Opportunities to integrate herders’ indicators into formal rangeland monitoring: an example from Mongolia

Abstract

Despite increasing calls for knowledge integration around the world, traditional knowledge is rarely used in formal, Western‐science‐based monitoring and resource management. To better understand indicators herders use and their relationship to researcher‐measured indicators, we conducted in‐depth field interviews with 26 herders in three ecological zones of Mongolia. We asked each herder to (1) assess the overall condition of three different sites located along a livestock‐use gradient from their winter camp using a numeric scale, (2) describe the indicators they used in their assessment, and (3) explain what caused their pastures to remain healthy or become degraded. At each site, we collected field data on vegetation variables and compared these with herders’ ratings and indicators using linear regression. We used classification and ordination to understand how herders’ assessment scores related to plant community composition, and determine how well multivariate analysis of factors determining plant community composition aligned with herders’ observations of factors causing rangeland change. Across all ecological zones, herders use indicators similar to those used in formal monitoring. Herders’ assessment scores correlated significantly and positively with measured total foliar cover in all three ecological zones, and with additional measured variables in the steppe and desert steppe. Ordination revealed that herder assessment scores were correlated with the primary ordination axis in each zone, and the main factors driving plant community composition in each zone were the same as those identified by herders as the primary causes of rangeland change in that zone. These results show promise for developing integrated indicators and monitoring protocols and highlight the importance of developing a common language of monitoring terminology shared by herders, government monitoring agencies, and researchers. We propose a new model for integrating herder knowledge and participation into formal monitoring in Mongolia, with implications for rangelands and pastoral people globally. We suggest practical ways of involving herders in formal monitoring that have potential broad application for promoting local and indigenous people's participation in implementing international agreements such as the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, both of which call for involvement of local people and indigenous/traditional knowledges.

Using Research to Support Transformative Impacts on Complex, “Wicked Problems” With Pastoral Peoples in Rangelands

“…The MOR2 (Mongolian Rangelands and Resilience, also "mor" means "horse" in Mongolian) project started in 2008 as a large, 8year, national-scale project. Its goals were to understand climate and management impacts on rangelands and herder livelihoods, to assess the effects of community-based rangeland management (CBRM) institutions on social and ecological outcomes, and to understand the role of CBRM in system resilience to climatic and socio-economic changes Ulambayar et al, 2017;Jamsranjav et al, 2018Jamsranjav et al, , 2019Ulambayar and Fernández-Giménez, 2019).…”

Knowledge coproduction improves understanding of environmental change in the Ethiopian highlands

“…For example, Armitage et al (2011) demonstrate that the combination of insights from biological science and place-based local knowledge of an Arctic fish species led to a revised understanding of the causes of fish declines and more precise management options for addressing them. The multiple benefits of these cross-knowledge collaborative approaches have been observed in other socialecological contexts, including whale conservation (Huntington 2000, Fernandez-Gimenez et al 2006; forest change (Chalmers and Fabricius 2007); sea ice change (Nichols et al 2004, Laidler 2006; rangeland management (Fernández-Giménez 2000, Reed et al 2013, Klein et al 2014, Jamsranjav et al 2019; and fish and wildlife monitoring (Moller et al 2004, Prado et al 2013.…”

How Mongolian herders perceive ecological change in a “stable” landscape

“…Among other things, a better understanding of how local herders perceive landscape and pasture changes would be beneficial (cf. Gantuya et al 2019, Jamsranjav et al 2019.…”