Abstract
In the past two decades in Mongolia, integration with the global economy and global warming have concentrated human and livestock populations into areas less arid and closer to large markets such as Ulaanbaatar. This change is deemed to make it difficult for customary pastoral institutions, in particular the regulation of pastureland use, to function effectively. Legislation to provide for pastureland possession by herder groups was proposed, and “Community-based natural resource management” (CBNRM) projects have been implemented by international donors. These steps are not a panacea but may reduce pastoral mobility, which is still the most effective strategy to spread grazing pressure as well as providing a social safety net in case of natural disasters. Instead, local governments should exercise their authority endowed by the Land Law to regulate pastureland use.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The definition of sustainability here is “maintaining the productive and adaptive capacity of ecosystems while providing for the well-being of human communities” (Fernandez-Gimenez and Swift 2003: 821).
- 2.
On the website of Parliament: http://www.parliament.mn/new/law/project/index/page/5.
- 3.
“Hөxөpөл” (“friendship” or “partnership”) in the Mongolian original. Unofficial English version on the Green Gold website translates this word as “community” and “herders’ friendship and groups” in A Articles 4.1.3 and 13.1 respectively. The newest B version (May 13, 2010) uses “мaлчдын бүлэг,” which is a translation of a “herder group” in English.
- 4.
The previous version of July 20, 2007 allowed for possession of pastures only by PUGs.
- 5.
Otor is an opportunistic move for a specific purpose (for example, to fatten livestock in autumn for the winter, or to escape from an adverse natural condition, drought, or zud), sometimes taking only a specific part of livestock, usually without a ger but with a tent, by a specific part of the household.
- 6.
The survey is based on the survey conducted in the summer of 2007 as part of a CALE, Nagoya University research project (see Fernandez-Gimenez et al. 2008).
- 7.
The number of livestock herded by hot ail is as at the time of survey, but does not reflect the previous condition: whether the household had been part of a hot ail, and the number of livestock the hot ail or single household had herded.
- 8.
Jamsranjav (2009) is a report on the GG project implemented in the sum in 2008.
- 9.
The Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Peri-Urban Rangeland Project aims to form herder groups to run a semi-intensified form of livestock farming. Every herder group will consist of 2–6 households with up to 900 sheep units of livestock. No other projects define the limit of the size of livestock.
- 10.
NBNRM projects often linked environmental issues to livelihood improvement or poverty alleviation of herder households by optional incomes such as selling felt craft. There is an assumption that poverty is likely to cause overexploitation of natural resources.
- 11.
We used “tanai nutgiinhan” (“members of your homeland” as literally translated) as “your community.”
References
ADB. 2002. Program Performance Audit Report on the Agriculture Sector Program (Loan 1409-MON[SF]) in Mongolia. PPA:MON 27536.
Agrawal, A. 2002. Common Resources and Institutional Sustainability. In: Ostrom, E., Dietz, T., Dolsak, N., Stern, Paul C., Stonich, S., and Weber, Elke U. (eds.) 2002, The Drama of Commons, National Academy Press, pp. 41–85.
Bedunah, Donald J. & Schmidt, Sabine M. 2004. Pastoralism and Protected Area Management in Mongolia’s Gobi Gurvansaikhan National Park. Development and Change, 35(1): 167–191.
Behnke, R.H., & Scoones, I. 1993. Rethinking Range Ecology: Implications for Rangeland Management in Africa. In: Behnke, R.H., Scoones, I., and Kerven, C.(eds.) Range Ecology at Disequilibrium: New Models of Natural Variability and Pastoral Adaption in African Savanas. London: ODI, pp. 1–31.
Bruce, J. & Mearns, R. 2002. Natural Resources Management and Land Policy in Developing Countries: Lessons Learned and New Challenges for the World Bank. Drylands Programme. Issues Paper No. 115. London: International Institute for Environment and Development.
Ellis, J. E. 1995. Climate Variability and Complex Ecosystem Dynamics: Implications for Pastoral Development. In: Scoones, I. (ed.) Living with Uncertainty, New Directions in Pastoral Development in Africa. Intermediate Technology Publications, London, UK, pp. 37–46
Ellis, J.E. & Chuluun, T. 1993. Cross-Country Survey of Climate, Ecology and Land Use among Mongolian Pastoralists. Conference on Grassland Ecosystems of the Mongolian Steppe, 4–7 November 1993. Wingspread Center, Racine, WI.
Fernandez-Gimenez, M. E. 2002. Spatial and Social Boundaries and the Paradox of Pastoral Land Tenure: A Case Study from Postsocialist Mongolia. Human Ecology, 30: 49–78.
Fernandez-Gimenez, M. & Allen-Diaz, B. 1999. Testing a Non-Equilibrium Model of Rangeland Vegetation Dynamics in Mongolia. Journal of Applied Ecology, 36: 871–885.
Fernandez-Gimenez, M. E. & Batbuyan, B. 2004. Law and Disorder: Local Implementation of Mongolia’s Land Law. Development and Change, 35(1): 141–166.
