Today’s action-Tomorrow`s guarantee

Humanity`s demand for ecological resources and services have been tripled in the last 40 years whereas we, humans have used up earth`s all the regenerative resources of 2019 within the first seven months of the year. This is the earliest ever Earth overshoot day recorded in history. What does it mean? We consume more resources than the planet can regenerate in a year and it resulted in many problems, including climate change and depletion of natural resources. This will ultimately have a negative influence on the quality of life and lifestyle of the people and within a few decades, humanity might face an environmental disaster that we haven’t even imagined in our worst nightmare. There is a need to adapt to such drastic change, and what Mongolia is doing with regard to this issue?

Mongolia has joined most of the multilateral environmental agreements dealing with various environmental issues, though, funding of the projects aimed to support and implement those agreements at a national level has been inadequate and mostly relied on donations and soft loans by donors. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism has engaged in about 170 different agreements, memorandums, and conventions with more than 30 countries as of 2016. Besides, a total of 83 projects have been implemented with the support and aid from donor countries between 1991-2017. At present, 28 projects funded by international organizations and 20 projects funded by the state budget are being implemented. A total of 13.7 billion MNT has been allocated for these projects from the state budget and 60 percent of the budget is spent on projects aimed to protect the ecosystem of lakes and rivers and establish weather stations.

Water

Within the framework of increasing access to sanitation facilities and determining, managing and protecting water resources, several projects have been successfully carried out. One of them is the “Ganga lake ecosystem restoration” project within which hydrological and water balance study has been carried out and diversion canals and conservationist houses were built. When rainfall is scarce, specifically from June to August, water (3.25 l/s) is fed through the canal to sustain minimum water level of 1293.4 meter and minimum water volume of 870000 cubic meters.

Mining infrastructure investment support project (MINIS), funded by the World Bank provides technical assistance to the Government of Mongolia and the groundwater monitoring network was established within the scope of the project. At present, a total of 265 monitoring points has been set up. The MINIS will enable to develop a plan to regularly measure groundwater levels in the region and control water management in the Oyu Tolgoi and Tavan Tolgoi basin. On top of this, a survey of water resource locations in Dornogobi and Gobi-Altai provinces and groundwater explorations and researches have been carried out.

Moreover, a 350 million USD grant program funded by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, will support the construction of new wells at the western edge of Ulaanbaatar city. This project is expected to provide additional supplies of 50MCM per year by extracting, purifying and transporting new sources of groundwater into the city. Additionally, it will create a substitute for freshwater that CHP-3 and CHP-4 currently consume. As a result of the project, Ulaanbaatar residents will not be forced to worry about water supply in 50 years.

Forest

Nationwide, reforestation was implemented in more than 3351.8 hector land, natural regeneration supporting work was carried out in 2366 hector areas, forest belt was created in 345.9 hector areas and forest restoration was performed in 6027.6 hectors area by the financing of the state, province, community and business entities in 2018.

The United Nations Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD+) was implemented between 2015-2018. Within the framework of the project, the National strategy on reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation has been approved. Additionally, the determination of forest fund volume was carried out and initiatives to support the livelihood of residents by establishing forest communities in Khuvsgul and Tuv province have been implemented. Moreover, Mongolia will be entitled to receive funding from the international organizations by submitting its report on progress made in dealing with climate change.

By the Korea Forest Service financing, Mongolia-South Korea “Green belt” plantation project is being implemented in two stages. In the first stage which was completed between 2006-2017, reforestation work was performed in 2826 hector areas in Dalanzadgad and Bulgan soum of Umnugobi province and Lun soum of Tuv province. Besides, tree breeding nurseries were established to prepare seedlings and more than 20 million seedlings of the native plants with tolerance to drought, desertification, cold and other natural impacts have been growing. It should also be noted that education and training have been carried out 2-3 times per year, more than 300 ecology experts and local residents were involved in training workshops and joint research works were conducted by a team of experts and scholars within the framework of the project. The second stage of the project runs from 2017-2022 and it involves the creation of a public park in Dambadarjaa, handing over an afforestation area to the Government control and maintenance and protection of the already established forest belts.

Climate change adaptation

“Biodiversity and Adaptation to Climate Change” is a development project implemented from 2015 to 2020 through the KfW Development Bank donation. The project with the purpose to strengthen the management of Protected Area Network has been implemented in 15 protected areas in Central, Khangai and Eastern regions of Mongolia. Overall project finance is 47.55 million EUR, of which 39 million EUR is contributed by the KfW Development Bank while the remaining is contributed by the state budget. Improvement of the internet network, update of official websites and supply of basic equipments (including uniforms, vehicles and research devices) of the 33 protected areas administrations have been successfully completed. On top of this, a total of 53 construction works, such as conservationist houses, training and data centers, office building of the administrations was built in the first phase of the project. In the second stage of the project, selected provinces will be divided into 5 clusters to strengthen the protected area and buffer zone management planning and improve the livelihood of local residents.

Agriculture is one of the main sources of greenhouse gas emissions and countries pay special attention to reduce such an emission by limiting agriculture sector emissions. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism in cooperation with Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) have jointly launched a project, “Strengthening capacity in agriculture and land-use sectors in Mongolia for enhanced transparency in implementation and monitoring of Mongolia’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement”. This medium-sized project with 1.2 million USD budget will be implemented for three years starting from April 2019. Within the framework of the project, institutional arrangements to coordinate the preparation of ETF reports for agriculture, land-use, and other relevant sectors will be enhanced and tools, mechanisms, and personnel in charge of estimation, documentation, and reporting of greenhouse gas emission will be strengthened.

Experts point out that the environmental projects, specifically mine reclamation projects are different from the ones of other sectors for their outcome is not immediately observed. It has already been universally accepted that protection of nature, mine reclamation, and climate change adaptation are shared responsibility we bear to our future generation. Hence, multilateral cooperation in this field is fast becoming a common trend. Current developments of nature and climate change constantly remind us to intensify our efforts in this field.