Eastern Steppe Living Landscape Project - Sustaining Wildlife and Traditional Livelihoods in the Arid Grasslands of Mongolia

Wildlife Conservation Society
www.wcs.org

Living Landscapes Program (LLP)

During the month of December, WCS Eastern Steppe project staff worked to finalize reports and prepare for meetings and travel in January, and meet with partners to coordinate future collaborative efforts.  In addition, the country program director attended various meetings in New York.

Eastern Steppe Conservation Analysis and Mapping:  The WCS Mongolia Remote Sensing/GIS analyst worked on pre-processing SPOT imagery data and classifying land cover and land use data for conservation planning in the Eastern Steppe.  Coordination with The Nature Conservancy and WWF-Mongolia on the production of maps and conservation planning outputs for Mongolian policy makers continued in December.

Eastern Steppe Community-based Conservation:  The WCS Mongolia Conservation Biologist completed a 2-week field trip to visit five Herder Communities and meet with volunteer rangers and leaders (14 Nov.-06 Dec. 2008).  The goal of this field trip was to follow up with volunteer rangers and leaders and ensure that they understand how to conduct wildlife protection patrols, use reporting forms and conduct wildlife surveys via horseback.  In general, volunteer rangers’ knowledge and skill level has improved, as shown when comparing evaluations between September and November.  The field team worked with volunteer rangers to ensure that they know how to properly use GPS units and digital cameras to record useful information about wildlife use violations in the field.

In addition, the WCS Mongolia Remote Sensing/GIS analyst completed maps of eight herder community managed areas.

WCS Mongolia hired a part-time local wildlife conservation coordinator, Mr. G. Bat-Erdene, from the Eastern Mongolian Community Conservation Association, to work more closely with herder communities in the Eastern Steppe.  He will visit communities each quarter to encourage their wildlife and natural resource conservation efforts, and manage a database system for data collected by communities.

Eastern Steppe Planning Meetings in New York:  WCS Mongolia Country Director, Amanda Fine, participated in a meeting of WCS senior management in New York November 30th through December 5th followed by meetings at the WCS Bronx Zoo headquarters December 8th and 9th.  Mongolia’s Eastern Steppe was discussed as one of a group of core WCS sites for which the organization will make a long-term commitment to the conservation of wildlife and wild lands. 

Donor/Project Coordination:  WCS Mongolia Country Director had the opportunity to participate in a conference call with Peter Ward from the International Division of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Dec. 15th to discuss the MOU signed between the Government of Mongolia (Ministry of Nature, Environment and Tourism) and the U.S. Department of Interior.  WCS updated Peter Ward on the Eastern Steppe project activities and WCS work in the region.  WCS will assist with implementation where possible. 

WCS Field Veterinary Program

Avian Influenza:  Field-based sampling of wild birds in Mongolia ended in September 2008 and final preparations for the export of samples for testing were made in October.   Sample testing continues for the Avian Influenza project, but there was no activity in Mongolia under this program during December.