IMCG excursion Mongolian 2019

Dear IMCG members and interested colleagues!

In 2019 we plan to organise an IMCG intermediate Excursion to Mongolian peatlands. We hope that the presence of IMCG in Mongolia will help us to pass the key messages and findings about the threats and tendencies to the degradation of Mongolian peatlands, about their role for water security, livelihoods and ecosystem and society resistance to climate change to people, politicians, practitioners and scientists.

We expect that the excursion will help to initiate more scientific and conservation projects in Mongolia. The excursion will focus on Central Mongolia and will cover forest-steppe, high altitude taiga and tundra. Due to the specific Mongolian geography and in order to cover more or less representative mire types we have to make almost 1500 km in two weeks.

The excursion is scheduled from 2 to 16 August.

Overview of excursion program

Dates (activity day and overnight)	zone	area	activity
25 July – 1 August	Forest-Steppe	Khashaat	Volunteer camp
2 – 3 August	Forest-Steppe	Khashaat	IMCG excursion
3 – 5 August	Forest-Steppe	Orkhon valley western part, Kharkharin/lodging	IMCG excursion
5 - 6 August	Highland Taiga	Tuvshrulikh (Burd)/camping	IMCG excursion
6 – 8 August	Highland Tundra	Sayah Davaa/camping	IMCG excursion
8 – 9 August	Highland Taiga	Bayanhongor/lodging Ulaantsutgalan	IMCG excursion
9 – 10 August	Highland Taiga	Ulaantsutgalan/lodging	IMCG excursion
10 – 11 August	Forest-Steppe	Orkhon valley Eastern part, Ogijnuur	IMCG excursion
11 – 12 August	Forest-Steppe	Bajanuur, mining/camping	IMCG excursion
12 – 15 August	Highland Taiga	Gatchuurt, Terelj	IMCG excursion
15 – 16 August	City	Ulaanbaatar	IMCG excursion
16 – 20 August	Forest-Steppe	Gatchuurt	Volunteer camp

We will use “ger-camps” with some common washing etc facilities (marked below as lodging) and camping in tents (marked below as “camping”). The steppe is the toilet. The price (but much lower than touristic trips) is due to the specific transportation needs in Mongolia. We cannot use a bus, but several small cars with 5-6 passengers in each and one emergency car on the top. The gasoline and car rental costs form most parts of the price.

The full price without flight is > 1500 EUR. No other expenses than your private issues are involved. This covers also one night lodging in a hotel in Ulaanbaatar from 15 to 16 August.

The cheapest and most reliable flights from Europe are with MIAT (from Berlin and Frankfurt).

Besides the excursion we plan to have two volunteer camps in the areas where we have peatland restoration projects. As this does not include a lot of travel, the volunteer camps are significantly cheaper: the camp in Khashaat (25 July – 1 August) – 300 EUR and camp in Gatchuurt (16 – 20 August) – 140 EUR. The overview schedule is below.

The full description of sites is coming in the next bulletin.

The forest steppe area – is characterised by mainly degraded peatlands. We will see valley peatlands, formerly waterlogged and currently – at different stages of degradation due to the overgrazing. There was no draining, but the overgrazing is destroying the peatlands. Nevertheless, the husbandry is one of the pillars of Mongolian economy.

The excursion will start at Khashaat area after 5 hours transfer from Ulan Bataar(UB). Here the peatland restoration site is situated. Here will take place also a volunteer camp (from 25th August) during which we will carry out monitoring and go on with restoration activities. Then we will proceed to Orkhon valley (tributary of Selenga, Baikal lake basin). The area is a National Park and partly a Ramsar site; but this does not help to prevent peatland degradation caused by overgrazing and climate change. In the first part of our travel we will address the eastern part of the valley. One should remember that Mongolia is a highland country and even this valley is situated higher than 1000 m above sea level (in case of Orchon – 1300).

Highland taiga and tundra mires we will look at in Khangai Mountains – the upstream Orkhon river. The highest point Sayah Davaa with highland tundra is almost 3000 m above sea level. The higher the altitude of the site – the better is the state of the mires – less overgrazing and more precipitation. In some places also mining took place.

In case we are lucky with weather we can cross directly to a famous attraction – Red Waterfall and mires around – then we can spend more time in mires. In case of rain we would need to make a loop via Bayanhongor – small town in piedmonts.

After the mountains – back to steppe - we look at the mire Lun from the western part of the Orhon river, the Ramsar information centre and go further eastwards to look at mires along Tuul river valley and the examples of the extensive and destructive mining of minerals – the second factor affecting peatlands. Mining is the second pillar of the Mongolian economy. The negotiations on the mitigation of impacts on peatlands and restoration of peatlands is an urgent issue to be negotiated with business.

From there we will proceed to Terelj national park, 60 km north-west from UB. If somebody wants to end the excursion here – there would be a option to get to UB as we will pass by the city via the ring road. In the Terelj national park we will look at highland mires at the piedmonts of Khangay – the mountain ridge which is connecting the forest steppe with the real taiga on the Russian side. We will be based at the Gatchuurt forest station of the Forest Association NGO and Academy of Sciences of Mongolia where peatland restoration experiments and long term monitoring is being set up. The sketch of the route in google map is below.

For more information have an eye on this webpage or contact Tatiana Minajewa .