Mongolia

Since the mid-2000s, the mining sector has been driving Mongolia's exports. However, while in recent years economic growth has been slowing down, the increased number of mining operations profoundly affects Mongolia's economic policies, social dynamics and environment. The Asian Forum for Human Rights and Development (Forum-Asia) together with its member organisation, Centre for Human Rights and Development (CHRD), conducted a fact-finding mission in the northeastern part of Mongolia from 5 to 10 May 2019.

In the Northeast Asia sub-region, environmental pollution, transboundary sand and dust storms (SDS), agricultural expansion, deforestation, and overgrazing are growing challenges that are being further complicated by the impacts of climate change. Desertification, land degradation and drought (DLDD) are a significant problem affecting soil, air and water quality, threatening forest and woodlands, pasture and rangelands as well as irrigated and rain-fed croplands that support the livelihoods of more than half of the sub-region’s population.

Snow leopard poaching and trafficking – referred to herein as snow leopard crime – is revisited 13 years after TRAFFIC’s first report on the subject, Fading Footprints: The Killing and Trade of Snow Leopards. This report builds on a preliminary analysis published in May 2016 (Maheshwari and von Meibom, 2016). It addresses a major information gap concerning the linkage between retaliatory killing for livestock depredation and poaching for trade, and the scale at which both are taking place.

A companion volume to Keeping the Wild: Against the Domestication of Earth, Protecting the Wild provides a necessary addition to the conversation about the future of conservation in the so-called Anthropocene. Even as the biodiversity crisis accelerates, a growing number of voices are suggesting that protected areas are passé. Protecting the Wild offers a spirited argument for the robust protection of the natural world.

Asia has a rich cultural and natural heritage, but rapid development, population growth and an erosion of traditional practices are resulting in habitat loss and degradation, which is putting protected areas in Asia at risk and leading to serious decline in the biodiversity they harbour. This report assesses progress towards the achievement of elements of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11, part of the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set by the Convention on Biological Diversity's Strategic Plan for Biodiversity, in 24 selected countries in East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.