Savory Project
Mongolia
Project Overview
The project “PLUS – Pasture Land – Use it Sustainably” is a multipartner initiative led by ADRA Mongolia and the Savory Institute. It seeks to address the deterioration of pastures due to overgrazing by introducing and consolidating the use and understanding of Holistic Planned Grazing among the herders and communities of the Ider Soum in Mongolia.
Activities of the PLUS project have included various online and in-person training events for the Ider herder community and national actors, Ecological monitoring using Savory’s EOV methodology to establish baselines, work with the Ider Milk Programme and other support activities, with the aim of helping Ider communities and herders to incorporate regenerative grazing approaches and holistic decision-making into their daily lives.
Updates
In the winter of 2022–2023, Ider was one of the Dzud high-risk soums in the nation because of the excessive snowfall and dearth of greenery.
However, by utilizing the pastures in a cyclic fashion, the herders with whom we work were able to survive this difficult winter and spring:
After virtual training to the local partners and herders throughout 2021 and online land planning sessions in Spring 2022, the first in-person herder training was successfully completed in May. After a refresher in core concepts, the grazing plans for the growing season were finalized in groups and presented to local neighbors and the Ider Soum government.
The majority of trainees and project participants are women herders and they are seen by community representatives as those leading the process to restore their grasslands and improve management of their family herds. At an annual gathering of +150 women herders from the Soum (Municipality) held on the 23rd of May, Impact Landed presented a talk on core concepts of Holistic Management and the need for improved management of pastoral resources.
A second grazing planning session and EOV baseline and training will be conducted in August 2022, in addition to financial planning activities to reduce dependence on bank loans and cash advances from middlemen to cover daily and seasonal needs. Although herders acknowledge excessive livestock numbers, they still carry overly mature or non-productive animals through the winter seasons and animal productivity and fiber production is significantly below potential; it is expected that improved financial and land planning will allow for non-productive livestock to be sold in a timely manner, reduce costs for winter feeding and for income to increase under improved management cycles targeted at quality fiber and dairy/meat products.
