Bad bird pics

Bad pics make identification a challenge, so can you id all these species?

Visiting a Mercy Corps Client

I joined Choi a colleague on a visit to a MC client who wants a loan so he can grow vegetable on upto 5 hectares of land formerly cultivated for wheat by the state cooperative farm. the client has permission to cultivate land and to use water from the well. He wants the loan to buy fencing seed and a small tractor.

Horse Riding

"20 kilometres in 4 hours, surely it was only two hours. " My colleagues comment when I told him about our ride

May 28 in Arhangay

After temp of 25C on Sunday it was a shock to wake up to these views on Wednesday morning.

So what am I doing here?

So what am I doing here?

I am working as a tourism adviser with Mercy Corps. Mercy Corps is an international non government organisation it "exists to alleviate suffering, poverty and oppression by helping people build sevire, productive and just communities" World wide MC operates in more than 35 countries specialisng in post conflict development. It has been working in Mongolia since 2000 and it has one goal “To support rural communities to mobilise resources to meet their economic and social needs. At present Mercy Corps works on three main projects,- (for more details follow the link to the website on the blog) two of which are largely USAID funded. I am working in the Rural Agribusiness Support Program team.

A main part of development work in Mongolia is supporting the transition to a market economy from the communist economy . MC supports the establishment of small business through providing collateral on loans and business development support. Loans are usually short term and interest rates are punitively high, with MC support banks are usually willing to lend at significant discount.. Banks have not experience of operating loans, herders have not the collateral to support a loan or business experience. These projects are well managed and MC achieves 97% repayment of loans.

Mercy Corps employs approx 120 people in Mongolia of whom 4 are westerners;60 are based in the UB office, the rest in aimag offices. The work culture is very western, we work an 8 hour day, 9 to 6 with an hour for lunch and many colleagues work extra hours.

Tourism is seen a potential alternative livelihood for rural communities in general and herders in particular. At present tourism earnings amount to 10% of the country foreign earnings. After agriculture it is the second or third largest employer.

Independent travel for foreigners is difficult,- there are no road, and signposts, and few people outside uB speak English. The tourism industry is dominated by tour operators.

So if there is such a flourishing private sector why should an ngo funded largely by USAID get involved? There are several reasons: -

· although international tourist arrivals continue to grow at 10% or more a year It is difficult for herders to take advantage of the growth and diversify into tourism. They lack capital to buy gers, they do not understand expectations of tourists and have little business experience. MC can provide support for loans, and both business development training and more technical tourism training, -guiding, cultural differences etc

· There is also a concern that tourism growth will destroy itself by poorly planned development. So intervention is justified to promote responsible tourism throughout the industry from initial land use planning and environmental impact assessments to tour operators and guides.

So that’s the background, what do I actually do? Well there are three main projects:

1) Developing training. The Mongolian Universities are producing many tourism graduates and the big tour operators train their own staff but there are key training needs not met by these trainers. .At aimag level the regional administration, the aimag staff have little understanding of tourism development, land use planning and environmental assessment. Knowledge is also a barrier to herders entering tourism . So I am meeting with training providers, tour operators and organising workshops to complete training needs analysis. Then I will be arranging training of trainers, trying to develop capacity of business development service providers at regional level.

2) Second area of work is more academic, designed to influence policy and guide future interventions if any by donors. Value Chain Analysis is the fashionable paradigm for international development studies at hte moment. The methodology derives from the work of Michael Porter from Harvard Business School in 1980s and I am arranging a study looking at how value chains vary between market segments. In other words do Japanese western or domestic tourists spend their money in different ways, and linkages with the local economy, how much money filters down to herding communities.

3) The third area is developing work already started on responsible tourism certification scheme. This project started 2 years ago and stalled because of conflicts within the group and I have been trying to bring the partnership back together again. In some ways very similar to partnership working in UK except that here with less well developed institutional framework personal disagreements and conflicts are more open.

I am fortunate to be working in an efficient well run international ngo where everyone speaks English and in an industry where most people also speak English. Other volunteers are less fortunate I also enjoy the differences to western Europe and working in southern England: the main economic development problems are rural and partly at least ecological, how do you manage the rangeland to provide secure livelihood; environmental concerns, desertification, overgrazing have a real connection with life styles. (One of my most depressing recollections of working in UK was an opinion poll of residents concerns about the environment. The condition of pavements and dog fouling where considered the most serious environmental problems).

