Mongolia

MONGOLIA
 * __ United Nations Environmental Issues Project __**

PART A: Country’s Background Information: 1) Mongolia is located in South-East Asia between Russia and China and is primarily consumed by the Gobi desert. 2) Mongolia has a semi-Democratic parliamentary system and the president is Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj. 3) Mongolia is divided into 21 provinces which are subdivided into 329 districts.  4) 5) Languages: Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic   6) Total Population: 2,832,224 7) Mongolia is an LDC because it is still in the process of developing and improving to a level in which citizens can comfortably live.

PART B: County’s Biodiversity 1) Mongolia has an extreme continental climate with long, cold winters and short summers.  2) Mongolia produces cashmere for export. 3) Herbivore: Cow, horse, sheep Carnivore: Snow Leopard, Eurasian Lynx  Omnivore: Wolves, fox(Corsac and Red)  Decomposer: Dung Beetle, fungii  Scavenger: Mongolian Death Worm, vulture, eagle  4) 5) Mongolia’s taiga forests and wetlands are biodiversity hotspots. 6) Indicator Species: bacterian camel Keystone Species: Siberian Marmots Native Species: Przewalski’s horse Nonnative Species: amur fish Specialized Species: gerbils 7) Mongolia hosts the desert, taiga, step, and some freshwater biomes. 8) Interspecific Competition: Mongolian gazelle and livestock Predator and Prey: snow leopard and ibex Parasite and Host: piroplasmids on the Bacterian camel Mutualism: lichens with photosynthetic partners Commensalism: lichen on tree bark 9) The snow leopard and the Saiga have become endangered due to illegal hunting and habitat loss from poor mining practices.  10) The Mongolian Wild Horse has become extinct because of the growing population and industry in the country. PART C: Human Population 1) Population Growth Rate: 1.489%   2) Doubling Time: 47 years; faster than the world’s average growth rate 3) Birth Rate: 20.93 births/1,000 population Death Rate: 6.04 deaths/1,000 population  Immigration: 0.3401 percent of population  4) 5) Mongolia is in the pre-industrial demographic transition stage. 6) Mongolia has a family planning organization that is a branch of Planned Parenthood but the citizens and the media do not understand the concept of too much population growth and therefore the methods haven’t been very successful. PART D: Biodiversity 1) Mongolia is primarily part of the desert biome as a large portion of it is comprised of the Gobi Desert. However, mountain-forest steppe is also present. 2) Mongolia contains 7 lakes, 11 rivers, and 1 canal. 3) Mongolia doesn’t have much access to pure water and what little it does have is polluted by a growing industry or by farming practices. Farming and o\the overgrazing of animals also contributes to the deforestation of the land. 4) Przewalski's horse, the Bactrian camel, the snow leopard, and the Saiga are endangered and the Mongolian Wild horse has become extinct. 5) The species have reached endangered or extinct status due to the lack of acceptable water and the pollution from factories, specifically in the Ulaanbaatar region. 6) Two introduced species to Mongolia are the Amur fish which often carries the tapeworm and has reduced the amount of aquatic vegetation and the larch caterpillar which defoliates the plants of Mongolia. 7) Mongolia introduced the ‘Biodiversity Conservation Action Plan’ in 1996 which protects its wild species. PART E: Resource Management  1) Mongolia’s most abundant resources are minerals; the top three being coal, copper and gold. 2) Mongolia’s main export is copper. 3) Mongolia’s top import is machinery. 4) Mongolia’s forests are managed and sustained by the ‘Mongolian Law on Environmental Protection’ which is enforced by the state as established in the Mongolian constitution. 5) Mongolia’s rangelands are publicly owned and are managed and sustained by the herder’s cultivation methods which consist of a nomadic nature that allows crop and grazing rotation according to the season. 6) Mongolia’s National Parks are: Altai Tavan Bogd, Gobi Gurvansaikhan, Gun-Galuut Nature Reserve, Khustain Nuruu, Lake Khövsgöl, Khan Khentii, Khorgo-Terkhiin Tsagaan Nuur, Southern Altai Gobi, Tsambagarav Lul. 7) Agriculture in Mongolia is highly mechanized by the Ministry for Agriculture and Industry but its harsh climate makes crop cultivation difficult and therefore on 1% of arable land is used for crop cultivation. 8) Mongolia uses an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) method to protect crops from pests. 9) The people of Mongolia have the available food resources they need to be healthy and for the small percentage of the population that suffers from food insecurity the problem arises from poverty not from the countries lack of resources. 10) Water is primarily collected by individuals either from local wells or from Mongolia’s lakes, but for those that don’t have access to either of those resources there is a distribution network that pumps water from underground resources. 11) Mongolia is currently in a state in which citizens have little access to CLEAN drinking water.