Annotations - poor cashmere quality from overgrazing

The goats, which grow cashmere as an undercoat, are especially destructive. Cashmere is a cash crop and a useful export for Mongolia, what one tourist website refers to as "the nomad's ATM". But goats destroy pasture far more than camels, horses or cattle and the deterioration in the quality and variety of grasses forces herders to raise more animals to eke out more cash from the same land.

(actually lower economic returns overall from herding, due to lower rangeland productivity, attributed to overgrazing)