Abstract
VAST (1.57 MILLION SQUARE KILOMETERS), sparsely populated (approximately 2.7 million people), and relatively poor (mean income per capita in 2013 = $3,770), Mongolia faces the daunting task of protecting its natural heritage in the face of rapid natural resource extraction efforts by multinational corporations that are promising quick prosperity. Further complicating the rising extractive bonanza, Mongolia continues its struggles to transition from a communist nation with a centrally controlled economy to a democracy with a free market. Expanding and improving its system of protected areas arguably represents the most important component of Mongolia’s conservation efforts since political and economic transformation began in 1991. Mongolia has strongly embraced the importance of protected areas to help counter its accelerating rate of development, although as demands for the country’s vast mineral and fossil fuel resources grow, and as the increasingly urban population of the country becomes impatient for the promised rise in “standard of living,” the challenges to protected areas expansion, management, and even retention (in certain cases) increases. In this essay, we briefly describe the historical and continuing cultural importance of conservation in Mongolia, the threats to the country’s protected areas system, and the vital need to maintain, expand, and better manage the nation’s system of nature protection.
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Notes
- 1.
R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar “Conserving Mongolia’s Grasslands with Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons for America’s Great Plains,” Great Plains Research 20, no. 1 (2010): 85–108. Website of The World Bank, see Data page for Mongolia. http://data.worldbank.org/country/mongolia. Accessed 9 June 2013.
- 2.
P. W. Germeraad and Z. Enebisch, The Mongolian Landscape Tradition: A Key to Progress; Nomadic Traditions and Their Contemporary Role in Landscape Planning and Management in Mongolia (Schiedam, Netherlands: Germeraad and Enebisch, BGS, 1996); M. Rossabi, “Mongolia in the 1990s: From Commissars to Capitalists,” Occasional Papers of the Open Society in Central Eurasia 2 (1997): 1–16.
- 3.
B. Chimed-Ochir, “Protected Area of Mongolia in Past, Present and Future,” in Proceedings of the Second Conference on National Parks and Protected Areas of East Asia: Mobilizing Community Support for National Parks and Protected Areas in East Asia, Kushiro, Hokkaido, Japan, June 30–July 5, 1996 (Tokyo, Japan: Japanese Organizing Committee for the Second Conference on National Parks and Protected Areas of East Asia, 1997), pp. 51–55; R. P. Reading, H. Mix, B. Lhagvasuren, and N. Tseveenmyadag, “The Commercial Harvest of Wildlife in Dornod Aimag, Mongolia,” Journal of Wildlife Management 62 (1998): 59–71; R. P. Reading, M. Johnstad, S. Amgalanbaatar, Z. Batjargal, and H. Mix, “Expanding Mongolia’s System of Protected Areas,” Natural Areas Journal 19 (1999): 211–22; R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar, “Conserving Biodiversity on Mongolian Rangelands: Implications for Protected Area Development and Pastoral Uses,” in Rangelands of Central Asia: Proceedings of the Conference on Transformations, Issues, and Future Challenges, comp. D. J. Bedunah, E. D. MacArthur, and M. Fernandez-Gimenez. (Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, RMRS-P-39, 2006), 1–17.
- 4.
A. Namkhai and D. Myagmarsuren, Protected Areas of Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Mongolian Ministry for Nature and Environment, 2012).
- 5.
C. Finch, Mongolia’s Wild Heritage: Biological Diversity, Protected Areas, and Conservation in the Land of Chingis Khaan (Boulder, CO: Avery Press, 1996); P. W. Germeraad and Z. Enebisch, The Mongolian Landscape Tradition: A Key to Progress; Nomadic Traditions and Their Contemporary Role in Landscape Planning and Management in Mongolia.
- 6.
P. W. Germeraad and Z. Enebisch, The Mongolian Landscape Tradition: A Key to Progress; Nomadic Traditions and Their Contemporary Role in Landscape Planning and Management in Mongolia; B. Chimed-Ochir, “Protected Area of Mongolia in Past, Present and Future.”
- 7.
B. Chimed-Ochir, “Protected Area of Mongolia in Past, Present and Future.”
- 8.
C. Finch, Mongolia’s Wild Heritage: Biological Diversity, Protected Areas, and Conservation in the Land of Chingis Khaan.
- 9.
R. P. Reading, M. Johnstad, S. Amgalanbaatar, Z. Batjargal, and H. Mix, “Expanding Mongolia’s System of Protected Areas,” Natural Areas Journal 19 (1999): 211–22.
- 10.
R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar “Conserving Mongolia’s Grasslands with Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons for America’s Great Plains,” Great Plains Research 20, no. 1 (2010): 85–108.
- 11.
