Local community leaders involved as Citizen conservationists          and Guardians of Nature

We involve some members of the local community of our study area (herders, Buddhist monks, protected areas rangers …) as Citizen conservationists and as guardians of the Gobi wildlife.

We provide them with training (training about ecology and also scientific training), technical equipment, and support as they live in the Gobi Desert all year round and directly depend on a healthy ecosystem to survive. 

In 2016, we provide training about Gobi wildlife, ecology and conservation - in patnership with another organization and the Small Gobi Strictly protected areas - to some herders, the members of the Buddhist monastery we work with, the staff of the nature protection agencies of the southeast Gobi, to some border protection officers in the Gobi desert and to rangers and specialists of the Small Gobi Protected areas' administration. 

We believe that besides helping our organization to collect data about Gobi wildlife, they can also directly learn about the ecosystem services from the different Gobi species and that they can also provide an invaluable contribution to the long-term success of wildlife and the Gobi ecosystem protection. 

The community of this buddhist monastery supports our actions and is actively involved in our conservation programme since 2008. Some members of this community regularly collect all year round some information about the ecology of the Mongolian khulan and other wild species (argali sheep, black-tailed gazelles, and other) in partnership with our research team. Also, two members of this community have been trained to use and set up camera traps and have sucessfully helped our team to collect information about water points use by Gobi wildlife. 

This community also participates to raise local awareness about protection of the Mongolian khulan, Gobi wildlife and their habitat, then making a bridge between Buddhism and nature protection in the Gobi Desert. 

This community is also involved in the community-based tourism activities that our organization runs in our study area. 

We aim to develop more our conservation activities with this Buddhist monastery, as well as to involve additional members of the local community on the long-term.

We are also planning to develop our community-based conservation programme into a community-led conservation programme over the course of the coming years. 

We also want to provide additional training to this monastery's members, the protected areas' rangers, herders and border protection officers. Our training  will contain some participative, inquiry, and games-based educational activities, as well as more traditional training activities, knowledge assessments, and much more.