Mongolia’s Biocultural Landscape: The Importance of Domestic and Wild Multispecies Diversity

The emphasis in this chapter is on entanglements between the social and the biological, the human and nonhuman, the domestic and the wild. The way of life inherent in multispecies mobile pastoralism allows for biocultural diversity and should be recognised as such through the preservation of the significant biological and cultural heritage still evident on the Mongolian Plateau. Two ethnographic examples are illustrative of the significance of this biocultural diversity: the knowledge and employment of unique breeding between yak and Mongol cattle to form generations of oxen, well adapted to the surrounding mountainous terrain, and wooden ox-carts employed to move to different encampments; while the second is the utilisation of a wide range of endemic medicinal plant species that are picked and prepared for the prevention and treatment of both human and herd animal ailments. This chapter highlights the socio-ecological perspectives of Mongolian herding families, showing the importance of multispecies herds, mobility and the promotion of species diversity as long-held, ancient means of managing herd animals across the Eurasian steppe ecosystem, a different nurturing strategy toward herd animals in comparison to the emphasis in intensive farming practices on productivity, homogenisation and global markets.