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East Asia & Pacific is facing some great development challenges today: urbanization, protection of the environment, the need to find renewable energy sources and many others. This site wants to create a conversation around those important issues. More »

Mongolia

Mongolia reaches milestone in global assessment of threatened species

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Tue, 2009-10-13 15:42
Red deer from the Mongolia Red List for Mammals.

The Red Books and Red Lists, produced regularly by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, are fundamental tools in the monitoring of the conservation status of the world’s animals and plants. On publication, the news they generate is very significant but generally rather depressing. However, these global Red Lists have their limitations at national levels – when species are nationally very common but globally threatened – or when species are very rare and threatened, with no global conservation concern whatsoever.

Take the Red Deer in Mongolia for example. Globally this is formally of ‘Least Concern’ (pdf) – the lowest category – because it has an enormous range, is managed for hunting in many countries, and effectively protected in others. But in Mongolia, its status is the highest possible ‘Critically Endangered’ (pdf).

Photo blog: Bringing support to communities in rural Mongolia

Submitted by Erdene-Ochir Badarch on Wed, 2009-08-26 23:00

Editor’s note: Photo blogger Erdene-Ochir Badarch works on rural and environmental issues for the World Bank in Mongolia. Earlier this summer, he and a team of 17 people spent 160 hours traveling 2,300 kilometers through Mongolia’s forests, mountains and steppe to visit sites and people receiving support from the second Sustainable Livelihoods Project. The project is part of a three-phase 12-year program, which works to enhance secure and sustain livelihoods in communities throughout Mongolia by providing support in rural areas for improved health and education facilities, pasture management and access to financial services. Erdene took the pictures (seen below) at the Zavhan and Bayanhongor aimags (provinces). Read more about the Mongolian Sustainable Livelihoods Project II project here. (Hover your mouse over "Notes" for photo information.)


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Effects of climate change put Mongolian herders at risk, new research shows

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Thu, 2009-08-13 16:43
Mongolian livestock herders will be at greater risk of severe weather conditions if issues are not addressed urgently. (Photo courtesy of Nomad Tales under a Creative Commons license)

In my last blog post, I wrote about UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s recent visit to Mongolia, in which he discussed the country’s vulnerability to climate change. Around the time of his visit, the World Bank issued a press release with preliminary results from a study, released under our Netherlands-Mongolia Trust Fund for Environment Reform, otherwise known as NEMO (nothing to do with Disney’s cute fish). One wouldn’t normally go public on something unfinished but, encouraged by our erstwhile Director for China and Mongolia, David Dollar we felt that even the preliminary results were important and worth sharing.

We found that Mongolian livestock herders will be at greater risk of severe weather conditions if the growing livestock populations and deteriorating rangeland are not addressed urgently. Similar statements have been made in the past, but the new results from the field appear to be the first quantitative evidence from long-term monitoring plots. The NEMO work measured the vegetation in multiple plots set up by the Asian Development Bank in 1998 but not revisited until now. So far the plots in the Forest-Steppe region of Zavkhan aimag (province) and in the Desert of Gobi Altai aimag have been re-measured and in both areas the researchers had found a disturbing decline in rangeland quality.

Mongolia: Country of climatic extremes vulnerable to impacts of climate change

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Wed, 2009-08-12 15:27

Impacts of climate change could cause heat stress in many plants and cause problems for grazing animals in Mongolia. (Photo courtesy of PnP! under a Creative Commons license)

Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General, was recently in Mongolia in part to observe the ways in which climate change is affecting this country of climatic extremes and how it needs to adapt. Of course one could be forgiven for thinking that a country with -40 degree winters, +40 degree summers, dust storms and flash floods might welcome a bit of climate change.

Unfortunately we can’t produce ‘designer climates’ just yet, and the impacts of the ways in which the Mongolian climate is changing are worrying. Already the combination of precipitation decreases and temperature increases have caused rivers and lakes to dry and herders and local government officials to complain about the lowering productivity of the steppe.

Regional roundup: Finance in East Asia - Jul. 10

Submitted by James Seward on Thu, 2009-07-09 23:16

This is the latest installment of the regional round-up and it has been a while.  However, there has not been much groundbreaking news related to the financial crisis to report, with a few exceptions (more to come later). 

Mongolia's growing shantytowns: the cold and toxic ger districts

Submitted by Dave Lawrence on Wed, 2009-07-08 14:06

Children breathe thick, toxic smog from thousands of stoves in Ulaanbaatar's ger districts, which are home to 60 percent of the city's population.

