Innovative contractual arrangement for community-based management of pastureland improves livelihoods and reduces degradation

Location: Khotont, Deluin, Lun and Batsumber districts of Mongolia

Timeline: 1990 - 2010

Principal organisations: JASIL

The 200,000 herder households of Mongolia – representing more than 20% of the population –manage around 45 million livestock heads. The public pasturelands they use are at high risk of soil degradation. Over the past decade, JASIL has successfully experimented with, and implemented, a model for the community-based management of pastureland, in which the herder households, their community heads, and the local governments enter into contract, in order to manage the pastureland in an environmentally and economically sustainable manner. The income of the households involved in the 10-year experimentation increased by 23-56%.