ABSTRACT
The Mongolian rangelands have a diversity of ecosystems, ranging from forest steppe in the north, to the Gobi Desert in the south, and the steppe ecosystem dispersed in between. The Altai Mountains in the southwest and the Khangai Mountains and Khentii Mountains in the north-central part of the country add to the diversity of landscape, habitat and resource availability. The Mongolian nomadic pastoral cultures occur as an emergent feature of the variable ecosystem dynamics of the arid and semi-arid systems (Chuluun, 2006; Fernández-Giménez, 2006). These pastoral systems have adapted to variable environmental conditions, responding to variation in resource availability. The emergence of hierarchical pastoral networks or cooperative groups based on family relationships or common locations of grazing, as a complex adaptive system, has increased the resilience of these systems to climate variability.