Working in a foreign country relying on an interpreter always has its challenges. I find peaks and troughs of elation and concern are greater. I am pleased to have the chance to use a far wider range of skills and competencies than I was able to use on a day to day basis in the UK.

Spring is late

Spring comes late to Mongolia. I walked down by the river this afternoon 26 April to look in scrub for migrants but there were few about. Black-eared kite, Daurian Redstart, Pine Bunting and White Wagtail. On my trip to countryside on 15 April wheatears were suddenly all over steppe, well the males any way, three species, isabelline, northern and desert and Black kite were overhead but. I have seen few migrants in and around UB, a dark phase booted eagle was notable.

The drive to Tetserleg was interesting; birding from a speeding landcruiser can be like a video game, a quick identification before the bird disappears. At first the flocks of larks were challenging. Mongolian lark was easy, a big long winged bird with a large wing panel (almost like a redshank) but nevertheless a frustrating way to see a new species, with no chance to check finer plumage details , or to be sure that none were the similar but in Mongolia scarce white winged lark. Similarly I assume the large herring type gulls were in fact Mongolian Gull but from landcruiser i was unable to check critical identification features. The plumage difference of other larks less obvious, but white trailing edge to secondaries was skylark, and I soon worked out the shore larks. There were short-toed larks but could have been one or all of three species

As well as the larks the journey was great for raptors. Black Vulture probably commonest raptor but also saw 1 griffon vulture, 2 rough legged and 8 or 9 Upland Buzzard, 1 Steppe Buzzard. In Tetsereleg I was delighted to get excellent views of goshawk. First in the evening flying up a valley and then the next day a huge female appeared from nowhere to take a Daurian jackdaw from a flock about 20 metres from me, it perched on the ground killing its prey for a few seconds before flying of. In southern England goshawk is a rare bird, and inexperienced birders often try to claim a sparrowhawk as a goshawk, but it really is one of those birds that when you see a goshawk it is so different from a sparrowhawk there is no doubt. I also saw hen harrier marsh harrier and I think a pied harrier but the view was not good enough to be sure it was not an eastern marsh harrier.

There has been a change in the jackdaws over the last month. In the first half of April most were almost white bellied adult Daurian, Then in Arkhangai the dark bird predominated, and now back in UB the dark first year birds predominate and most of the pale adult birds seem to have moved on.

Escape from UB at last.

At last a trip to the countryside, escape from UB. A four day trip to Arhangai, 500km to west of UB, in the centre of Mongolia . Mercy Corps have several tourism business clients and I was going to assess the businesses, look at training needs and familiarise myself with countryside tourism.

We travelled in style, a Toyota land cruiser with MC driver and interpreter, Deegi; in the land cruiser it only took 6 hours compared to the 8 or 9 in a Russian jeep or a bus. They are building the road to the Arkhangai and the west of Mongolia, and though the sub base is down only about one third of the road is surfaced. There are still few roads in Mongolia, and there is major investment to provide roads linking the major regional centres. Away from the main centres there are no roads, just tracks across the countryside.

We skirted the northern edge of the Gobi passing sand dunes and camels; everywhere the landscape is heavily overgrazed. I knew that overgrazing and desertification are important issues in Mongolia, but was still astonished at how overgrazed and dusty the landscape was; occasional dust devils whirled across the landscape, clouds of dust marked the journey of other vehicles, and overtaking was difficult, where exactly was the vehicle in the dust cloud ahead? In 1991 there were 20 million or so animals now there are more than 40 million. With the collapse of the communist government and withdrawal of Russian support many jobs disappeared and people took to grazing livestock, many without experience. Now there are lots of poor quality animals at a time when markets are demanding quality. The overgrazing has other implications, desertification is an issue as dust storms threaten Beijing, there is also a knock on effect on wildlife as grazing extends up the hillside, the forests are destroyed by grazing, wild herbivores are threatened, wolves, snow leopards and other predators start taking more livestock, so are hunted more and the grazing pressure simplifies complex habitats. In addition climate change seems to be hitting Mongolia harder than most countries with the recorded rise in average temperatures nearly double the global average.

Mongolia must be one of the few countries in the world where people do not look forward to spring It is a difficult time for herders; the landscape was littered with dead animals, great for the black vultures and ravens, but a tough time for herders. When dry summers are followed by severe winters there is often mass starvation of animals. In 2001 and 2002 more than 10 million animals died. The Mongolians have a word for such hard springs Dzuvd.

Now back in UB the weather is windy, blowing dust everywhere with rapid changes in temperature. One day it was 25, the next day it was snowing.