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. ; 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. ; 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.

Memoir of Mongolian career diplomat, D. Ëndon

Articles on the socialist period of Mongolian economy written by an economist-journalist who was editor-in-chief of key economic journal

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.

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.