2020-09-03

Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On August 28, the Supporting Protected Areas for the Conservation of Ecosystem Service (SPACES) project gathered a diverse audience of government agencies, the private sector and non-governmental organizations in Ulaanbaatar to discuss aspects of importance for the Protected Area Law revision process that has recently restarted with the support of SPACES.

With the objectives as to understand the challenges of nature conservation in Mongolia for the coming decades, analyze the weaknesses in the current legislation and its implementation, and draw up proposals for its improvement, the workshop began with a keynote address by SPACES’ Senior Advisor Thorsten Harder, who presented the multitude of challenges Mongolia’s ecosystems are currently facing, noting that a revised Protected Area Law will have to adequately address the challenges. The keynote was followed by intensive group work on weaknesses and gaps as well as proposals for the improvement of the current Protected Area Law and its implementation.

Legislative specialists who attended the workshop will use the results of the workshop as an input during the drafting of revised law. This process will be further facilitated by SPACES, a Mongolian-German development cooperation project implemented by the Department of Protected Area Management at the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH. The project’s overall aim is to improve the framework conditions for sustainable management of protected areas in Mongolia.

In his workshop closing remarks Mr. Sansarbayar E., Director General of the Department of Protected Area Management, underlined the importance of the revision of the Protected Area Law and encouraged the participants to continue to participate in the upcoming steps of the review process.

More information on the Protected Area Law revision process and other SPACES activities is available from Department of Protected Area Management, Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the SPACES project.

https://www.montsame.mn/en/read/235329