The Task Force on Protected Areas, Equity and Livelihoods, a joint initiative of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) and the Commission on Environment, Economics and Social Policy (CEESP), held its Asia Group inaugural meeting in Bangkok, Thailand, on June 19 -- 20, 2007. Enghebatu Togochog, president of the Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Center (SMHRIC), attended the meeting as the representative of the mobile indigenous Mongolian communities in Southern (Inner) Mongolia.

The meeting was proposed to promote dialogue amongst participants to develop a platform for the functioning of the Taskforce in Asia. The main objectives of the meeting are as follows:

A.    To establish a common understanding and appreciation of:

a), the purpose, mandate and scope of the Task Force;

b), core concepts that are fundamental to the work of the Task Force, e.g. models of Protected Areas (PAs) governance, equity, livelihoods, poverty;

c), key policy instruments, e.g. the World Park Congress recommendation on Poverty and PAs, World Bank Policy on displacement, and the Convention on Biological Diversity Programme of work on PAs;

d), the range of different perspectives within the Task Force membership.

B.     To develop a strategy and work-plan for addressing each of the three specific objectives of the Task Force (as listed on the previous page).

C.     To review, and where appropriate suggest revisions, to the Terms of Reference and membership of the Task Force.

Facilitated by the three co-chairs of the Task Force, Lea M. Scherl, Phil Franks, Ali Kaka, and Ashish Kothari with support from several other resources persons, the meeting divided the representatives into three smaller groups and each group was asked to come up with its detailed work-plan by the end of the meeting.

At the meeting, Southern Mongolian representative Enghebatu Togochog brought to the attention of the representatives the case of “Ecological Migration” and “Total Ban over Livestock Grazing” in Southern Mongolia. He said to the representatives that the Chinese authorities have been carrying out a coercive displacement policy called the “Ecological Migration” which aims to displace the entire Mongolian herding and semi-herding population from their ancestral grazing lands to overwhelmingly Chinese populated urban and agricultural areas. In his comment, he also mentioned that the Chinese government is implementing another equally egregious policy --- the “Total Ban over Livestock Grazing” in Southern Mongolia.

Under recommendations by Enghebatu Toghochog and Ms. Asmita, representative from India, the meeting adopted the topic of “displacement” of indigenous people from their land under the conservation and development as one of the focal points of the work-plan that will be carried out in the next few years.

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