ZSL implements ‘Steppe-up: Community-led recovery of Mongolia’s iconic species and forest-steppe ecosystem’ project in Arkhangai aimag (July 2018 -  March 2021).  

The main purpose of the project is to establish a local protected area to promote socio-ecological resilience to support the recovery of the globally-endangered Saker falcon, Steppe eagle, Marmot and Musk deer and disincentivise over-exploitation and degradation of their threatened forest-steppe habitat, by securing the economic wellbeing and food security for the forest-steppe dependent community in Arkhangai. Scalable, equitable, community-driven initiatives will be delivered through: biological monitoring; sustainable forest management; pasture management; sustainable livelihoods and strengthened governance, providing a model for LPA expansion across the forest-steppe.   

Within the purpose of this assignment, IRIM team provided a baseline socio-economic study of the forest-steppe dependent community in the LPA of Bulgan soum Arkhangai aimag. This study focused on current state of livelihood of the community, an overall economic well-being, pastureland degradation, the issues related to the wildlife and forest. 

The following main activities were carried out: 

• Developed work plan and analytic framework; 

• Developed survey methods and methodologies; 

• Developed quantitative and qualitative tools; 

• Prepared training manual and conducted training of enumerators; 

• Organized data collection in the field; 

• Conducted quality check on collected data; 

• Provided analysis on quantitative and qualitative data gathered from the field; and 

• Developed final report in English and Mongolia. 

To accomplish the purpose of the assignment both qualitative and quantitative methods were used and conducted desk study of relevant documents: 

The quantitative research: Questionnaires included socio-economic data collected from among the households of the LPA in Bulgan soum. Based on the collected data project team conducted analysis on current state of livelihood of the community, estimated an overall economic well-being using Multidimensional poverty index (MPI) and conducting analysis on   residents’ employment, housing conditions and infrastructure and life satisfaction. 

The qualitative research: Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were conducted with the following groups: (i) local leaders and experts (ii)  local people living in LPA; and (iii) women living in LPA.  The participatory methods were used such as natural resource mapping;  threat analysis (changes/impacts/threats, and causes/drivers); and changes and trends for all natural resources and species.