Fernandez-Gimenez, M. E., Kamimura, A., and Batbuyan, B. 2008. Implementing Mongolia’s Land Law: Progress and Issues: Final Report, a Research Project of the Central for Asian Legal Exchange (CALE), Nagoya University. Nagoya. (Web version).
Fernandez-Gimenez, M. E. & Swift, David M. 2003. Strategies for sustainable grazing management in the developing world. In: Allsopp, N, Palmer, A.R., Milton, S.J., Kirkman, K.P., Kerley, G.I.H., and Hurt, C.R. (eds.) Rangelands in the New Millennium, Proceedings of the VII International Rangelands Congress, 26 th July-1 st August 2003; Durban, South Africa: Document Transformation Technologies, pp. 821–831.
Fratkin, E. 1997. Pastoralism: Governance and Development Issues. Annual Review of Anthropology, 26: 235–261.
Hannam, I. 2008. Report to United Nations Development Program Mongolia on Review of Draft Pastureland Law of Mongolia. UNDP Sustainable Land Management for Combating Desertification in Mongolia, Ulaanbaatar.
Humphrey, C. & Sneath, D. 1999. The End of Nomadism?: Society, State and the Environment in Inner Asia. Duke University Press: Durham.
Jamsranjav, Chantsalkham. 2009. Sustainable Rangeland Management in Mongolia: the Role of Herder Community Institutions. Land Restoration Training Programme, Final project 2009. Keldnaholt, 112 Reykjavík, Iceland.
Leach M., Mearns, R., and Scoones, I. 1999. Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management. World Development, 27(2): 225–247.
Marin, A. 2008. Between Cash Cows and Golden Calves: Adaptations of Mongolian Pastoralism in the ‘Age of the Market.’ Nomadic Peoples, 12(2): 75–101.
Mau, G. & Chantsalkham, J. 2006. Herder Group Evaluation: A Study of Herder Groups, Their Present Status, and Future Potential. Mongolia: UNDP Sustainable Grasslands Program, Ulaanbaatar.
Mearns, R. 1993. Territoriality and Land Tenure among Mongolian Pastoralists: Variation, Continuity and Change. Nomadic Peoples, 33: 73–103.
Mearns, R. 1994. Community-Based Management of Renewable Natural Resources: The Case of Pastoral Ecosystems Under Post-Socialist Transition in Mongolia. http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/dlc/handle/10535/4326
Mearns, R. 2004 Decentralisation, Rural Livelihoods and Pasture-Land Management in Post-Socialist Mongolia. European Journal of Development Research, 16(1): 133–152.
Niamir-Fuller, Maryam. 2000. Managing Mobility in African Rangelands, In: McCarthy, N., Swallow, B., Kirk, M. and Hazell, P. (eds.) Property rights, risk, and livestock development in Africa, International Food Policy Research Institute, pp.103–131.
Ostrom, E. 1990. Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Ostrom, E. 2009. Social-Ecological Systems: a General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social Ecological Systems. Science, 325:419.
Rossabi, M. 2005. Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Schmidt, S. 2006. Pastoral Community Organization: Livelihoods and Biodiversity Conservation in Mongolia’s Southern Gobi Region. USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P, 39: 18–29.
Sneath, D. 2002. Mongolia in the ‘Age of the Market: Pastoral Land-use and the Development Discourse. In: Mondel, R. & Humphrey, C. (eds.), Markets & Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism. Berg: Oxford, N.Y., pp. 191–210.
Sneath, D. 2003. Land Use, the Environment and Development in Post-socialist Mongolia. Oxford Development Studies, 31(4): 441– 459.
Swift, J. 1995, Rural Development: The Livestock Sector. In: Grifin, K. (ed.) 1995, Poverty and the Transition to a Market Economy in Mongolia, St. Martin’s Press, pp. 104–134.
Taylor, J.L. 2006. Negotiating the Grassland: The Policy of Pasture Enclosures and Contested Resource Use in Inner Mongolia. Human Organization, 65(4): 374–386.
Upton, C. 2005. Institutions in a Pastoral Society: Processes of Formation and Transformation in Post-Socialist Mongolia. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 25(3): 584–599.
Upton, C. 2008. Social Capital, Collective Action and Group Formation: Developmental Trajectories in Post-Socialist Mongolia. Human Ecology, 36: 175–188.
Wesche, K. & Retzer, V. 2005. Is Degradation a Major Problem in Semi-Desert Environments of the Gobi Region in Southern Mongolia? Erforschung der Biologischen Ressourcen der Mongolei, 9: 133–146.
World Bank. 2008. MONGOLIA: Livestock Sector Study, Vol. 1 – Synthesis Report. World Bank.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Japan
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Kamimura, A. (2013). Pastoral Mobility and Pastureland Possession in Mongolia. In: Yamamura, N., Fujita, N., Maekawa, A. (eds) The Mongolian Ecosystem Network. Ecological Research Monographs. Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54052-6_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54052-6_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Tokyo
Print ISBN: 978-4-431-54051-9
Online ISBN: 978-4-431-54052-6
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)