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View photos of Mongolia Mongolian Family Photo © Chris Pague/TNC A Mongolian man rides his horse Photo © Chris Pague/TNC Yak Photo © Chris Pague/TNC Sarantuya and Onon visit Colorado's Great Sand Dune National Park Photo © TNC

By Chris Pague
Director of Conservation Science
The Nature Conservancy

Looking into the Past to Protect the Future

Sharing science for grassland conservation around the world

I remember the day in Mongolia we went out into the field. We passed through open temperate grasslands– what we call ‘Prairie’ and they call ‘Steppe.’ Mongolia is composed of one big city surrounded by a few smaller towns. The rest is wildlands. About half of the people live as nomads. The leaders have created protected areas where there is no use but traditional, nomadic use. These areas are surrounded by buffer land of compatible economic use. There is no private land. It’s much like the American west in the early to mid-1800's, before the invention of barbed wire.

Imagine a grassland about the size of Texas with no fences and nomads who manage the land by the movement of their livestock. Here in Colorado, we can’t go back to a time without fences. But we can study how these people have sustained grasslands for 1,000 years by grazing goats, camels and now cows. As the consumer economy grows this could all change, and that’s why these exchanges are so important, to get ahead of the curve.

Now fast forward to this Fall. I am honored to be hosting two Mongolian colleagues at an exchange based in Colorado. My job is to present how we think about strategies for protecting land in Colorado. My images showed Mongolian and Colorado landscapes side by side and the similarities were striking. 
 
I was astonished by the commonalities in the structure of the landscape, and the species that lived there. By “structure” I mean the geology and plant vegetation. The species overlap is really apparent with birds. One of the bird species I saw flying out of a river bottom in Monglia was a mallard duck. And that was just the beginning. I saw a long parade of species that I had always associated with North America: northern shovellers, shrikes, horned larks. 
 
Sometimes when I’ve traveled, especially in the tropics and New Zealand,  I’ve enjoyed myself, but I’ve felt out of place. I didn’t feel out of place in Mongolia. There were so many similarities that it felt, ecologically-speaking, like home.
 
Even culturally there were resonances. Just as in the American West, horses are a central part of their culture. They depend on their horses for their day-to-day lives and also for their celebrations. They love to have rodeo-type events and festivals where horses play a central role.
 
What makes me feel so hopeful about our exchange with Mongolia is that we have so much to learn from each other. They come here to look into their future, and we go there looking into our past. Both places have answers we need if we are to protect grasslands and there species – one of the most globally endangered ecosystems.
 
I’m also hopeful about what these Mongolian scientists can accomplish because of the great importance that the country  puts on education. There is a 97% education rate there. Take our Mongolian colleague Sarah Ntuya. She used to work for the Ministry of Nature and Environment, has multiple degrees and has worked with both The Nature Conservancy and World Wildlife Fund. She has created a small nonprofit that shapes environmental policy, speaks many languages, and her passion for protecting these grasslands is as vast as the Steppes themselves. I think it’s an honor for Colorado to be a part of this effort, and I look forward to many more exchanges.

• Listen to Voice of America's news story about the exchange.
• Read press release.
  What do Mongolia and Colorado share in common? Large swaths of grasslands and an innovative partnership designed to protect these rapidly disappearing lands. A hands-on exchange program will inform conservation practices on both continents by promoting the exchange of information and techniques for protecting these grassy landscapes.
• Colorado's Grassland Work
  Of the world's major habitat types, temperate grasslands are at the greatest risk in Colorado. Two groundbreaking Conservancy projects are aimed at preserving these imperiled grasslands in our state.