Get reliable rangeland science

Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) is increasingly recognized as an important component of biocultural diversity and a potentially valuable resource for adaptation to future changes. TEK is a vibrant knowledge system held by geographically and socially defined communities in relation to their day-to-day interactions and relationships with their environment and is transmitted between generations. With the socioeconomic changes in the last 30 years in Mongolia, many young herders have moved to cities for jobs and education and many elder herders have followed them, to help care for grandchildren and to avoid the increasing harshness of livestock herding caused by climate change and rangeland degradation. With these demographic and social changes, some fear that TEK is being lost. Therefore, we sought to document herders' current plant knowledge, and to compare the knowledge of younger and older herders, and those living in remote rural and settled areas. We asked 30 herders in four subdistricts in Arkhanga i province, Mongolia to list all the plants they know that grow in their community and to discuss their uses. Knowledge of plants and their uses did not vary between rural and settled areas, likely because many older participants had moved to the province center, taking a lifetime of herding knowledge with them. Plant knowledge did vary with age. Younger herders didn't mention certain species that have declined in the local environment, likely due to environmental changes. To support conservation and intergenerational transfer of plant TEK, we are working with rural herders, schoolteachers and the district cultural center to develop school curricula and museum exhibits featuring local plant TEK.