Abstract
Risk, in particular climate risk, is inherent in extensive pastoralism, mainly because it is carried out in environmental conditions where other forms of agriculture are not suitable. Different factors within environmental and socio-economic systems compound each other, affecting herders’ exposure to risks and their capacity to cope with and recover from shocks and stresses.
In Mongolia, the 2009/2010 zud revealed the limited coping capacity of herders and institutions, and insufficient preparedness at all levels, questioning the effectiveness of the current disaster risk reduction and management systems. This article reviews Mongolia’s current pastoral risk management (PRM) framework, assessing its strengths and weaknesses. It then discusses opportunities to strengthen the PRM framework by better linking disaster risk reduction, climate change adaptation and social protection in order to tackle vulnerability from different angles and with a long-term perspective. Opportunities to strengthen social protection and livelihood diversification correspond to a plurality of pathways for pastoralist livelihoods which sees them diversifying, becoming more commercialized, or for some herders even moving away from the pastoral system through well-prepared exit strategies. The proactive use of new opportunities which open up because of climate change are also discussed, such as funding for PRM through proactive soil carbon sequestration projects, as a necessary complement to existing PRM actions.
This paper concludes that the basic know how and technology options for PRM are already known. It is essential though, to consolidate and replicate what has already been tested successfully. Proactive measures are needed to ensure the necessary outreach, and provide more sustainable capacity building and policy support to disaster risk reduction, hazard preparedness and livelihoods diversification measures.
Background paper prepared for the IUCN Conference on “Eurasian Steppes: Status, Threats and Adaptation to Climate Change” Hustai National Park, Mongolia, September 9–12, 2010.
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- 1.
For example the innovative Index Based Livestock Insurance Project, supported by the World Bank with multi-donor funding, see the IBLIP web site http://www.iblip.mn/inpro/news.php?vnewsid=120
- 2.
These scenarios have been proposed as a way forward for pastoralists in the different regional setting of the Greater Horn of Africa by Devereux and Scoones (2007).
- 3.
Social protection includes “all initiatives that transfer income or assets to the poor, protect the vulnerable against livelihood risk and enhance the social status and rights of the marginalised” (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler 2004).
- 4.
For more details of the framework and specific areas of intervention proposed for herders, as well as sum, aimag and national levels please refer to FAO (2007).
- 5.
For example, one of the key areas of the Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) 2009/2010 endorsed by the World Bank for Mongolia was “protecting the poor and the vulnerable”, while the consultation with communities for the 2009–2011 CAS highlighted as one of its pillars “improving rural livelihoods and the environment” http://go.worldbank.org/91J9Y3DGF0
- 6.
By improving rangeland management Smith et al. (2007) estimate that globally rangeland has the biophysical potential to sequester 1.3–2 GtCO2e up until 2030. CO2e is “the unit of measurement used to compare the relative climate impact of the different greenhouse gases. The CO2e quantity of any greenhouse gas is the amount of carbon dioxide that would produce the equivalent global warming potential” (Carbon Neutral 2010: Global Land Reserve website http://globallandreserve.com).
- 7.
The project was implemented from 1995 to 2000, with the overall development objective to mitigate the adverse effects of Mongolia’s economic transition on vulnerable groups. The public works component was successful in creating temporary employment and in halting the deterioration of economic and social infrastructure. Although the duration of employment was too short to have an impact on the livelihoods of the poor, and productivity was not enhanced on the long run, the infrastructure works themselves contributed to poverty reduction. http://go.worldbank.org/KYPG2LENE0
Abbreviations
- Aimag :
-
Primary administrative unit: “province”.
- Bag :
-
Lowest level of the administrative hierarchy, rural “sub-districts”.
- Bod :
-
Cattle-based animal unit. 1 bod = 1 horse/1 bovine/0.8 camels/8 sheep/8 goats. The definition is not standardized and may vary slightly by user.
- Bog :
-
Sheep-based animal unit.
- Carbon sequestration :
-
“the process of removing carbon from the atmosphere and depositing it in a reservoir”; (UNFCCC 2010)
- GDP :
-
Gross Domestic Product
- Khot Ail :
-
society formed of customary groups of two to ten cooperating households. “Fluid group of herding households that cooperate in livestock and pasture management notably to take advantage of economies of scale”; (Mearns 2004: 133)
- Khural :
-
Representative assembly
- NEMA :
-
National Emergency Management Agency
- Otor :
-
Movement of livestock to make use of distant pasture to escape drought or zud or to prepare animals for winter.
- PRM :
-
Pastoral Risk Management
- Social protection :
-
includes “all initiatives that transfer income or assets to the poor, protect the vulnerable against livelihood risk and enhance the social status and rights of the marginalised”; (Devereux and Sabates-Wheeler 2004)
- Sum :
-
Administrative unit below province, rural “district”.
- Zud :
-
A winter disaster that affects the welfare and food security of pastoral communities through large-scale debilitation and death of livestock, caused by a variable combination of summer drought, heavy winter snow, lower than normal temperatures, drifting windstorm and a dangerous spring thaw. Herders’ main criteria to define it are not so much meteorological conditions as its consequences, particularly in terms of animal mortality.
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Baas, S., Tessitore, S., Jelley, T. (2012). Rethinking Pastoral Risk Management in Mongolia. In: Werger, M., van Staalduinen, M. (eds) Eurasian Steppes. Ecological Problems and Livelihoods in a Changing World. Plant and Vegetation, vol 6. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-3886-7_20
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