[Above photo: WCS Mongolia Country Program Director Dr. Justine Shanti Alexander (4th from left) and WCS Vice President for International Policy Dr. Susan Lieberman (3rd from right) at a WCS CoP17 side event with women conservation leaders from the Gobi. Credit: ©️WCS Mongolia]

ULAANBAATAR, MONGOLIA (August 29, 2026)—The Wildlife Conservation Society is marking the end of the 17th Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD CoP17) with the following statement. 

(Watch WCS ClosingVideo) 

“As the 17th session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP17) comes to a close in Ulaanbaatar, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) congratulates the Government and people of Mongolia for their outstanding leadership, vision, and hospitality in hosting this historic global gathering. 

“Convened under the inspiring theme Restoring Land, Restoring Hope and coinciding with the UN International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, COP17 successfully elevated rangeland health, ecological integrity, and sustainable pastoralism to the global environmental agenda. Mongolia’s leadership has shown the international community that healthy, intact rangelands are fundamental not only for preserving wild nature and biodiversity, but for strengthening climate resilience, securing freshwater, and supporting sustainable local livelihoods.

“Throughout the two-week conference, WCS was proud to contribute to a positive, inclusive, and action-oriented dialogue. With a long-standing program in Mongolia, our team was also pleased to contribute where useful to the Government of Mongolia and the COP17 organizing team as the country hosted its first COP under one of the Rio Conventions. WCS experts hosted, co-organized, and participated in more than 40 side events, technical panels, and policy workshops. We engaged government delegations, local herder communities, scientific institutions, civil society organizations, international finance partners, intergovernmental organizations, the private sector, and the wider public. 

“The spirit of multi-stakeholder collaboration in Ulaanbaatar showed a shared global commitment to turn global promises into action on the ground. One event, opened by Mongolia’s Minister of Road and Transport Development and co-sponsored by the Government of Mongolia and other partners, focused on wildlife-friendly infrastructure and maintaining migratory routes as roads and railways expand. It was encouraging to see government and partners together around this issue. We know what needs to be done, and there is real momentum to act. Another brought women leaders from Gobi herder communities to COP17 to share their own experience protecting wildlife conservation, water, and the landscapes their communities depend on. Their stories were a reminder that much of the action we are calling for at COP is already happening in communities on the ground.

“Rangelands in all their forms are among the most at-risk biomes across the globe yet have been neglected and have received the least attention for conservation. These critical habitats are intensely threatened by climate change, intensifying drought, agricultural conversion, habitat loss and degradation, fragmentation of migratory routes by linear infrastructure, killing of wildlife (e.g., poaching, retaliatory predator killing, over-exploitation), and livestock-wildlife disease transmission. As a result, many of the world’s rangelands are close to, or have already crossed ecological tipping points (e.g. desertification, soil erosion thresholds, conversion to shrubland). This meeting successfully highlighted these issues, although WCS hopes that future such meetings will focus even more on biodiversity outcomes and synergies with other Rio Conventions, which are critical to rangeland conservation.

“The UNCCD mandate is in alignment with WCS’s work on the ground, where we actively lead and support rangeland conservation initiatives across 17 countries in Asia, Africa, South America, and North America. Grounded in field science and long-term community partnerships, our work confirms that true Land Degradation Neutrality, a focus of the UNCCD, requires protecting biodiversity and ecological integrity and safeguarding ecological connectivity. 

"Wildlife and pastoral communities need to move freely across intact landscapes to prevent degradation, maintain pasture health, and build resilience against extreme climate events like dzuds (extreme winter weather event) and prolonged droughts. 

“In Mongolia, WCS is already putting this into action. In the Khangai Mountains, WCS is leading a major landscape-scale initiative with government and communities, in partnership with FAO and supported by the GEF, bringing land, water, biodiversity and livelihoods together. We hope to return to the next UNCCD COP with results that show what restoration at scale can achieve.

“As countries transition from negotiation to national implementation, WCS urges governments to integrate rangeland stewardship directly into their national climate and biodiversity strategies. COP17 is also part of a wider opportunity. This UNCCD CoP is the first of 3 CoPs of the so-called Rio Conventions, negotiated in 1972. The UN Convention on Biological Diversity will convene in Yerevan, Armenia, in October, followed by the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Antalya, Turkiye in November. 

“Building on the spirit of collaboration and multilateralism here in Ulaanbaatar, WCS calls on States to renew their collective attention to ecosystem integrity as a source of stability and resilience. Ecosystems with high integrity (highly intact composition, structure, and function) provide globally important ecosystem services (e.g., climate regulation) and enhance climate adaptation outcomes for biodiversity. Increased ecological integrity also enhances the resilience of communities, economies, and supply chains to exogenous shocks and weather events that can lead to increased migration or political instability. From Mongolia to Armenia to Turkiye, the thread that connects these is ecological integrity, and biodiversity conservation. 

“For various geopolitical issues, some issues at the meeting did not advance significantly and others were deferred to a future CoP—but drought, climate change, over-grazing, habitat loss, and biodiversity declines cannot be deferred. 

“WCS looks forward to continuing to partner with governments, convention Secretariats, civil society, and local communities to take the strong spirit of multilateralism from Ulaanbaatar into measurable landscape recovery and enhanced ecological integrity, and a sustainable future for our planet's rangelands. 

“Mongolia has shown what is possible when rangelands are placed at the center of the global conversation. The task now is to keep them there and move towards results.”

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