Paper short abstract:

Mongolia is one of the few places where the herding community still practices mobile pastoralism. Seasonal mobility is important to Mongolia’s cultural heritage, allows for biodiversity of both wild and domestic species, and is a key means of co-existence with multiple species of animal.

Paper long abstract:

Mongolia is home to one of the largest, continuous intact grassland ecosystems left on the planet, in large part through herding families’ ongoing unique management of their multispecies herds in this landscape. The grasslands contain a rich diversity of plant species, supporting large ungulates, including takhi, wild ass and camel, and therefore apex predators, such as wolves and snow leopard. Over thousands of years the nomadic pastoral way of life successfully co-existed within this rich and diverse grassland ecosystem. This paper proposes that a key means of retaining this ongoing pastoral existence and the accompanying biodiverse domestic and wild animal populations, relates specifically to a mobile way of life. A focus on mobility is also a feature of newer pastoral methods, such as regenerative or holistic farming practices and rotational grazing patterns and is now practiced in contrast to more sedentary, intensive farming methods. The conservation focus here is on the mobility of both humans and more-than-humans as a means of retaining both socio-cultural and biological diversity in Mongolia, through minimal fencing and containment meaning that both domestic and wild mammals can co-exist as part of an interconnected ecology.