Amendment of the Law on Environmental Protection
As a result of the project’s advocacy efforts, Mongolia’s Environmental Protection Law was amended to include clear legal provision for community-based natural resource management. A total of 64 officially registered community groups, which include 912 herder families, were given rights to manage natural resources on land covering more than half a million hectares. To date, 62 herder groups have been officially formed and are legally entrusted with the care of 500,000 hectares of this unique natural environment.
A strength of this project was that it was fully owned by the government and implemented through the government system which enabled this legal change.
Wider rippling impacts can be caused by working at policy/legal level. In addition to the above achievement, through the Project's advocacy, the government designated the “Above 50 latitude Local PA” in Khovsgol, spanning over approximately 5.7 million ha. This effectively bans all the mining from the large area of the Mongolia portion of the Sayan region. In addition, the Government officially expanded the overall project approach to conservation and livelihoods nationwide through a June 2011 Ministerial decree.