For promoting collaboration to prevent the desertification of Mongolia

Region: Asia Pacific  Sector: Climate Action  UN SDGs: 13, Climate Action; 15, Life on Land

The climate crisis and land misuse threaten to desertify Mongolia. According to a 2020 report from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), more than three quarters of Mongolia’s land is affected by desertification, and less than eight percent of the country’s landmass is covered by forests. Overgrazing by livestock and damage caused by mining also impact the arboreal landscape, creating erosion and heat pockets lacking shade. The domino effect of a tree-poor or treeless country is clear: the fewer trees, the less habitat exists for keystone species, including Mongolian marmots. The fewer trees, the less water evaporation, which means less rainfall and higher temperatures. The fewer trees, the poorer Mongolia’s soil health will be.

Mongolian President Khurelsukh Ukhnaa recognized in 2021 that the desertification of his country poses serious problems, and he committed to take action to prevent further tree loss. In fact, he proposed a national campaign, the 1 Billion Trees project, that would attempt to reverse the damage already done by planting one billion trees on an accelerated timeline. To that end, 41.5 million trees were planted in 2023 alone.

The project, led by the president’s office, requires close collaboration among a wide range of stakeholder groups. Provincial governors, for instance, each committed to plant 20,000 seedlings in their respective provinces. Private and state-owned businesses were encouraged to make substantive planting commitments, especially if their businesses exert negative impacts on the natural environment. One such example is that of Oyu Tolgoi, a copper and gold mining operation, which pledged to plant 100 million trees. Twenty other mining companies made similar public commitments; the collective pledge will result in a total of 608 million trees, moving the country closer to its target of one billion.

The 1 Billion Trees project managers recognize that planting a tree isn’t as simple as just sticking a sapling in a hole in the ground. Saplings and seedlings need to be monitored and cared for until they begin to grow. To this end, the government has dedicated one percent of its annual GDP to the project, training planters and tree guardians across the nation to ensure that the number of trees planted corresponds as closely as possible to the number of trees that survive, and, ultimately, thrive.

There are many inherent challenges in this project, as is true for any large-scale environmental preservation efforts. But in Mongolia’s 1 Billion Trees project, the main challenge is one that might not be obvious to outsiders: the availability of seeds. “Seed stocks are currently in short supply because there were no large-scale tree planting activities in the past,” Ch. Dugarjav, leading researcher of the Botanic Garden and Research Institute of the Mongolian Academy of Sciences told the Mongolia Mining Journal. Dugarjav also noted that seeds could only be bought from Siberia as an alternative. “Our forests are a continuation of the southeastern part of the Great Siberian Taiga,” Dugarjav said, “so buying and growing seeds and seedlings from there would be most appropriate in terms of species and location.” The viability of seeds from other countries would be very poor, so Mongolia needs to build up a seed bank that can meet the demand to plant one billion trees.

Still, the project is making notable progress toward its overall goal. 2023 milestones included engaging a larger number of citizens in the tree planting project. Specifically, 2023 saw a 32 percent increase in the number of individuals, partnerships, and businesses involved in the 1 Billion Trees project. People and groups that pledged to plant reserved 63 million seedlings and saplings from the government, a 41 percent increase since the program’s announcement. 2023 also saw the launch of a pest control program that sought to control destructive insects across 273,000 hectares of land, protecting 960 million trees from infestation and death.