Recently, climate change has had a considerable impact on rangelands, available forage, and shifting boundaries of ecological zones in Mongolia. Additionally, long-term studies in the forest-steppe zone show that increasing livestock pressure impacts vegetation composition and cover. Evidence shows that the traditional ecological knowledge of Mongolian herders can serve as a valuable body of information relevant to observations about these ongoing ecological processes. Among other things, a deeper understanding of how herders perceive ecological changes would be useful for improving pasture management and promoting natural regeneration processes. We conducted indoor and outdoor structured and semi-structured interviews, with additional landscape walks and participatory fieldwork. In total we interviewed 33 people, all full-time herders. We found 32 indicators on how herders perceived landscape and vegetation changes for the 14 habitat types studied. Herders had deep knowledge of their landscape, and they attributed various changes to diverse drivers on their grasslands, wetlands, and forests. Among herders there was variation in the perceived importance of droughts and increasing livestock numbers. The perceived changes and indicators could be grouped into three main categories, namely long-term (decadal) trends, regenerative successions after disturbance, and recurrent fluctuations caused mainly by weather. Some of the long-term trends reported by herders are well-known, e.g., worsening of rangeland production, others, like the blackening of tussocks, or the impact of oilskin on yurt site regeneration, are rarely mentioned in the scientific literature, if at all. South-facing mountain slopes and flat areas in valleys were reported as the locations where vegetation change takes place most rapidly. To reverse adverse changes, herders wish to cooperate especially with each other to increase mobility, stop overgrazing, and help nature to regenerate their worsening pastures. We conclude that herders have a reliable and widely shared understanding of landscape and pasture changes that could help with this cooperation.

中文翻译：

---

蒙古牧民如何看待“稳定”景观中的生态变化

最近，气候变化已对蒙古的牧场，可利用的草料以及生态区边界的变化产生了相当大的影响。此外，对森林草原地区的长期研究表明，牲畜压力的增加会影响植被的组成和覆盖率。有证据表明，蒙古牧民的传统生态知识可以作为有价值的信息，与对这些正在进行的生态过程的观察有关。除其他事项外，更深入地了解牧民如何看待生态变化将有助于改善牧场管理和促进自然更新过程。我们进行了室内和室外结构化和半结构化访谈，并进行了更多的景观漫步和参与性实地考察。我们总共采访了33位全职牧民。我们发现了32种指标，表明牧民对所研究的14种栖息地类型如何看待景观和植被变化。牧民对他们的地貌有深刻的了解，他们将各种变化归因于草原，湿地和森林上的各种驱动因素。在牧民中，人们认为干旱和牲畜数量增加的重要性存在差异。感知到的变化和指标可分为三大类，即长期（年代际）趋势，扰动后的再生演替以及主要由天气引起的周期性波动。牧民报告的一些长期趋势是众所周知的，例如牧场生产的恶化，另一些趋势，例如草丛变黑或油皮对蒙古包部位再生的影响，在科学文献中很少提及，如果全部。据报道，朝南的山坡和山谷中的平坦地区是植被变化最快的地方。为了逆转不利的变化，牧民希望彼此之间特别合作，以增加活动能力，停止过度放牧并帮助自然界恢复其恶化的牧场。我们得出的结论是，牧民对景观和牧场变化具有可靠且广泛共享的理解，可以帮助这种合作。