Rangelands cover around 80 percent of Mongolia’s territory and underpin livestock production and rural livelihoods, while providing important benefits for biodiversity and carbon storage. But these landscapes are under growing pressure from climate change, land degradation and unsustainable land use, affecting both their productivity and the resilience of herder communities. Sustainable rangeland management is also critical to Mongolia’s climate commitments, with livestock expected to contribute around 30 percent of the country’s greenhouse gas emission reductions under its Nationally Determined Contribution. Responding effectively requires knowing how rangelands are changing, where degradation is occurring and whether restoration efforts are delivering results. Yet access to reliable, verifiable and scalable information remains a challenge.

The Participatory Rangeland Monitoring System responds to this gap by combining Mongolia’s national photo-monitoring data with satellite imagery, artificial intelligence and information collected directly by herders. At the community level, its Belcheer mobile application, piloted in Zavkhan and Sukhbaatar provinces, enables herders to collect georeferenced photographs and field information from their own pastures. This brings local knowledge and observations into the wider monitoring system while giving herders a more active role in understanding and managing the condition of the land on which their livelihoods depend.