In the long term, TAKH's purpose is to allow Przewalski's horses to leave the fenced release site and roam freely throughout Khomiin Tal. This means they will have to share forage with livestock, which have traditionally been bred here for centuries. TAKH urges the implementation of a pasture use plan to prevent competition between Przewalski's horses and livestock. This is justified by the country-scale threat of overgrazing in Mongolia.
To achieve this, typology and mapping of the rangelands and wetlands of Khomiin Tal has been done. We have also mapped the seasonal grazing areas and studied the local way of breeding livestock. However other studies are necessary and are currently on-going.
Once all the necessary data has been collected we will present it to the local people and work with them on a final pasture use plan. Our approach will be to propose management patterns and let herders implement them at their convenience. To facilitate implementation we are counting on the community development component of our project.
Typology and mapping of rangelands and wetlands
Following field data collection in 2006, typology and mapping of the vegetation community was accomplished:
We classified vegetation communities to two types:
1. Arid rangelands whose floristic composition varies according to substrate particle size.
2. Wetlands present due to proximity of lakes and rivers.
A rangeland productivity study was conducted in 2007 (via biomass clipping).
Pasture utilization
Since 2004, interview campaigns have been done every year in order to gain a fine scale knowledge of the use of Khomiin Tal by pastoralists. These interviews help show management patterns used by the local people, taking into account climatic and economic constraints.Mapping the seasonal use of Khomiin Tal gave us an excellent overview of transhumant (=cyclical) movements of the nomadic herders:
These areas were calculated from the positions of transhumant herder family camps, and the furthest distance the sheep and goat herds move from the camp. This distance changes according to season, for example in spring they do not move far as newborn lambs can not cover as large a distance as adults to graze.