There’s no capital city anywhere in the world with a housing problem like Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Imagine a city of one million people. Then imagine 60 percent of them living in settlements without water, sanitation or basic infrastructure, often in traditional Mongolian felt tents, known as gers. Then imagine these people relying on wood- or coal-burning stoves for cooking and heating, with fuel costs eating up 40 percent of their income. Then imagine the discomfort of having to get up in the middle of the night when it’s -35 degrees Celsius to go to the bathroom – outdoors.

Worst of all, imagine you and your children breathing the thick, toxic smog from thousands of stoves 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Unfortunately, this is not imagination, this is the real situation for over a half million people living in the ger districts of the capital. Not a pretty picture.

Making rural life a little less vulnerable for Mongolian herders

Submitted by David Dollar on Tue, 2009-06-23 14:17

Better materials and student participation characterize the READ schools project. (photo by Prateek Tandon)

Mongolia’s extreme climate was brought home to me again last week as I went with our World Bank team on a retreat about an hour and a half out of the capital city Ulaanbaatar. Wednesday afternoon was hot and summery, but on Thursday a cold front brought extreme storms that knocked out power and left a dusting of snow on the hills around UB. The life of the rural population, mostly herders, is inherently vulnerable in this extreme environment. Yet a number of projects supported by the World Bank have reduced this vulnerability somewhat in recent years.

Traveling around the countryside now I am struck by the fact that – for better or worse – my Blackberry keeps me connected most of the time. One of our innovative projects has offered subsidies, which private phone companies have competed for, to expand coverage in the countryside. The economics of cell phones is such that a one-time subsidy to erect towers will enable private companies to offer connectivity on a commercial basis.

Mongolia's forests burning: are they good or are they bad?

Submitted by Tony Whitten on Fri, 2009-05-29 13:01

Last weekend a small group of us decided to drive the 8 hours or so to the Khonin Nuga (pronounced Honing Nuk) research station, northwest of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. We had a standing invitation to visit the site for years from Professor Michael Mühlenberg of Georg-August University in Göttingen, Germany, and Professor R. Samiya of National University, Ulaanbaatar – who together run the station. The route took us through the town of Zuun Kharaa, the vodka-producing capital of Mongolia, and off towards the dark-green forested mountains of the western Khentii.  We saw Mongolia’s largest bird, the Black Vulture, and also the respected and graceful Demoiselle Cranes picking up grasshoppers among the wind-blown solid waste around the town. We were going to spend the night in the research station, discuss with Prof. Mühlenberg the possibility of using the site as a training center within the forest landscapes project we are preparing, and find time to explore the taiga forest and steppe by horse. And then we were going to do the bumpy ride home again.

Instead, we found ourselves facing a major forest fire. (Continue reading after the jump)

CarbonExpo: On climate change and carbon finance, cities initiate change

Submitted by Florian Kitt on Wed, 2009-05-27 09:15

Pongtip Puvacharoen works at the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific stand on the first day of Carbon Expo in Barcelona.

As promised, here's my first update from Barcelona and the CarbonExpo. Today is the first official day of the Expo, and my colleague from Bangkok, Pongtip Puvacharoen, and I basically just finished helping the World Bank's East Asian clients – China, Indonesia, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Thailand – set up the East Asia and Pacific Pavilion.

This year's CarbonExpo focuses on the efforts of cities to increase their sustainability by introducing clean transport, improve air quality, increase the production of renewable energy, and improve energy efficiency. I do love living in cities, in particular "megacities" of over 8 million inhabitants. But I am also a big fan of trees, green spots in between the concrete, and a fresh breeze – some things I sometimes miss in the U.S. and in East Asian metropolises.

This is why I really thought it important that Jakarta (Indonesia), Tianjin (China), and Bangkok (Thailand), participated in the Symposium on Cities, Climate Change, and Finance, co-organized by the World Bank, the Spanish government, and the City of Barcelona. After all cleaner, greener, and more livable cities are good for all of a city's inhabitants, rich and poor, and help improve living standards and the health of its people.

Carbon Expo: A marketplace to finance environmental change

Submitted by Florian Kitt on Thu, 2009-05-21 17:04

Carbon finance sounds boring and technical and not much fun. However, it actually does a lot of good and can help fund critical environmental preservation projects as well as introduce clean and renewable technologies in both developed and developing countries. I am not a carbon specialist but at present involved in organizing the World Bank's East Asia and Pacific Region's participation in next week's Carbon Expo, a global trade fair for CO₂ market participants. Doesn't really sound like a lot fun? Indeed, it's a lot of work.