Abstract
The socioeconomics and the ecological impact of nomadic pastoralism were analyzed using interviews with 87 herder families and secondary information in the western Khangai, Mongolia. The pastoralists had an income above the national average for rural areas in Mongolia. Most herders continued traditional seasonal migration patterns, which involved ca. 10 moves per year over a total distance of ca. 100 km between summer and winter grazing grounds. As elsewhere in Mongolia, the number of goats owned by herders has greatly increased and cashmere has become the main source of cash income. Total livestock numbers rose considerably after decollectivization of the livestock sector in 1992, but in recent years have periodically been reduced by harsh winters, often combined with drought. Due to the high economic risk of these periodic livestock losses, many herders invest in better education for their children to enable them to migrate to the cities.
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Acknowledgments
The study was supported by a grant of the Volkswagen Foundation to M. Hauck, Ch. Dulamsuren and Ch. Leuschner for the project “Forest regeneration and biodiversity at the forest-steppe border of the Altai and Khangai Mountains under contrasting developments of livestock numbers in Kazakhstan and Mongolia.” We are grateful to the Tsagaankhairkhan soum administration for permissions for field work. We thank Laura Sutcliffe (Göttingen) for checking the manuscript for language clarity. Bernd Raufeisen (Göttingen) prepared the map of the study area. We thank the two reviewers for their comments on the manuscript.
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Lkhagvadorj, D., Hauck, M., Dulamsuren, C. et al. Twenty Years After Decollectivization: Mobile Livestock Husbandry and Its Ecological Impact in the Mongolian Forest-Steppe. Hum Ecol 41, 725–735 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9599-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-013-9599-3