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

Wildlife Conservation Society
www.wcs.org

WCS Country Director, Amanda Fine, visited the USAID offices in Washington, D.C. on March 24, 2009, to brief the Living Landscapes Program CTO, Andrew Tobiason and Senior USAID Biodiversity and Natural Resources Advisors Mary Rowan and Michael Colby, on recent WCS USAID project developments in Mongolia.  The LLP Eastern Steppe project, community-based wildlife conservation initiatives and progress on the TransLinks case studies, described in more detail below, were discussed at length.  The USAID Living Landscapes Program is in its final year.  Close out activities and a presentation highlighting the accomplishments of the program is scheduled for September 17, 2009 in Washington, D.C.

Living Landscapes Program (LLP)

Eastern Steppe Conservation Planning and Follow-Up:  In March the WCS Eastern Steppe project staff continued dialogue with aimag-level policy makers and partners in the conservation community to share information and confirm support for on-going and planned conservation initiatives in the region.  Contact continued with the Khentii and Dornod Environmental Protection Agencies, Sukhbaatar aimag Department of Development and Strategic Planning, and the Nomrog and Eastern Mongolia Protected Areas Administration.  Conservation plans have been received from Khentii and Sukhbaatar aimags and we are awaiting communication from Dornod.  After all plans are received, a comprehensive planning report will be produced.

Eastern Steppe Community-based Conservation Planning:  In March the WCS wildlife conservation technical advisor, Ann Winters, visited the WCS Global Conservation Program headquarters in Bronx, NY, to attend meetings with the Asia Program director and assistant director, and WCS Mongolia country program director, Amanda Fine.  Final activities and outputs from the LLP Community Project were discussed, and potential focus areas for future work with communities were identified.  Meetings were also held with a wildlife monitoring expert, TransLinks program staff, website development staff and Rare Pride program staff.

WCS Eastern Steppe project staff, the Eastern Mongolian Community Conservation NGO manager, and two herder community leaders attended a one-day seminar given by Richard Male, an NGO capacity building expert from Denver.  He gave general information and advice about the importance of NGO organization, strategy development and fundraising.  Mr. Male hopes to continue his local NGO capacity building efforts in Mongolian in the future.

Mongolian Gazelle:  The winter survey team arrived in Ulaanbaatar at the end of March and is currently working to enter data and finish general business from their field trip.

WCS TransLinks

TransLinks is a 5-year Leader with Associates cooperative agreement that has been funded by USAID to further the objective of increasing social, economic and environmental benefits through sustainable natural resource management. It is a partnership of the Wildlife Conservation Society (lead organization), the Earth Institute of Columbia University, Enterprise Works/VITA, Forest Trends, the Land Tenure Center of the University of Wisconsin and USAID designed to support income growth of the rural poor through conservation and sustainable use of the natural resource base upon which their livelihoods depend.  To promote best practice in integrating environmental governance, natural resource conservation and poverty alleviation, the TransLinks program is working to better understand the relationships between these three pillars of sustainable development. 

WCS Mongolia staff are working with the TransLinks team to complete two case studies which will contribute to the collection of “lessons learned” being collected through the TransLinks program.  One WCS Mongolia case study focuses on governance issues around wildlife protection and management in community protected areas or “community partnerships for nature conservation” on the Eastern Steppe.  The second case study looks at policy and decision making (governance) related to land use and land use change on the Eastern Steppe with a focus on the potential conversion of pasture land to more intensive crop-based agriculture.

Eastern Steppe Agriculture Development Meeting:  In March, WCS project staff gathered information about a meeting that will be held in mid-April to discuss agriculture development in eastern Dornod province.  The governor’s office in Dornod has initiated this meeting, which will be held on April 16-17 in Choibalsan city.  Other agencies sponsoring this workshop include the Dornod Agriculture College, Dornod aimag Government house and Mongolian State University of Agriculture.  Russian, China and Mongolian scientists have also been invited to this conference.

WCS Global Health Program

Avian Influenza: The first stage of analysis of samples collected during the WCS avian influenza surveys in 2008 have now been completed. In total 1,377 birds were sampled by WCS field teams between May and September 2008, and exported to internationally recognized laboratories in October. Initial screening by RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction) at the University of California in Davis has tested samples for the presence of genetic segments to indicate presence of avian influenza virus (all subtypes) and also the H5 subtype in particular. In total samples from 132 birds were found to contain avian influenza virus, a finding consistent with surveys in previous years and no indication to suggest presence of highly pathogenic subtypes.

An update of results has been relayed to partners at the State Central Veterinary Laboratory and the Veterinary Division of the Ministry of Agriculture. Frozen duplicate samples from each of these positive birds will now be submitted for viral culture at the University of Hong Kong where attempts will be made to grow virus for further sub-typing and genetic sequencing. Results from the viral isolation and further work will be relayed to government partners and USAID as they are received and all viral sequences will be reported through the National Institutes of Health CEIRS initiative, which is providing support for this work.