DUNDGOBI, Mongolia, (Reuters) – The winter camps of  southern Mongolia are quiet during this year’s breeding season,  after an unusually harsh winter wiped out herds and left  nomadic families with little but debt to their name.

The bitter winter killed an estimated 8 million animals,  according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP),  leaving exhausted, poverty-stricken herders struggling to  survive and increasing demands on Mongolia’s already-stretched  national budget.

“If a market burns down, the government offers money as  compensation. Then why can’t the government help the herders  now?” asked Nyamiin Zagdsuren, a 39-year old herder, who lost  more than two thirds of his 580 animals this winter.

He is counting on the cashmere combed from his remaining  140 goats to tide over his family, and to pay back a $360 bank  loan he took out to clothe and buy school supplies for his  three children.