Suchergebnisse

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Socio-ecological boundaries delineate landscapes containing natural resources that are differentially accessed and managed by stakeholders. These boundaries may be human-demarcated and biophysical serving as tangible and intangible features delineating landscapes. Our purpose is to explore Mongolian herders' perceptions of their pasture and boundaries through participatory mapping processes. Our research questions include: 1) what boundaries are depicted on herders' participatory maps? and 2) how are boundaries discussed through herders' participatory mapping narratives? We conducted participatory mapping and informal interviews (n= 35) with herder groups and district officials in Arkhangai, Tuv, Dornod, and Dornogovi. We qualitatively coded participatory mapping narratives and applied visual grounded theory. Tangible features on participatory maps included economic, hydroclimatic, geomorphological, and ecological boundaries portrayed as springs, landforms, vegetation types, seasonal camps, wells, and roads. Non-physical intangible boundaries such as governance arrangements were evident in participatory mapping narratives and served as human demarcated boundaries for accessing seasonal camps, markets, government assistance, and resources for herder migration. The relationships among herder mobility, governance boundaries, and biophysical pasture boundaries are coupled and dynamic, resulting in multi-dimensional outcomes of herder livelihoods.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Property and its allocation are key elements of resilience within socio-ecological systems. This presentation compares ethnographic and survey data on shifting ideas of property from 2008 to similar data gathered in 2014 in a district of southern Khentii aimag. The data illustrate how these attitudes emerged, their underlying logics, and how they articulate with broader historical and political economic conditions. The findings raise concern that dzud events could serve as a possible trigger for formal legal transformations in land rights given the increased political rhetoric and calls for land privatization following dzud events. This paper argues that crossing such property thresholds would pose considerable problems for both rangelands and livelihoods and suggests some future avenues for strengthening pastoral systems.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Mongolia's socio-ecological rangeland systems face a number of critical, contemporary challenges. Climatic change, persistent poverty and growing land use conflicts, especially around mining, pose complex problems both for herders and policy-makers. Furthermore, there is renewed emphasis on meeting Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and Aichi targets, following the publication of Mongolia's 5th National CBD report in March 2014, and the development of a new National Biodiversity Strategic Action Plan. (E)valuation of the contributions of rangeland ecosystem services (ES) to biodiversity and livelihoods/wellbeing are highlighted as priorities for future planning therein. ES thinking, valuation and commodification are becoming increasingly influential in other contemporary policy initiatives, not least through the development of the national REDD+ roadmap, Business and Biodiversity offset programmes and Government commitments to the 'Green Economy'. Nonetheless critical questions remain about the ES paradigm itself, values/ valuation of ES and how these may be enacted and supported through policy. Here we report on a three year Darwin-Initiative funded project, which aimed to 'generate policy and practice relevant knowledge of values of ecosystem services (ES) in Mongolia, and test the efficacy of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) schemes, in order to enhance biodiversity and livelihoods'. Aims were realised through i) participatory mapping and analysis of ES, including cultural ES, with 300 herder households across four case study sites, and the development of innovative methods for non-economic valuation; ii) co-development and implementation of a novel rangeland payment for ES (PES) scheme at the four sites, through the Plan Vivo standard; iii) analysis of the impacts ES and of the PES scheme on biodiversity and livelihoods. Methods used included deliberative valuation approaches, mapping, ranking and choice modelling to examine group and individual values and trade-offs between ES across ecologically contrasting areas. We also applied the SOLVES (Social Values of ES) GIS model to highlight spatial, place-specific dimensions of ES values, as part of a series of wider biodiversity, livelihoods and ES assessments. Results highlight spatial and temporal diversities in ES values, importance of cultural ES for wellbeing, and the potential of carefully designed PES schemes to contribute to more resilient socio-ecological rangeland systems in the future.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; This paper reviews the problems of livestock production in Mongolia and proposes an agent-based meat distribution network composed of multiple players. Agents sell and buy products and services, equipped with intelligent capacity of knowledge and physical capacity of freezing meat stock, livestock, and forage stock. Local governments and communities are the key for enhancing food security. The network, as a whole, is green, clean and resilient to climatic and market disturbance.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Heavy livestock losses from severe winter conditions (dzud) in Mongolia in recent years have prompted a variety of interventions by government and development agencies, aiming to reduce herders' vulnerability to severe weather and other climate factors. Unfortunately, many of these interventions have not systematically diminished risk to herders. In this paper we identify several strategies deployed by herders for managing dzud risks and impacts through informal mutual aid networks. We contrast these strategies to interventions taken by international donor agencies operating in Mongolia, which have largely focused on the household as an independent socio-economic unit. We conclude that risk mitigation can be improved through recognition of informal mutual aid networks, and through support to mutual aid institutions.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Increased water demand has led to the need for development of water resources in Mongolia. With the Mongolian government implementation of integrated water resources management approach, assessing environmental flow requirements of major rivers becomes a primary issue. Using Indicators of Hydrological Alteration tools, physical habitat survey at Orkhon-Orkhon gauge site and statistical analysis of annual maximum flows, environmental low flow scenarios have been developed that attempt to reflect more "natural" characteristics of magnitude, frequency and duration. Specifically, minimum seasonal low flows of greater than the 75th percentile flow duration with bankfull flow releases during wet periods that have a duration of 12 to 24 days.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; Land tenure is to define who hold the land as well as the relationship between tenant and the lord. Most fundamentally tenure and changing tenure is capturing the value of the resource. The nature of the resource and changing relative scarcity are essential to induce or lead evolution of land tenure. Pasture resources have been held in open access and communal tenure for much of the long history on Mongolia Plateau because of the abundant resource with low population density. Historically pasture tenure in this region has been evolving from open and semi-open access to communal tenure (control) to more private ownership, although other forces like political system can only cause temporary departure from the general patterns. Presently the variety of tenure arrangements largely reflects the scarcity of the pastoral resources: Mongolia is still primarily adopting semi-open access with community governing although state is viewed as sole ownership, while Inner Mongolia is more directing privatization of at least the use rights.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; In Mongolia, partners from national and aimag governments, academia and NGOs have developed regional conservation plans that balance the government commitment to protection of natural habitats with planned development of mineral resources and related infrastructure. A key input is a mapped classification of major habitat types, or ecosystems, to represent the range of natural habitats and function as a surrogate for biodiversity. We developed a GIS model to map ecosystems across the Mongolian Gobi Desert region by comparing the distribution of plant communities and major vegetation types, taken from field surveys and national maps, with patterns of above-ground biomass, elevation, climate and topography derived from remote sensing. The resulting mapped classification is organized as a hierarchy of 1) biogeographic regions, 2) terrestrial ecosystem types based on vegetation, elevation and geomorphology, and 3) landforms. This provides a first-iteration map to support landscape-level conservation planning and a model framework that can support field surveys and future model revisions, with other applications to land use planning, research, surveys and monitoring. To facilitate that, the GIS results are publicly available either for download or to view and query in a web-based GIS available at: http://s3.amazonaws.com/DevByDesign-Web/MappingAppsVer2/Gobi/index.html