N. Enkhtsetseg, Assessment on Implementation Stats of Phase First of the National Program on Protected Areas in Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, WWF Mongolia Programme, 2009), 71.
- 12.
N. Enkhtsetseg, Assessment on Implementation Stats of Phase First of the National Program on Protected Areas in Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, WWF Mongolia Programme, 2009), 71.
- 13.
W. B. Henwood, “Toward a Strategy for the Conservation and Protection of the World’s Temperate Grasslands,” Great Plains Research 20 (2010): 121–34.
- 14.
N. Enkhtsetseg, Assessment on Implementation Stats of Phase First of the National Program on Protected Areas in Mongolia (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, WWF Mongolia Programme, 2009), 71.
- 15.
R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar, “Conserving Biodiversity on Mongolian Rangelands: Implications for Protected Area Development and Pastoral Uses,” in Rangelands of Central Asia: Proceedings of the Conference on Transformations, Issues, and Future Challenges, comp. D. J. Bedunah, E. D. MacArthur, and M. Fernandez-Gimenez. (Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, RMRS-P-39, 2006), 1–17; R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar “Conserving Mongolia’s Grasslands with Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons for America’s Great Plains,” Great Plains Research 20, no. 1 (2010): 85–108.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
R. P. Reading, H. Mix, B. Lhagvasuren, and N. Tseveenmyadag, “The Commercial Harvest of Wildlife in Dornod Aimag, Mongolia,” Journal of Wildlife Management 62 (1998): 59–71; P. Zahler et al., “Illegal and Unsustainable Wildlife Hunting and Trade in Mongolia,” Mongolian Journal of Biological Sciences 2 (2004): 23–32; J. R. Wingard and P. Zahler, Silent Steppe: The Illegal Wildlife Trade Crisis in Mongolia, Mongolia Discussion Papers, East Asia and Pacific Environment and Social Development Department (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2006).
- 18.
E. L. Clark et al, “Mongolian Red List of Mammals,” Regional Red List Series, Vol. 1. (London: Zoological Society of London, 2006).
- 19.
P. Zahler et al, “Illegal and Unsustainable Wildlife Hunting and Trade in Mongolia.”
- 20.
R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar, “Conserving Biodiversity on Mongolian Rangelands: Implications for Protected Area Development and Pastoral Uses,” in Rangelands of Central Asia: Proceedings of the Conference on Transformations, Issues, and Future Challenges, comp. D. J. Bedunah, E. D. MacArthur, and M. Fernandez-Gimenez. (Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, RMRS-P-39, 2006), 1–17; R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar “Conserving Mongolia’s Grasslands with Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons for America’s Great Plains,” Great Plains Research 20, no. 1 (2010): 85–108.
- 21.
B. Chimed-Ochir, “Protected Area of Mongolia in Past, Present and Future.”
- 22.
M. Fernández-Giménez, “The Role of Ecological Perception in Indigenous Resource Management: A Case Study from the Mongolian Forest-steppe,” Nomadic Peoples 33 (1993): 31–46; P. W. Germeraad and Z. Enebisch, The Mongolian Landscape Tradition: A Key to Progress; Nomadic Traditions and Their Contemporary Role in Landscape Planning and Management in Mongolia.
- 23.
T. Potanski, “Decollectivisation of the Mongolian Pastoral Economy (1991–92): Some Economic and Social Consequences,” Nomadic Peoples 33 (1993): 123–35; N. Honhold, Livestock Population and Productivity and the Human Population of Mongolia, 1930 to 1994 (Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia: Ministry of Food and Agriculture, 1995); P. W. Germeraad and Z. Enebisch, The Mongolian Landscape Tradition: A Key to Progress; Nomadic Traditions and Their Contemporary Role in Landscape Planning and Management in Mongolia.
- 24.
P. W. Germeraad and Z. Enebisch, The Mongolian Landscape Tradition: A Key to Progress; Nomadic Traditions and Their Contemporary Role in Landscape Planning and Management in Mongolia.
- 25.
R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar “Conserving Mongolia’s Grasslands with Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons for America’s Great Plains,” Great Plains Research 20, no. 1 (2010): 85–108.
- 26.
R. P. Reading, D. J. Bedunah, and S. Amgalanbaatar “Conserving Mongolia’s Grasslands with Challenges, Opportunities, and Lessons for America’s Great Plains,” Great Plains Research 20, no. 1 (2010): 85–108.
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Reading, R.P., Wingard, G., Selenge, T., Amgalanbaatar, S. (2015). The Crucial Importance of Protected Areas to Conserving Mongolia’s Natural Heritage. In: Wuerthner, G., Crist, E., Butler, T. (eds) Protecting the Wild. Island Press, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-551-9_27
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