The relevance of herders’ local ecological knowledge on coping with livestock losses during harsh winters in western Mongolia

Abstract

In many regions of the world, traditional and local ecological knowledge is still important today for coping with environmental challenges. This study explored the relevance of such knowledge for predicting and coping with harsh winter conditions (dzud) in a remote area of western Mongolia, where government support to disasteraffected herders is restricted by weak infrastructure. Structured face-to-face interviews were held in 50 households (HHs), addressing aspects of livestock possession and management as well as disaster prediction and mitigation. The responses disclosed that livestock losses during the 2009/10 dzud averaged 112.4 animals per HH, equaling nearly 80% of the interviewees' total livestock possession in summer 2013. To reduce such high losses in the future, herders planned to improve their hay-making efforts and winter pen preparation. However, they also stated that the earliest signs for a dzud occur in September, when it is already too late for substantial hay-making. Therefore, some herders underlined the necessity of maintaining livestock productivity through segregated summer grazing of specific animal groups, controlled mating and early sale of weak livestock. Animals are then entering a harsh winter in good body condition. National and international organizations wishing to support livestock keepers in this and similar regions should therefore highlight the relevance of local strategies for disaster prevention and support community-based approaches that can compensate for the prevalent lack of family labour.

Evolution of Rural Livelihood Strategies in a Remote Sino-Mongolian Border Area: A Cross-Country Analysis

“…With the restriction of our interviews to rural HHs, we wanted to avoid bias that might otherwise have been introduced by the very rapid infrastructural and economic development of Qinghe in comparison to Bulgan sum city [35,52], since the latter is smaller and has a greater disadvantage in terms of physical infrastructure [53]. Based on the data collected using the same questionnaire on both sides of the border, a separation of four distinct but homogeneous clusters across the two countries was possible (Appendix A, Figure A1).…”

Managing Rangelands Without Herding? Insights From Africa and Beyond

“…Seasonally relevant are activities related to reproduction management (selection of breeding females and males, temporal inclusion of males in the breeding herd), castration of males not used for breeding, and culling of old or infertile females and males. Once a year shearing or combing of fiber-yielding animals is required, while other tasks are contextual such as marking of new animals in the herd, animal sales and slaughter, hay making, and pen preparation for the winter time (LPV, 2007;Turner, 2009;Legeard et al, 2014;Stépanoff et al, 2017;Soma and Schlecht, 2018;Gantuya et al, 2019).…”

“…Beyond appropriate time allocation to different tasks that are directly connected to the daily herding duty, herders need support by family, peers or kin groups for laborious tasks such as disease (prevention) treatments, marking and milking the animals, hay making, and shearing (Figure 1). The time herders spend with their animals, and preference for individual or group herding, thus also depends on the location of the pasture and the season, as well as on tasks at seasonal campsites, on hay-making plots or at the main settlement where crop farming may take place (Sangay and Vernes, 2008;Nkedianye et al, 2011;Soma and Schlecht, 2018). As shown by the example of the Mongolian Altai, shearing of sheep, felting of wool, and vaccination of livestock are jointly organized by several families on the summer pastures.…”

Herd Agency

“…According to S. Badamkhatan ([1981] 2010), herder households in Mongolia during the Soviet period began to specialise in herding one species, which helped collectives to manage and implement payment systems through labour divisions. Due to the socialist practice of species specialisation, many households in the post-socialist period lacked horse-herding skills and knowledge (for ecological knowledge, see also Soma & Schlecht 2018). When collectives collapsed in the early 1990s, herder households started to re-learn other herding techniques.…”