Ubsu-Nur Accepted into World Network of Biosphere Reserves

by Brian Donahoe

Imagine riding a horse from hot desert sands to glacial mountain peaks to Arctic-like tundra in a single day, with the possibility of seeing everything from camels and vultures to reindeer and snow leopards along the way. This would be possible in only one place in the world-the Ubsu-Nur Hollow, where the world's northernmost desert and southernmost tundra zone meet.

Ubsu-Nur is a fascinating, unique and fragile mountain basin straddling the border between Mongolia and the Republic of Tuva in the Russian Federation. It stretches 600 km from east to west, and 160 km from north to south; from 3000-meter-high snow-capped peaks to the salty Ubsu-Nur lake at about 1,000 meters above sea level, into which the entire depression drains. The more mountainous 20 percent lies within Tuva's territory, while the remaining 80 percent, composed primarily of steppe, desert-steppe and desert, lies within Mongolia.

According to Andriyan Dugarovich Doduk, director of the Ubsu-Nur Biosphere Nature Reserve headquartered in Erzin in southeastern Tuva, within this territory are found five of the Earth's seven major recognized ecological zones: from true desert through two types of steppe zones to taiga (heavy forest) and finally, on the snow-capped mountain slopes, a permafrost-tundra zone. The only major ecological zones not represented within the territory are savannah and humid tropical forest.

The existence of so many ecological zones in such a compact area, as well as the self-contained nature of the depression, make Ubsu-Nur ideal for studying such biospheric processes as the relationships between zones and the transition from one zone to another. "That's why it is quite correct to take the Ubsu-Nur hollow as a nature-model, allowing us to study all biospheric processes within that small area," wrote Professor Viktor Bugrovsky, the scientific supervisor of the International Ubsu-Nur Experiment, in the 1993 publication, "Experiment Ubsu-Nur."

The area is home to a number of endangered animal species and endemic plant species, Doduk said. In addition to the well-known snow leopard, there are mountain goats, big horn sheep, elk, and a number of species of eagle, kite and vulture. At least 44 endemic plant species have been identified.

Researchers from Russia, Tuva, Buryatia, Altai and Mongolia have been collaborating since 1984 in the "Ubsu-Nur Experiment." They shared their findings at the Fifth Ubsu-Nur International Symposium, a bi-annual event held this past July in Kyzyl, the capital of Tuva.

In recent years Bugrovsky, Doduk and others involved with Ubsu-Nur have been lobbying to have the Ubsu-Nur Depression included in the UNESCO Man and the Biosphere (MAB) World Network of Biosphere Reserves, a network of 352 biosphere reserves in 82 countries. At the end of October, their efforts paid off when both the Ubsu-Nur Biosphere Reserve in Tuva and the Ubsu-Nur Basin Cluster Biosphere Reserve in Mongolia were approved by the MAB Bureau for inclusion in its network.

The MAB Bureau is encouraging further transfrontier cooperation between the two reserves, with the ultimate goal of creating a single transfrontier biosphere reserve with joint management. This approach is becoming more common and has proved successful in other biosphere reserves such as the Tatra Biosphere Reserve on the border between Poland and Slovakia.

Such an arrangement would address what Doduk has identified as the single biggest problem Ubsu-Nur faces. "At present, the main problem is that there is an international border running through the middle of the depression," he said. "Visa requirements and travel and research permission make scientific collaboration difficult."

Doduk also said that he expected enforcement of regulations to be easier than it is now. "[As] part of the World Network, protection of the reserve will become the responsibility of the entire world, not just of Tuva and Mongolia," he said.

Jane Robertson, a program specialist at the World Network of Biosphere Reserves, noted that although full responsibility for the management of the reserves will still be up to the individual countries and they can expect no direct funding from UNESCO, UNESCO can help facilitate projects and sometimes help to implement them as well. In addition, UNESCO provides a framework for cooperation and information exchange among other members of the network. "The biosphere concept provides a mutual framework for working across boundaries," Robertson said.

UNESCO is promoting regional networks of biosphere reserves, Robertson said. She noted that Ubsu-Nur could become a part of the East Asia Biosphere Reserve Network, which includes 13 biosphere reserves in Mongolia, China, Japan, the DPR Korea, and the Republic of Korea.

Brian Donahoe is a graduate student in anthropology at Indiana University. His principal research interest is indigenous natural resource management among the nomadic reindeer herders of northeastern Tuva.