Intro The project is implemented in two gachas(villages)of Baiyanhua Town, Damao Banner, Baotou city: Alaten Hongger Gacha and Wulanaobao Gacha. The two gachas are located on the border between China and Mongolia. The grassland covers an area of about 129,050 hectares, facing the crisis of further degradation without proper management. There are 312 households with 998 people in two Gacha. The annual income per person is around $700- $1300 USD.
Main problems:
Pesticides and chemical fertilizers has led to desertification and degradation of soil, decline in productivity and biodiversity. The herdsmen fall into the repeated poverty trap. Due to feeding livestock, women are vulnerable to various kinds of zoonotic diseases. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed this long-lasting risks within the community. Limited by the scatted nature of Gacha, this initiative requires cooperation among households to help improve animal welfare, reduce the mortality rate of livestock, and then improve the average income in community. The ultimate objective would be developing community livelihood and reducing the risk of human and animal diseases. Taking the risk of continuously impaired income and depletion of nature resource in to consideration, the project is aim to make joint efforts to utilize grassland resource with advanced mechanism, improve grassland productivity without chemical fertilizers.
Activities:
1) Build mutual aid group within community for resources management. 2) Run workshops and trainings for herdsmen to build risk resilience capability to unanticipated crisis. 3) Regroup the production factors within the mutual aid group to increase productivity. 4) Restore the traditional grazing system to cope with natural disaster. 5) Promote the project and replicate it to other pastoral communities.
Anticipated outcomes:
1) Set up more than 20 mutual aid groups to restore the productivity of grassland, run training sessions for herdsmen to cope with natural disasters such as drought and infectious diseases, and increase their income. 2) Corporate with local governments and enterprises and promote self-governance within community to increase cost-efficiency. 3) Restore the classical grazing system to raise the annual average income within community. 4) Rehabilitate 6 natural grassland and set up 40 monitoring points on grassland. 5) Build replicable model for other pastoral communities to restore biodiversity with diverse stakeholders, strengthen community relationship, reduce poverty, and respond to unanticipated natural disasters.