Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ Minister of Environment and Tourism N.Urtnasan and Resident Representative of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Mongolia Vinod Ahuja discussed the ‘Sustainable Resilient Ecosystem and Agriculture Management in Mongolia’ (STREAM) project to be co-implemented by the sides with funding support from the European Union. 

The EUR 4.2 million project aims at increasing the capacity of Mongolian communities to implement innovative and sustainable long-term landscape management to address food system challenges and climate stresses and to achieve its objective, the STREAM project will work in two fields of action. 

FAO will focus its support on mainstreaming climate change adaptation into the agricultural landscape management to increase agricultural productivity, sustainability and value addition using EUR 1.65 million. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH will concentrate its support on improving capacity for sustainable landscape management of forest resources and conservation of biodiversity using EUR 2.6 million. 

On the local level, the project will be implemented in Umnudelger, Binder, and Bayan-Adarga soums of Khentii aimag and Yeruu, Mandal, and Javkhlant soums of Selenge aimag over a three-year period from May 2021 until April 2024.

Underlining that increased focus is placed on the project’s effectiveness, Minister N.Urtnasan made proposals to improve sustainable forest management, provide modern equipment, and increase the household incomes of the locals; cooperate in increasing the forest fund and providing funding for forestation; record the project expenditures; have the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Light Industry take part in the signing of the project agreement; and not to spend the project funds on studies as there have been a lot of assessments and studies on forest resources and forest managements standard update. 

Expressing support for the Minister’s proposals, FAO Resident Representative Vinod Ahuja agreed to have another meeting with the Minister regarding the matter. He also voiced his appreciation of her focusing on forest restoration greatly and made a request to jointly mark the National Tree-planting Day in October as the UN General Assembly has declared 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables.