‘Land Degradation Offset and Mitigation in Western Mongolia’ project completes
EnvironmentUlaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ A closing workshop of the project ‘Land Degradation
Offset and Mitigation in Western Mongolia’ took place. Deputy Minister for
Environment and Tourism Ts.Batbayar, State Secretary of the Ministry of Environment
and Tourism Ts.Tsengel, and UN Development Programme (UNDP) Resident
Representative in Mongolia Beate Trankmann delivered opening remarks at the
event.
In the western region of Mongolia, mining is currently less developed but
might develop rapidly as a result of the Government’s economic development
plans for the region. Thus, the project was implemented over three years to
prevent potential harm to the rangelands in western Mongolia by introducing land
degradation offsetting approaches.
Thanks to the project, special protected areas now constitute 16 percent
of the region territory or 6.52 million hectares of land has been prevented from possible harmful effects. In addition, a total of 107 thousand hectares of land has been
protected through improvement of pastureland management and land rehabilitation.
The project was jointly implemented by the Ministry of Environment and Tourism
and UNDP Mongolia Office with grant aid of the Global Environment Facility and
support of governor’s offices and public and private sectors of the region.