined the Green Movement in Mongolia six years ago and has been its chair since 2006. In her opinion, there is only one future – and it is green.
The scholarship aims to promote environmental and knowledge transfer. “This initiative supports people from non-European newly industrialized and developing countries and expands the existing programme of our foundation,” says Professor Dr. Helmut Schwarz, president of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. “The goal is that German and foreign experts work together on a long-term basis to counter the challenges of climate change and its effects.” Fifteen fellows from Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Mexico, Nigeria, the People’s Republic of China, Peru, the Philippines and, of course, Mongolia are taking part. Among other areas, they are working in the fields of foreign policy and international relations, biotechnology, forestry, economics, public law, waste water chemistry, ecology and climatology. The projects are being realized in universities, in political organizations and in associations.
If it were up to Saruul, the international mining companies that do good business in her country would have to use the most modern, environmentally friendly technologies, such as renewable energies, and reduce their huge water consumption. Moreover, the researcher would like to examine the possibilities of increasing citizens’ rights of codetermination and of developing environmental education. She hopes to be able to establish cooperative partnerships between relevant institutions in Germany and Mongolia during her year in the country. Within the framework of her fellowship, Saruul is visiting various higher education institutions – for example, Technische Universität Bergakademie in Freiberg and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft in Freiburg in the Black Forest. “Laying the foundation stone for green business in my country is one of my goals,” she says. Saruul is currently establishing contacts with researchers and other fellows, which she hopes will enable her to increase her knowledge of mining, law, licensing, renewable energy and environmental education as well as strengthening NGOs.
Incidentally, Germany is not new to her. The affinity for this country is deeply rooted in her family: her grandfather Erdene Batukhan, Mongolia’s first education minister, sent the first students from Mongolia to Germany for training in the 1920s and accompanied them himself. Her parents were also very taken with the German language and education in Germany. As a result, Saruul studied philosophy in Jena during the GDR era and subsequently completed a doctorate in Marburg on the subject of Democratization Chances in Mongolia with a DAAD scholarship, which also involved a guest stay in Vienna. She then worked in Ulan Bator as German studies lecturer at the Mongolian State University and as a sociologist at the Institute of Civil Engineering. People’s desire to debate has inspired her most in Germany. She would like to strengthen this culture of discussion in her home country.////
