Spatial and Social Scales and Boundaries: Implications for Managing Pastoral Land-use in Mongolia

Abstract

"The goal of this paper is to examine the roles of spatial and social scales and boundaries as they apply to changing land-use patterns and tenure regimes in post-socialist Mongolia. In this paper I make two contentions. First, the spatial (ecological) and social scales at which the dynamics of land-use change are observed profoundly affect our perceptions of the processes at work, and hence the policy responses we propose. Second, the vagueness, permeability, and overlap of boundaries around pastoral resources and user groups (rights-holders) pose significant difficulties for implementation of formal tenure regimes designed to address insecure pastoral tenures and unsustainable land-use patterns. Alternative approaches to solving land-use and tenure problems must be developed for nomadic pastoral societies, where many of the assumptions of common property theory do not hold. One such approach, which may be suitable to Mongolia, is the local regulation of seasonal nomadic movements."