Ulaanbaatar
Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Program Underway
Environment
Ulaanbaatar, August 19, 2025 /MONTSAME/. With funding from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) Seventh Replenishment, a Dryland Sustainable Landscapes Impact Program (DSL-IP) is being implemented across 11 countries located in global dryland regions.
In the relatively undisturbed steppe of eastern Mongolia—home to key migratory species such as the Mongolian white gazelle and the blue crane—the “Dryland Sustainable Landscapes and Biodiversity Conservation in Eastern Mongolia” Project (Eastern Steppe Project) is being carried out in nine soums of Khentii, Dornod, and Sukhbaatar aimags from 2021 to 2026. The Ministry of Environment and Climate Change leads the project in collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Over 50 domestic and international representatives visited Mongolia to observe the project’s outcomes, including officials from the FAO, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the World Overview of Conservation Approaches and Technologies (WOCAT), the Ministry of Agriculture’s Land Resource Management Committee of the Republic of Kazakhstan, national and local land authorities, and the Kyrgyz Republic’s pasture-focused NGOs.
The exchange of experiences offers an opportunity to define regional cooperation priorities ahead of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists in 2026 and the 17th Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
In Central Asia, Mongolia and the Republic of Kazakhstan previously implemented joint projects, sharing knowledge and best practices. The first such activity took place last year in Almaty, the Republic of Kazakhstan, under the subtheme “Sustainable Rangeland Management.”
