Source: Asia Development Bank
Mongolia’s rangelands occupy 70% of the country’s territory and are vital for climate mitigation through carbon storage. Research highlights the importance of sustainable grazing practices and collective herder management to restore degraded rangelands and maintain their ecological functions.
Spanning more than 110 million hectares across 70% of Mongolia’s land territory, and renowned as one of the last remaining natural steppe ecosystems, Mongolian rangelands have a crucial role to play in the country’s climate mitigation efforts.
If well managed, rangelands can serve as more stable carbon stores than forests, as they are more resilient to environmental stresses such as drought and fire.
Effective management practices can boost soil carbon stocks by increasing organic matter input or reducing carbon losses. Through photosynthesis, plants absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. As grasses grow, their dry and dead leaves and stems fall to the ground and decompose.
Roots, which often have more biomass below ground than above, also grow, and some die and decompose each year. Soil microorganisms aid in decomposing organic matter, and carbon from these sources is incorporated into soil carbon stocks.
Current carbon estimates for rangelands often focus on the topsoil, but a substantial amount of grassland soil carbon is found in deeper subsoil layers.
When rangelands degrade, soil carbon is released into the atmosphere. Therefore, scientists advise that climate mitigation efforts should focus on protecting this irreplaceable soil carbon as its restoration is difficult once lost.
In rangeland management science, this is known as a tipping point where changes in vegetation and soil become impossible to reverse.
Are Mongolian rangelands close to a tipping point? In the past thirty years, the livestock population in Mongolia has tripled, surpassing the rangelands’ carrying capacity by three times. This has resulted in degradation of 65% of rangelands.
However, due to traditional rotational grazing practices, most of the degraded rangelands have retained their ability to recover. Research findings confirm that 85% of degraded rangelands maintain their natural regeneration capacity if the level of degradation has not passed the threshold of no recovery.
Managed carefully in accordance with the seasonal carrying capacity, rangelands can recover and maintain their carbon sequestration and storage capacity for the benefit of the people, the country, and the world’s climate.
Mongolia’s first rangeland health report in May 2015 found 65% of rangelands were degraded, but 94% could still recover. By 2018, a second report showed the degraded rangelands had decreased to 57%. According to the third report released in 2022, the percentage of heavily degraded rangelands has declined from 10.2% to 6.6%.
Researchers attributed this positive trend to a high capacity for recovery of Mongolian rangelands, reduced grazing pressure, and herders’ commitment to improving rotational grazing practices.
This suggests the key to maintaining rangeland recovery capacity is resting rangelands during critical vegetation growth periods and adjusting livestock numbers based on seasonal productivity.
Mongolia’s agencies monitor rangelands at thousands of sites nationwide. Collaborating with international researchers, Mongolian scientists have developed tools like Ecological Site Descriptions and State and Transition Models to assess rangeland health. They’ve identified 22 ecological groups based on vegetation, soil, productivity, landscape, and climate, which guide site-specific grazing and stocking plans.
In cooperation with herder households, the Mongolian National Federation of Pasture User Groups has carried out several pilot projects testing the length of time different rangelands take to reach new recovery classes. Even rangelands that reached a heavy level of degradation are still able to recover if there is more than 10 years of frugal management.
The agriculture sector produces 53% of all greenhouse gas emissions, with land use and land management accounting for 34%, according to the latest Biannual Transparency Report. As the dominant ecosystem in Mongolia, rangelands have a huge role to play in the nation’s emission reduction targets.
Research trials conducted to rehabilitate heavily degraded rangelands with a range of modern technologies revealed that this is both difficult and costly. The best method is to revitalize traditional rotational grazing and resting practices. This has to be regulated through the collective control of herder households and supported by a legal framework.
These findings have led to the formation of pasture user groups among herder households that share customary access to the same seasonal rangelands. Group members define the boundaries of their seasonal rotational grazing areas and regulate their use.
These plans form the basis for establishing rangeland use agreements between the groups and local government, which are the means to enforce and monitor rotational grazing and rangeland-resting plans.
When rangelands show signs of degradation, herder households move to the next rangeland to let it regenerate. These are known among herders as the “4 Golden Rules”, followed to manage their grazing areas sustainably: do not exceed the carrying capacity of rangelands; do not deplete the regeneration capacity of plants; give plants time to recover; and practice pre-planned and regulated rotational grazing.
This nature-based solution offers ample opportunities to restore rangelands. Managed carefully in accordance with the seasonal carrying capacity, rangelands can recover and maintain their carbon sequestration and storage capacity for the benefit of the people, the country, and the world’s climate.
Across the globe, the rangeland ecosystem services are often undervalued, and much larger efforts are required to create awareness. Not only is it a source of livestock feed but also crucial in climate mitigation and adaptation efforts and provision of generic ecosystem services such as absorbing excess rainfall and releasing water gradually during dry periods, stabilizing soil quality to prevent erosion and desertification.
By integrating these actions into nationally determined contributions, national adaptation plans, and long-term emission strategies, we can strengthen community and ecosystem resilience and build a future ready to face a changing climate.