On 22 Aug 2022, more than 50 stakeholders working on environmental education and communication in protected areas endorsed the National Environmental Education and Communication Strategy (EECS) related to protected areas in Mongolia that the GIZ SPACES project developed in 2020 and updated in 2022. The stakeholder workshop was opened by D.Batmunkh, the Director of the Department of Protected Area Management at the Ministry of Environment and Tourism. The stakeholders, originating from NGOs, government, research and donor organizations, discussed the strategy’s main problems and target audiences identified through GIZ-commissioned environmental awareness surveys and stakeholder assessments in 2020-2022. They also committed contributions to a national “My Green Mongolia” media campaign as an action plan to the EECS for 2022-2024.

The campaign will tackle major problems for protected areas:

1- the lack of political will, finance, and human resources; 2- lack of public awareness; 3- overgrazing and excessive use of natural resources: 4- excessive tourism. Therefore, the campaign’s main target audiences are 1- political decision makers, 2- youth, 3- local communities, especially herders, 4- domestic tourists.

More than 30 campaign stakeholders have established a “My Green Mongolia” Facebook Group. GIZ SPACES has already invested in manuals, a ToolBox, outdoor guidelines, videos and comics as well as trainings and curricula related to EEC. A website and a radio drama series contributing to the campaign are currently being developed by the project, and will be launched later this year. Existing as well as newly produced media and material by GIZ and other stakeholders will be uploaded to the website so that they will be publicly available.