Eastern Steppe Living Landscape Project—USAID

Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
www.wcs.org

Living Landscapes Program (LLP)

Community Based Conservation & Outreach: In an effort to work more effectively with communities of livestock herders on the Eastern Steppe (ES), the WCS ES project has partnered with RARE, a conservation NGO with a proven model for changing awareness, attitudes and behaviors toward conservation at the local level.  The RARE approach uses a “Pride” campaign designed to inspire people to take pride in the natural assets that make their communities valuable and take action to protect them.  The focus of the ES Pride campaign is the Mongolian gazelle as an umbrella species for the grassland steppe and the wildlife it supports.  In July the “Eastern Steppe Pride Team” completed a Barrier Removal Operation Plan (BROP) which is a critical first step in an intensive two year marketing effort that borrows private sector tactics and applies them to promoting more environmentally sustainable practices. The BROP workshop in July was attended by many of the ES-LLP partner organizations.  Personal pledges to help with the campaign were provided by all of the participants. 

Eastern Steppe—Raising Global Awareness:  The Eastern Steppe of Mongolia was well represented at the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), held in Beijing, China from July 11-16, 2009.  Three ES-focused presentations (Distribution & Movement Patterns of the Mongolian gazelle, the Eastern Steppe’s Living Landscape, and Community-based Wildlife Conservation in Eastern Mongolia) were delivered by WCS Mongolia Program staff and colleagues in the Mongolian research community in a symposium entitled, “Long Distance Wildlife Migrations in Asia: Understanding and Conserving these Spectacular Ecological Processes”. The symposium was organized by WCS Country Program Director Amanda Fine.  The SCB meeting attracted over 1,000 people from 76 countries, and the migrations symposium was very well attended; this provided an excellent opportunity to build awareness of the importance and uniqueness of Mongolia’s Eastern Steppe, engage the global conservation science community, and solicit their support in preserving one of the world’s last temperate grasslands.

Eastern Steppe & American Bison:  WCS Vice President and Lead Scientist, Dr. Kent Redford, visited Mongolia in July, met with WCS project partners, traveled to the Eastern Steppe, reviewed WCS Mongolia programs and gave a presentation entitled “The Conservation Experience with American Bison – Might it be Useful for Mongolia?” to stakeholder groups in Ulaanbaatar and Choibalsan city on the Eastern Steppe.  Dr. Redford’s lecture generated discussion on the parallels between the decline of American bison on the Great Plains of North America and the threats facing Mongolian gazelle on the ES today.  The events were televised and we anticipate continued dialogue around this topic which we hope will inspire and motivate decision makers and local communities to implement policies which safeguard the Eastern Steppe grasslands and its wildlife. 

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Field Investigation:  WCS has been researching the published plans of the Mongolian government (3rd ATAR campaign) to develop crop-based agriculture on the Eastern Steppe in an effort to understand projects under this plan so that we are prepared to provide advice on measures that would reduce any negative impacts on the grassland ecosystem and the wildlife and livestock herder communities reliant on the rangeland.  In July WCS traveled to Khalkh gol soum in eastern Dornod province to meet with local officials and representatives of companies pursuing agricultural projects in the region. The Khalkh gol agricultural plan covers an area of 40,000 ha.  Test plots have been established by private companies, the Mongolian government and international donor-supported initiatives to test various grain varieties and irrigation systems for growing vegetables. 

WCS Global Health Program

Avian Influenza Surveillance: On July 30, a final report was submitted to the World Organization of Animal Health (OIE) by the Mongolian authorities confirming H5N1 (Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza) as the cause of the die-off of wild birds on Doitiin Tsagaan Lake in Arkhangai province in central Mongolia (first reported in May 2009).  In early August, a second die-off of birds was reported on Doroo Tsaagan Lake of Arkhangai province.  The WCS AI team responded to the event, completed a mortality survey of the lake and collected samples for HPAI testing from both live, apparently healthy birds and dead specimens.  This response followed that of the Mongolian authorities who were able to collect samples from an initial group of 56 dead birds which are being tested at the State Central Veterinary Laboratory. The Doroo Tsagaan Lake outbreak has been reported to OIE as HPAI based on test results confirming H5.  These 2009 HPAI outbreaks in wild birds in Mongolia are the first since 2006.