ABSTRACT
This article considers the scientific and cultural value of locally constructed and maintained ecological knowledge drawn from songs and tunes created and maintained by Kazakh residents in western Mongolia. One of its primary goals is to demonstrate the importance of encouraging scholars and practitioners to consider how scientific and cultural knowledge can be integrated. Mobile pastoral herders in Mongolia use songs and their lyrics, instrumental tunes, and sounds to articulate not only their aesthetic and spiritual relationships to lands and landscapes but to share their valued practical knowledge about natural resources. Their performances provide evidence of social and economic practices and strategies for maintaining ways of life in their changing environment.
