Landscapes, livestock, and livelihoods: Social, ecological, and land-use change among the nomadic pastoralists of Mongolia

The transition to a market economy and democratic political system in post-socialist Mongolia calls into question the futures of Mongolia's rangelands and the nomadic pastoralists that depend on them. This dissertation examines how livestock privatization and the dismantling of herding collectives have affected the livelihoods and land-use patterns of Mongolian nomads, and considers the ecological implications of these social and economic changes. Ecological and social field research was carried out from May 1994 to October 1995 in Jinst and Bayan-Ovoo Sums, Bayankhongor Aimag, Mongolia. In an ecological field study, I investigated the effects of livestock grazing and annual precipitation on the vegetation and soils of three Mongolian ecological zones. Based on participant observation and interviews with herders, I recorded Mongolian nomads' herding practices and norms of pasture use, and elicited the ecological knowledge and perceptions that underlie them. I conducted a household survey to document current land-use patterns, access to resources, and household socio-economic conditions.; The results of the ecological study largely conform with the predictions of non-equilibrium models of rangeland dynamics. In the desert-steppe ecological zone, interannual differences in rainfall explain most of the variability in standing biomass, cover and species composition. In the steppe and mountain-steppe zones, grazing pressure accounts for a greater proportion of the variation in vegetation variables than in the desert-steppe. Periodic severe winter storms impose density-independent limits on livestock populations in both Jinst and Bayan-Ovoo Sums. The results suggest that previous estimates of an equilibrium/non-equilibrium threshold for Mongolian rangelands should be revised to a lower mean annual rainfall or higher coefficient of variation for annual rainfall.; Herders' nomadic strategy and norms of pasture use reflect their ecological knowledge and perceptions of environmental variability across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Herders perceive anthropogenic ecological change, including livestock-induced degradation, but they attribute most short and long-term ecological changes to interannual fluctuations and long-term trends in climate. Herders' relatively homogeneous herding strategies and technologies, and the shared ecological knowledge that underlies them, give cause for cautious optimism about their capacity to organize and regulate sustainable patterns of pasture use. The fact that herders do not perceive serious anthropogenic threats to the resources on which their livelihoods depend suggests that they may lack the motivation to organize self-regulation of pasture use.; National-level political, economic, and social changes in Mongolia, historically and during 1991-1995, have led to changes in the spatial and temporal distributions of livestock. Recent changes in pastoral land-use have resulted in (1) localized increased stocking densities and (2) a shift from single-season to year-round grazing of key resources. During 1991-1995 the distributions of livestock in Jinst and Bayan-Ovoo Sums were affected by the interactions of increasing wealth differentiation among herding households, urban-rural migration, and changing resource access and patterns of resource-use. Lack of access to transportation and labor limited herders' mobility. As mobility decreased, unsustainable grazing practices and trespassing increased. The positive feedback effect of each of these factors on the others led to a vicious cycle of increasingly unsustainable pasture use and decreasing mobility.; A combination of formal and informal regulation of pastoral land-use may provide an alternative to formalizing property rights to achieve sustainable land-use in Mongolia, and in other nomadic pastoral societies.