Description

Abstract: A series of droughts and winter disasters in Mongolia resulted in discussions between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Global Livestock-CRSP to transfer the GL-CRSP Livestock Early Warning System (LEWS) technology to Mongolia as risk mitigation for these extreme events. LEWS is a forage monitoring system that provides near-real time spatial and temporal assessment of current and forecasted forage conditions, along with an information and communication infrastructure that delivers the information for decision making to herders and other stakeholders. In 2004, the Gobi Forage project was initiated in the Gobi region of Mongolia using the blueprint from the GL-CRSP LEWS implementation, which was initially developed for the east African rangelands. Overall, the transfer of the General technology was successful, with the Gobi Forage team implementing the LEWS and forage quantity monitoring within two years, and forage quality monitoring shortly thereafter. The critical component for the success of Gobi Forage: delivery of LEWS forage quantity and quality information to herders and policy-makers has been most effective using maps delivered by the postal service, along with national radio broadcasts for early warning bulletins, in contrast to World Space Radio and Internet delivery utilized by the LEWS and LINKS projects in East Africa. The information outreach component of the program has been exceedingly well received at the local level, with over 70% of herders and nearly 64% of officials having some degree of familiarity with Gobi Forage products. Although considerable progress could still be made to improve information sharing at the national level, the transfer of LEWS to Mongolia in little over three years demonstrates considerable potential for the long-term impact of the program, as well as a fundamental case study for the benefits of livestock early warning systems in arid rangelands.