Paper short abstract:

Since the late 1990s, CBNRM projects have established thousands of "herder groups" as a community in Mongolia. However, most of them have disappeared after the project ended, probably due to the commonly accepted design principle for sustainable management of CPRs: "clearly defined boundaries".

Paper long abstract:

This paper examines how international development projects implemented in the pastoral sector in Mongolia have impacted on the pastoral mobility, household economy and collective activities of Mongolian pastoralists, focusing on those of "community-based natural resource management" (CBNRM).

In Mongolia, the transition to a market economy since the early 1990s has been alleged to require new pastureland management institutions. Since the late of 1990s when a CBNRM approach was introduced, thousands of "herder groups" have been established as a community. Donors funding the projects also initiated the legislation to allocate an exclusive, long termed pasture use right to herder groups. The projects organize herder groups according to design principles: "small size" and "clearly defined boundaries", which are commonly supposed to be critical conditions to sustainable management of CPRs, and the first one of Ostrom's eight design principles. However, most of the herder groups have disappeared after the project ended.

My case studies show that the CBNRM projects have increased exclusionary attitudes toward outsiders, which lead to the reduction of pastoral mobility and the loss of safety net. The projects often have had no expected outcomes, but sometimes unfavorable impacts on the pastoral society, probably due to the above design principle.

The logic of "clearly defined boundaries" is the same as that of the privatization as a solution of Hardin's "tragedy of the commons" dilemma: clearly defining boundaries is essential to internalize external costs. This logic makes CBNRM programs to substitute for the privatization of pastureland in the context of post-socialist Mongolia.