The countries facing many challenges to adapt with climate change. Pastoral vulnerability assessment is base to measure how climate change affect the pasture, livestock, livelihoods of the herding community. Our past study “Ecological vulnerability assessment for adaptation strategy formulation at different spatial scales in western Mongolia and China” (CRRP2017-04MY-BALT) under APN was addressed it. The rural herding communities, young leaders, and local government units, lie in lack of scientific information to better understand Climate-Pasture-Livelihood’s nexus and how it might impact their well-being now and into the future, as well as limited capacity building resources in between science, policies, and its implementation. The science-policy adaptive capacity program (SiPaC) aims to enhance the local herding communities, young leaders/researchers, practitioners, and government units to participate in and connect with local, national, and regional scientific contributions and policy agenda (SDG’s) on climate change adaptation, and to learn the science-based pastoral managements, best practices, and innovative solutions. It is expected that capacity program will serve a platform to facilitate the targeted stakeholders’ knowledge, management, skills, networking, partnership as well as local adaptation strategy through Scientific contributions, structured learning tools, methodologies, training manuals or guidelines, practical and interactive sessions in local needs.
Project Leader
Dr. Battogtokh D., Director of the Department of Science and Technology Policy, Ministry of Economic Development of Mongolia
Our ministry has been supported to work together to reduce the impact and risk of climate change in Gobi-Altai Province, to improve the quality of life of the people, and to increase their income. I am fully confident that project participants from Gobi-Altai province are able to take concrete and new steps to expand and develop cooperation, new knowledge and new image in a comprehensive way to work more closely with scientific institutions, policymakers, and academics within the framework of the capacity building project.
Mr. Sh. Erdenebat, Chair of the Gobi-Altai Province Government Office
I would like to express our gratitude for the project proponent, collaborators, implementing and supporting organizations, scientists and policymakers to give this opportunity to implement jointly with Gobi-Altai Province. Gobi-Altai province is the second largest province in the country in terms of the area far from the central region (1400-1500 km). It has 18 sums and 88 bags, a total population of about 58 thousand and more than 3 million head of livestock, as well high mountains, steppes, and 13 of the 33 Gobi valleys are located with extreme climate changes. Everyone knows that due to the extreme weather caused by climate change, the local people, especially the people engaged in animal husbandry and agriculture, have a lot of economic losses and stress. This project has had a significant impact on acquiring the right skills, knowledge, networking and contributions for the participating representatives from 5 sums. In my suggestion, the governor of Gobi-Altai province is planning to take the initiative to make the continued project proposal, which is jointly implemented at the level of our province including all other 13 sums, and at national level in future.
Prof. Jia Gensuo, Director and Professor Global Change Research Center for East Asia (START-TEA), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences
I am glad to be an international collaborator of this APN project, which is an important effort to enhance science-policy interface and to build science empowered capacity of climate change adaptation for local nomads and government officers in Mongolia grassland. The project is so successful that we were able to engage over planned number of locals from the Gobi-Altai Province to exchange ideas and share experiences with project scientists from Mongolia, China, and Japan. The on-site training programs and questionnaires were also very effective, and we learnt a lot on the main challenges and local knowledge for potential climate change adaptation strategies. In next phases of the project, we could well use big data, citizen science, and digital technologies to further enhance capacity of climate change adaptation, and scale up what we learnt from our experience in Gobi-Altai to other regions in Mongolia and the Asia-Pacific.