A description of the Livestock-Climate Change CRSP's REMM Project (Increasing adaptive capacity of Mongolian livestock herders under a changing climate through rangeland ecosystem monitoring and community-based conservation) and update on the project's current status. Presentation given by R. Reid (Colorado State University) at the Livestock Climate Change CRSP Annual Meeting, Golden, CO, April 26-27, 2011.

1. Increasing the Adaptive Capacity of Mongolian Livestock Herders under a Changing Climate through Rangeland Ecosystem Monitoring and Community-based Conservation A seed grant funded by the ALS-CC CRSP

2. Project institutions Lead Institution Colorado State University Lead Collaborating Institutions Wildlife Conservation Society, Mongolia Program Mongolian Society for Range Management Eastern Mongolia Community Conservation Association National University of Mongolia

3. Principal investigators Lead PI Dr. Maria E. Fernandez-Gimenez, CSU Co-PI’s Dr. Robin Reid, CSU Dr. Melinda Laituri, CSU Dr. Amanda Fine, Wildlife Conservation Society Dr. Bulgamaa Densambuu, Mongolian Society for Range Management

4. Broader research program: the MOR2 Project, funded by US-NSF Community-based rangeland ecosystem management in response to climate change in Mongolia MOR2 research questions: 1) How resilient are Mongolian pastoral systems to climate change? Does community-based rangeland management increase resilience to climate change? How do scale and boundaries affect ability to manage the resilience of these systems? Can participatory system modeling and scenario planning improve learning, knowledge integration, and adaptation? Leveraged funds also from the World Bank, the Ford Foundation and the Center for Collaborative Conservation

5. Rangelands = 80% of land area Mountain & Forest steppe Steppe Desert steppe

6. Temperate Grassland Biodiversity Photo by George Schaller

7. Pastoral Livelihoods 2.5 million people, >30% depend on livestock for their livelihoods 40 million head Livestock = 20% of GDP Livestock = 80% of agricultural production

8. Political & Economic Change Democracy & Free Market 1990-present Collective Era 1960-1990

9. Initial Effects of Privatization (1992-1999) poverty & wealth differentiation  # of herders  terms of trade  social services +  regulatory institutions =  movement +  out-of-season & year-long grazing +  trespassing & conflict (Fernandez-Gimenez 2001)

10. Rural Poverty = 40%

11. Changing Climate: Instrumental data Temperature Trends near Lake Hövsgöl Nandintsetseg et al. (2006)

13. Worst droughts on record (over most of the country) = during the last decade

14. Recent doubling of CV of annual and summer rainfall in some places

15. 1999-2002 dzud unprecedented in written record; 2009-2010 dzud = 20% of national herd lostAIACC (2006), Marin (2010)

17. More ‘silk embroidery’ rain = Small patches of green surrounded by barren land, depleted faster, more migration

18. More ‘hard’ rain

19. Timing of rain more erratic

20. Delayed rain, later in the summer

21. More dust storms

22. Snowmelt starting earlierMarin (2010) and Fassnacht et al (in press)

23. 1999-Present 1999-2003 drought and dzud kill 30% of livestock, but by 2007 national herd of record size Another dzud in 2010, similar livestock lost ~ 12 donors and NGOs helped organize over 2000 community-based “herder groups” to address conflicts and grassland deterioration Land Law revised in 2002 to permit possession of campsites A new draft pastureland law will be considered by Parliament in the current session; major national policy debate

24. Overall ALS-CC CRSP Project Goal To strengthen Mongolian capacity to assess and monitor changes in rangeland ecosystems and thereby improve the ability of herders and their ecosystems to adapt to climate change

25. ALS-CC CRSP Project Objectives Develop and pilot test holistic rangeland ecosystem monitoring Indicators Train herders, conservation practitioners, government agency staff and researchers in current formal rangeland assessment and monitoring approaches Develop an integrated monitoring plan and database framework

26. Project activities, outputs and outcomes

27. Activities and progress on objective 1: Develop and test indicators Activities Literature review on climate change, community-based NRM and wildlife indicators Participatory workshop to develop wildlife indicators with herders Pre and post-workshop evaluations Progress Two Wildlife Conservation Society interns have finished a review, in Mongolian, of over 150 documents in Mongolian and English and made oral presentations to their WCS and MOR2 mentors. Wildlife monitoring workshop will take place in August

28. Activities and progress on objective 2: Train stakeholders in monitoring Activities 15-18 June, rangeland monitoring workshop Late August, wildlife indicators workshop Progress Based on Dr. Bulgamaa’s recommendation, the target audience for the Rangeland Monitoring Workshop has been altered to focus more on training Mongolian University teachers, in addition to the MOR2 field research team and other young researchers from the participating institutes.

29. Expected Learning Outcomes…based on our past workshops… This workshop has been very useful…. teaching how to conduct research together with local citizens, providing new ideas for the attendees, and providing information that can be passed to the next generation of researchers. -Workshop Attendee

30. Activities and progress on objective 3: Integrated plan & database framework Activities Develop an integrated plan and database framework Progress Co-PI’s Laituri and Fine currently designing the framework Will use the USDA ARS’s DIMA database as the platform for ecological data entry As part of MOR2, team members presented the integrated database concept at a Data Management Workshop on March 24.

31. Conceptual Model

32. Sampling Social Organization/ Governance Spatial Scale/ Ecological & Physical Levels of Organization National Government Country Ecological Zone Aimag Watershed Soum Government Soum Administrative Boundaries Bag CBRM Group or Traditional “Neighborhood” Grazing Territory Winter Camps & Pastures Khot Ail Household Ecological Plots Person

34. But change of CRSP geographic focus will lose this advantage

36. Rangeland monitoring workshop, 15-18 June 2011

37. Wildlife indicators workshop, August 2011

39. New pastoral income streams through developing and testing environmental markets for pastoral communities, including water, carbon and biodiversity