The Engaging Stakeholder in Environmental Conservation Project (ESEC II) was implemented by the Asia Foundation and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. The ESEC II project aims were to help Mongolia’s artisanal mining sector contribute to sustainable local development, and to mitigate the negative environmental impacts of artisanal mining practices, through the provision of environmental tools, capacity-building and a collaborative planning approach towards local sustainable development.
The Asia Foundation contracted Sustainability East Asia LLC (Sustainability) to develop a soum (inhabited country area) level Environmental Management Plan (EMP) to effectively manage environmental resource use and environmental conservation at a local level. Sustainability developed an EMP model that promoted stakeholder participation that enabled local authorities to get realistic information on environment and natural resource use and to make collaborated decisions on environmental management.
In 2015, the soum level EMP model was developed and introduced to environmental non-government organisations that were partners to the ESEC II project and Sustainability mentored them and led the process on delivering the EMP model through workshops with local authorities and stakeholders.
In March 2016, Sustainability provided feedback on available EMPs developed in 2015 as result of the workshops and a further workshop was held to discuss the previous year’s experience with NGO partners on the 2015 EMP. As result of this workshop, a revised and strengthened model was developed which was delivered to local stakeholders at soum level.
This enabled the soum authorities and stakeholders to gain a better understanding on public participation in environmental management, collaborative planning and sustainable natural resource use.