Local community leaders involved as Citizen conservationists                   and Guardians of Wildlife and Nature

The Guardians of Gobi wildlife & nature, and Citizen conservationists

Over the past years our organization has involved a selection of individuals from the local community of our project's areas as Citizen Conservationists and Guardians of Gobi wildlife and nature. Our main focus has been to involve a few members of the community of a Buddhist monastery as well as a few herders of our project areas.

We have empowered them as citizen conservationists and Guardians of Gobi wildlife and nature, training them to collect data on Gobi wildlife and to use camera traps, involving them in our research activities but also in local environmental awareness.

Their enthusiastic involvement in our project contributed in gathering a high amount of data on wildlife and livestock use of water sources, on ecology of various Gobi species, as well as on intraspecific and interspecific competitions at these water sources. Besides helping with data collection, they also learned more about behavioral ecology of the Gobi species inhabiting their areas and these species' ecosystem services as we shared with them the results of our research and of their contributions to our research program.

These citizen conservationists will also play a very important role in our conservation tourism program (we will post more in detail about this conservation tourism program later). The members of the Buddhist monastery community will remain our focus area within the coming years, and we will involve additional members of the local community as well.

In 2008, while we were starting our conservation program in the south and southeast regions of Mongolia's Gobi Desert, we discovered by chance this Buddhist monastery which is located amidst mountains, in a very remote and preserved area, and in the core habitat of the Mongolian Khulan. We then understood the importance of partnering with this monastery's community, in order to strengthen the bonds between Mongolian Buddhism and wildlife and nature protection, to keep wildlife thriving in this preserved area, away from human disturbances. Since many local visitors coming from different regions of the Gobi Desert and Mongolia stop by this monastery every year, this site also plays a vital role in local environmental awareness.

 

We believe that besides helping our organization to collect data about Gobi wildlife, members of the local community can also directly learn about ecology of Gobi wildlife and the ecosystem services provided by the different Gobi species, by taking part to hands-on scientific and conservation activities.  They can also contribute to raise local environmental knowledge by sharing their knowledge with other members of the local community. Thus, they can provide an invaluable contribution to the long-term success to protection of Gobi wildlife and the Gobi ecosystem. 

 

Through involving local community members in our conservation program, we also aim to empower them in protecting their lands, Gobi wildlife and the Gobi Desert ecosystem on the long-term. 

A Buddhist monastery and its community

The community of the buddhist monastery of the native mountain supports our actions and is actively involved in our conservation programme since 2008. Some members of this community regularly collect all year round some information about the ecology of the Mongolian khulan and other wild species (argali sheep, black-tailed gazelles, and other) in partnership with our research team. Also, two members of this community have been trained to use and set up camera traps and have sucessfully helped our team to collect information about water points use by Gobi wildlife. 

 

 

This monastery's community also plays a very crucial function in raising local awareness about protection of the Mongolian Khulan, Gobi wildlife and their habitat, as many local visitors visit this site every year, then making a bridge between Buddhism and nature protection in the Gobi Desert. 

 

 

This community is also involved in the community-based tourism activities that our organization runs in our study area. 

 


We plan to develop more our conservation activities with this Buddhist monastery, as well as to involve additional members of the local community on the long-term.

 

We are also planning to develop our community-based conservation program into a community-led conservation program over the course of the coming years. 

We also want to provide additional training to this monastery's members, the protected areas' rangers, herders and border protection officers. Our training will contain some participative, inquiry, and games-based educational activities, as well as more traditional training activities, knowledge assessments, and much more.