UNEP BACKS MONGOLIA’S EFFORTS TO SAFEGUARD VAST, UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTS

UNEP BACKS MONGOLIA’S EFFORTS TO SAFEGUARD VAST, UNIQUE ENVIRONMENTS

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ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia, 22 August (UNEP) -- The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Mongolian Ministry of Nature and Environment today signed a framework agreement to support sustainable development and environmental protection in the fabled North-East Asian country.

Home to warlord Genghis Khan, whose thirteenth century empire stretched from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Mongolia's territory remains the world's seventeenth largest.  The landlocked nation's 2.4 million people are spread over an area similar to that of Alaska, or nearly three times the size of France (one of the lowest population densities in the world of 1.5 people per square kilometre).

Mongolia's unique and varied environments -- including super-arid desert, moist taiga forest, rolling steppe grasslands and glaciated alpine peaks -- provide refuge to some of the last populations of endangered snow leopard, Argali sheep, wild ass, saiga, bacterian camel and Gobi bear.

A recent State of the Environment report prepared by UNEP shows that despite government efforts to formulate laws and policies to effectively manage natural resources, recent transitions to a market economy from centralized policies of rapid urbanization and industrialization, has accelerated risks to the environment.

Population growth of 1.8 per cent a year (one of the highest in Asia), urbanization (now 57 per cent from a traditional nomadic lifestyle) and increasing consumption are adding pressure on natural resources.

The UNEP assessment shows 70 per cent of pasturelands -- used for livestock grazing and still the main livelihood for Mongolians -- are in a degraded state, particularly around towns and cities, bringing erosion to thin soils and loss in plant diversity.  Wheat yields are half that of the 1980s, due to declining soil fertility.

Sand cover has increased 8.7 per cent over the past four decades with more than 40 per cent of Mongolian territory now arid desert.  The growing frequency and intensity of dust and sand storms, which affect China, the Korean peninsula and Japan, has led UNEP and other international agencies to initiate a multi-million dollar regional project to research and address the problem.

Mongolia's forests, which cover 10 per cent of its territory, have suffered from a decade of fragmented institutional responsibility, poor management and illegal cutting.  Declining forest cover and quality is causing flash floods, lowered groundwater, desertification and species loss.

Air quality is also a significant problem in urban areas, particularly for the nearly 1 million residents of the capital city Ulaanbaatar, during winter.  Pollution from thermal power plants, hundreds of heating boilers, 75,000 open fires in Gers (traditional Mongolian tents) and wood homes, and a 50,000-strong vehicle fleet, is leading to more and more cases of acute respiratory disease.

The UNEP assessment recognizes that while environmental resources provide an important base for expanded economic opportunity through mining, forestry, farming and tourism, integrated national sustainable development policies and planning are desperately needed.

The new framework agreement promises assistance by UNEP in the areas of environmental assessment and monitoring, the preparation of National Sustainable Development Strategies, programmes to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and use of ozone depleting substances, law and policy making, fund mobilization and international environmental negotiations.

The agreement was signed this Friday at the Ministry of Nature and Environment in Ulaanbaatar by Ulambayar Barsbold, Minister for Nature and Environment, and by UNEP's Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific Surendra Shrestha.

Mr. Shrestha said the agreement was part of UNEP's commitment to building capacity for integrated and effective environmental management at the national level in Asia and the Pacific.

Minister Barsbold welcomed the partnership saying it fitted the Government's current policies and programmes for sustainable development of the country.

Implementation of the agreement will be reviewed on an annual basis.

For more information, please contact:  Tim Higham, Regional Information Officer, UNEP, Bangkok; tel.:  +66 2 2882127; e-mail:  higham@un.org.

The UNEP's 2002 Mongolia State of the Environment report is available from http://www.rrcap.unep.org/reports/soe/mongoliasoe.cfm.

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