Communities have coped for millennia through extremes of flood and drought by cooperatively managing shared natural resources, and by cultivating a variety of robust, indigenous crop types that can survive a range of conditions. Knowledge and use of diverse plant types - either planted or foraged - could be key to survival as climate extremes widen. Pasture degradation is very serious and widespread in Mongolia. The problem has been aggravated by three severe winters (1999-2001) characterized by heavy accumulations of snow or ice crusts on pastures. This phase III project will build on 3 years of successful field research under projects 100410 and 100875. These efforts resulted in the formation of community herder groups and the establishment of pasture co-management teams involving herders, local government representatives and members of civil society. The current phase aims to scale up earlier interventions and empower local communities through more efficient, sustainable use of pasture and other natural resources. This will be achieved through the application of PRA (participatory rural appraisal) tools and techniques, case study analysis, analysis of aerial photos with key informants, community photography, farming systems analysis, economic studies for new economic opportunities, development of criteria and indicators for community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), institutional analysis and biodiversity assessment. [Adapted from Author]