Conservation and partners
The people already working here
Our expeditions enter landscapes where conservation work has been going on for years. Researchers, rangers and local organisations already know these places, monitor their wildlife and protect them. Our role is to work with that knowledge, and fit into the conservation work already happening there. This page introduces who they are, what they do, and how our expeditions connect with their work.
Steppe Wildlife Conservation & Research Center
The Pallas’s cat expedition is based at their centre in the Eastern Steppe, and the five days in the field are spent with their researchers and trackers on ground they have surveyed since 2015. We do not publish where the centre is : the cats live on steppe that carries no legal protection.
- Founded
- 2018, on fieldwork begun in 2015
- Founder
- Otgonbayar Baatargal
- Pallas’s cat
- Occupancy and camera-trap surveys, a diet study published internationally, and four cats followed on GPS collars
- Steppe eagle
- Four consecutive years of breeding surveys — over a hundred nests found
- Marmots
- Hunted out locally, then reintroduced from 2019 — fifty released, and young born to the first families
- The ground
- Open steppe with no protected status — only about 12% of the Pallas’s cat’s Mongolian range has any
Snow Leopard Conservation Foundation
Partner organisation
The Foundation has led the long-term snow leopard research programme in Tost since 2008. Our expedition is based at its research centre, and the days in the reserve are guided by a local ranger working on the same ground as the research team.
- Founded
- 2007
- Where
- Tost, Gurvantes — South Gobi
- Main work
- Long-term snow leopard monitoring, camera traps, GPS collaring and community-based conservation
Hustai National Park Trust
The park’s Research and Training Unit monitors the takhi and the wider ecosystem at Hustai. Its biologists study the horses’ breeding, movements and social groups, alongside the park’s other wildlife and vegetation. This work guides the long-term management of a population first returned to Hustai in 1992.
- Trust established
- 2003
- Takhi reintroduction
- The first horses arrived in Hustai in 1992
- Main work
- Takhi monitoring, wildlife surveys, vegetation research and conservation training
Ikh Nart Management
Ikh Nart Management NGO
The NGO has managed Ikh Nart Nature Reserve since 2019. Its rangers patrol the reserve, monitor wildlife and support long-term research with Mongolian and international partners. Our days in Ikh Nart are guided by the people responsible for protecting this landscape throughout the year.
- Registered
- 2016
- Managing the reserve
- Since 2019
- Where
- Dalanjargalan, Dornogovi
- Long-term research
- Wildlife monitoring at Ikh Nart has continued since 2000
- Main work
- Ranger patrols, wildlife monitoring, research coordination and community-based conservation
What we put back
Still being decided, and it will be written here
A share of what every traveller pays will go to the research and the rangers in the areas we work. We are not publishing a figure until it is agreed and we can say exactly where it goes.