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; This study tested the effect of institutional design principles on social outcomes of evolving pastoral institutions in post-socialist Mongolia. Using data from 77 community-based rangeland management (CBRM) groups and 392 member households, we examined the effect of donor facilitation on institutional design. We found that donor facilitation approach significantly influenced group attributes and their external environment, but not institutional arrangements. The study confirmed that small group size, homogeneous interests, and heterogeneity of well-being are important group characteristics that predict higher levels of information diversity, leadership, and income diversity. Institutional arrangements such as the presence of sanctions, group-devised rules, frequent meetings, and recording documents increased cooperation, rules, and information diversity. Similarly, access to training and local government support provided a favorable external environment for increasing social outcomes. Furthermore, group characteristics such as dependence on livestock, homogeneity of interests, and leader legitimacy were critical for increasing social capital, livelihoods, sustainable rangeland practices, and proactive behavior of members. More frequent meetings of leaders were the most influential for these outcomes. Local government support and available donor support were associated with increased trust and norms of reciprocity, sustainable rangeland management practices, proactiveness, and livestock holdings. Lastly, group attributes and external environment influenced social outcomes of pastoral CBRMs in Mongolia more than institutional arrangements.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; In 2014 the Mongolian parliament approved the Green Development Policy. Out of 21 aimags, Khovd, Arkhangai, Uvurkhangai, Khentii and Bulgan aimags set an objective of prioritizing green development on their local level. This paper is based on the project "Conducting environmental and social vulnerability research of soums in five aimags leading in green development and developing strategy recommendation" and it is written using Khovd aimag as a case study. Here, in Khovd aimag's 17 soums, we evaluated eight variables including drought-dzud index, vegetation index, preventable livestock loss, prepared hay and fodder, pasture use index, degree of desertification, land degradation and surface water loss, allowing us to make an integrated assessment of ecological vulnerability. According to our analysis, the Gobi desert steppe region was defined as most vulnerable among environmental zones, and out of a total of 17 soums Altai, Uyench, Zereg, Chandmani and Duut soums were defined as most vulnerable, followed by Must, Darvi, Munkhhairkhan, Mankhan and Myangad soums. There is a need to give top priority to the planning and implementation of green policy in these ecologically more vulnerable soums by increasing their "green" budget. This will allow them to develop their capacity to adapt to climate change, decrease their vulnerability, to conduct optimal management of pasture use and have targeted preparation of hay and fodder.

Includes bibliographical references. ; Presented at the Building resilience of Mongolian rangelands: a trans-disciplinary research conference held on June 9-10, 2015 in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. ; After 70 years of communist regime, Mongolia chose a radical transition for democracy and a market economy in 1990. Since the 2000s, the Mongolian government has been promoting the mining industry to increase its foreign exchanges. The mining sector may offer local job opportunities and revenues, but might also cause loss and degradation of pasture land the local people depend on. An empirical study is conducted to investigate whether the immigration of rural people from a mining area is different from that of a non-mining area using a probit model based on a 2013 workforce survey of Mongolia. The result shows that mining soums receive fewer outsiders than the non-mining soums, suggesting local mining activities exert limited economic linkage in local community for a case of Mongolia.