Annotations - technical expertise

A team of experts of their respective fields collaborated and created this handbook based on the results of previous studies run by the STeP EcoLab project and common international best practices.

The handbook is an edited volume with chapters by Mongolian academics, covering chemical use, waste-water treatment, and energy efficiency. Sustainability in this context pertains to industrial processes.

In the scope of STeP EcoLab Mongolia project funded by the European Union, a handbook of environmentally friendly, sustainable production for Mongolian Wool and Cashmere industry is published and ready to be delivered to the hands of managements, engineers and technical workers of the sector.

If the salacious strategy seems cheap, it’s actually not quite—Naadam is sponsoring a goat-breeding program in Mongolia, where it sources its cashmere. The program, working with local farmers and veterinary experts from Ulaanbatar, the country’s capital, is hoping to bring 500 to 1,000 more goats into the world. (Naadam, launched in 2015, bills itself as a socially conscious business with a model based on paying herders more while charging consumers less, by cutting out middle men.) In other words, the brand is just telling its story, as well it should.

This perhaps runs contrary to the "too many goats" sustainability frame, though the message in this case focuses on #fair-trade and #technical-expertise rather than ecological sustainability. The "goat-breeding program" fits within the sustainability frame insofar as it promotes selective #breeding for higher quality and productivity, rather than breeding for increased goat numbers.

This was a consensual process from both sides, with herders stepping up and willing to have their goods marked in return for training on better practices and the hope of opening markets to paying price premiums for truly sustainable and high-quality cashmere.

(the experts who provide "training on better practices"),

istributed nodes and decentralization can help advance important social outcomes with credible partners.

(the "credible partners" are the experts?)

At the same time, the project is also helping herders to plan where and for how long to graze their different pastures during the year. Satellite images gathered by Stanford University and NASA, who joined the project in 2017, are being used to monitor pasture quality and provide new information on which areas can support pasturing. That phase of the project is still in its early days, but the potential for better-managed grazing is huge

One of the first actions Kering took was to help improving goat-combing, in order to make the process cleaner and more efficient. Local herders have learned how to sort cashmere by quality, packing the different grades into cotton, rather than plastic bags. Cashmere fiber quality is also now being augmented through improving goat husbandry and breeding. The project also supports veterinary services to improve the health and condition of goats.

(as livestock health)

In Afghanistan, close to 300 co-operatives have been set up to help cashmere farmers share best practice and gain better access to the market. Access to veterinary care has also been improved to help herders take better care of their animals.

(veterinary care)

For more than six generations, Italian company Loro Piana, the world’s most revered wool and cashmere brand, has been sourcing the finest fibers from some of the most inhospitable places on Earth to create its famously exquisite fabrics and garments. After decades of buying its raw cashmere fibers directly from selected herdsmen from Inner and Outer Mongolia, in 2009 it launched a sustainable development program, the Loro Piana Method, with universities in Italy, China and Mongolia. This initiative aims to further improve the impeccable quality that Loro Piana’s devoted customers expect of its cashmere, support smaller herds through selective breeding, preserve the ancient and complex craft of harvesting the precious under-fleece, secure a premium price for the herdsmen’s precious fibers, and protect the local ecosystem.

(but not necessarily "improved" breeds?)

The team's modeling also projects how a change in management practices could improve the health of the land. Onon Bayasgalan, who leads the project for WCS Mongolia, visits the herders frequently to present research findings at meetings of their collective. What the herders do with the data is up to them, but Bayasgalan and the rest of the team hope it will help them find healthier pastures with more food and avoid destructive overgrazing.  NASA data may not always be necessary, Chaplin-Kramer says. "WCS is trying to teach the herders how to tell by visual observation—on the ground, not via satellite—when it's time to move the herd, that is, before they'

Herders themselves are responsible for using the remote sensing data, which are provided to them at a cost to the project -- is this a sustainable arrangement? Note (above) that (1) WCS declines to disclose the project budget, and (2) this model is inherently tied to the Oyu Tolgoi mine, so the funding structure cannot be scaled to other regions. Below, however, we see the claim that the project is in fact scalable as it does not in fact rely on remote sensing

A more immediate and perhaps attainable goal is to convince herders to keep fewer goats. They might do so if their animals produced better cashmere, which would fetch higher prices. The project is helping herders breed better goats by providing them with in vitro fertilization and superior sperm; offering free veterinary care; and instilling better management practices, such as regularly combing the animals

The effort relies on vegetation maps created by Stanford's Natural Capital Project, which draws on satellite data, mainly from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer, an instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite; NASA also helps interpret the data. Healthy vegetation re

(as measurable)

With support from NASA, the Natural Capital Project is enabling real-time verification of impacts of the Sustainable Cashmere Project through a fusion of satellite remotesensing and ecosystem modelling techniques. This unique partnership provides a roadmap for private sector actors to promote more regenerative agricultural production.

(in opposition to the proposed "regenerative agricultural production")

The nomadic community is one of immense pride but one with a volatile and unstable income,” said Convergence.tech CEO Chami Akmeemana. “Leveraging blockchain technology within the transformation of the cashmere industry can provide numerous benefits for Mongolian herders, buyers, and sellers alike.”

(in the "transformation" of the industry)

A partnership between the Oyu Tolgoi mine, luxury group Kering, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Stanford University Natural Capital Project and NASA, the Sustainable Cashmere Project was established in 2015 to reengineer the supply chain of high quality cashmere and the landscape it comes from

this is an "engineered" solution that applies both to the suplly chain and to the natural environment (the "landscape")