UN agency joins Mongolia's efforts to safeguard vast, unique environments

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Mongolian Government today signed an agreement to support sustainable development and environmental protection in the fabled Asian country.

The new framework agreement with Mongolia's Ministry of Nature and Environment promises assistance by UNEP in environmental assessment and monitoring, the preparation of National Sustainable Development Strategies, programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use of ozone depleting substances, law and policy making, fund mobilization and international environmental negotiations.

Home to warlord Genghis Khan, whose 13th century empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, the landlocked nation's unique and varied environments - including super-arid desert, moist taiga forest, rolling steppe grasslands and glaciated alpine peaks - provide refuge to some of the last populations of endangered snow leopard, Argali sheep, wild ass, saiga, bacterian camel and Gobi bear.

UNEP's recent State of the Environment report shows that despite government efforts to formulate laws and policies to effectively manage natural resources, recent transitions to a market economy, along with rapid urbanization and industrialization, have accelerated risks to the environment. Some 70 per cent of pasturelands - used for livestock grazing and still the main livelihood for Mongolians - have been degraded, particularly around towns and cities, bringing erosion to thin soils and loss in plant diversity.

Mongolia's forests, which cover 10 per cent of its territory, have suffered from a decade of fragmented institutional responsibility, poor management and illegal cutting, according to UNEP. Declining forest cover and quality is causing flash floods, lowered groundwater, desertification and species loss. Air quality is also a significant problem in urban areas, particularly for the nearly 1 million residents of the capital, Ulaanbaatar, during winter.

The UNEP assessment recognizes that while environmental resources provide an important base for expanded economic opportunity through mining, forestry, farming and tourism, integrated national sustainable development policies and planning are desperately needed.