Our Priorities for a resilient Mongolia
The Nature Conservancy's vision for Mongolia is a future where people and nature can thrive.
Mongolia possesses some of the world’s most captivating and unspoiled lands, home to snow leopards, Mongolian gazelles and one of the last-remaining nomadic herding cultures. Since 1992, the nation has developed a network of national protected areas that now total about 21 percent of all its land. And the nation has committed to formally protecting 30% of its grasslands, forests, deserts, mountains, rivers and lakes by 2030.
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) has been working in Mongolia for over two decades. Over the years with our partners, we have:
- Completed Ecoregional Assessments mapping important areas to protect across Mongolia.
- Supported national and local governments in establishing new protected areas in the Eastern Steppe grasslands. Around 45 percent of the Steppe, or 32 million acres, is now under some form of protection.
- Demonstrated sustainable grassland management practices at Toson Hulstai Nature Reserve, gaining the participation of the 200 families while increasing important wildlife populations.
- Trained hundreds of managers and herders in our science-based Conservation Action Plan methodology to help them improve management of their local protected areas.
- Helped the government pass a law requiring companies to avoid, minimize or offset development impacts.
But to support the Mongolian Government's national target of protecting and sustainably managing 30% of its country by 2030, there is still much more to do.
Our Priorities
For over two decades, TNC has collaborated with national and regional governments, local herding communities and other partners to conserve Mongolia's vast ecosystems.
Protect Land and Water
Mongolia’s grasslands are one of the planet’s most critical conservation priorities—a last-chance ecosystem that must be saved for a sustainable future.
Through a proven model called Project Finance for Permanence, Eternal Mongolia will safeguard an additional 14.4 million hectares of Mongolia’s intact grasslands, forests, deserts, wetlands and rivers; strengthen the management effectiveness of 47 million hectares of Mongolia’s network of national protected areas; and extend sustainable and climate-resilient community-managed practices to 34 million hectares outside protected areas.
Community-Based Conservation
Herder leadership in grassland conservation is essential for ensuring the long-term protection of ecosystems.
TNC recognizes that herder leadership in grassland conservation is essential for ensuring the long-term protection of this ecosystem. It supports herder communities by enhancing economic opportunities, reducing grazing pressure and improving grassland management.
Utilizing the innovative Community-Based Organization (CBO) model, TNC is helping communities acquire rights to pasturelands, enabling them to restrict development and usage by herders lacking shared grazing agreements.
This approach aims to revive customs of respecting shared resource use, develop natural resource management plans emphasizing traditional sustainable grazing practices and support herder initiatives in forming larger associations for increased influence, improved coordination, conflict reduction and broader impact across landscapes.
As of 2026, 345 CBOs covering almost 11.1 million hectares have been established.
Tackle Climate Change
Mongolia is the world’s 18th-largest country by area. Its vast and intact natural landscape offers huge potential to reduce greenhouse gas and spark an economic recovery. We are supporting local communities and herders to invest in and build a low-carbon, climate-resilient future, helping them to be better prepared to adapt to current and future climate impacts.
TNC in Mongolia is working to tackle climate change through natural climate solutions which can help Mongolia avoid or increase the capture of carbon dioxide.
Natural climate solutions involve protection, management and restoration activities that avoid greenhouse gas emissions and/or increase carbon storage across forests, wetlands, grasslands and agricultural lands.
In Mongolia, we are piloting projects in the peatlands of Northern Mongolian Mountain steppe and in the Eastern Mongolian grasslands to support conservation activities that has the potential to avoid carbon emissions and/or increase carbon sequestration.
Sustainable Financing for Conservation
In 2024, the Government of Mongolia, in collaboration with local herding communities, TNC and Enduring Earth, the Eternal Mongolia Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) was launched.
By mobilizing approximately $198 million from public, private and domestic sources over the next 15 years, Eternal Mongolia intends to:
- safeguard an additional 14.4 million hectares of Mongolia’s unique freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems;
- strengthen the management effectiveness of Mongolia’s network of protected area systems, and;
- extend sustainable and climate-resilient community-managed practices to 34 million hectares outside protected areas.
Eternal Mongolia is a locally led initiative that will protect the future well-being of its people and help Mongolia chieve its conservation ambitions. These efforts will also help ensure the future of Mongolia’s unique nomadic culture and the physical and spiritual connections between the place and its people.
Our Goals for 2030
We’re racing to hit these targets to help the world reverse climate change and biodiversity loss. Together, we find the paths to make change possible.
- 40,000 km of riverine systems of Khuvsgul province are effectively protected
- 14 million hectares of important biodiversity areas are protected using a series of legal provisions.
- 40 million hectares of rangeland management is improved through community-based conservation.
- 10 million hectares of land is avoided from conversion through local-level protection.
- Support the leadership of 300 Community-Based Organizations involving 15,000 people in stewarding their environment and securing rights.
- 1 million hectares of riverine floodplains of Khuvsgul province are effectively protected under the Law of Water of Mongolia.
- 240,000 tCO2e/year reduced emissions.
If nature doesn’t exist, we won’t breathe like we do now. We won’t be able to protect it alone. As long as we all have unity, we can protect it.
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Herder Communities in Mongolia
In Mongolia, nature is a way of life. The Nature Conservancy is helping herders care for their land while providing opportunities for additional income.
Snow Leopards in the Western Altai Mountains
We’re working here to demonstrate a protected area management approach that values ecosystems and what they provide to people and wildlife.
Eternal Mongolia: 30 by 30
Mongolia is on a path to protect and sustainably manage 120 million acres, 30% of the country, by 2030—known as the "30 by 30" goal.