When Dave Shirley and I started EarthPM in 2009 or so, we often had to explain that our book, Green Project Management, was not about managing green projects, but rather putting the ‘green’ into project management thinking.
In fact, we even had to go negotiate with our publisher to find a book cover that expressed the idea better than their first proposals, which inevitably were photos of fields of daisies with wind turbines in the background, or children running through a forest, or even the inevitable whale’s tail. But our book was not a tale about whales, it was the story of how project managers could (and should) gain an advantage in their work by thinking long-term. In fact, it really never was about “green” per se, which limits the discussion to the ecological part of the Triple Bottom Line. Yes, it IS about that ecological portion, but it’s about all three – ecological, social, and economic. This is why we settled on a cover that had a tree that grew money. Money (economic) from a tree (ecological) can benefit people (social). Well, it worked for us, anyway.
The point is, because of this connection of sustainability thinking and projects only being about ecological issues, I sometimes avoid stories that are indeed about ‘green’ or ecologically-oriented projects. Now that the message is getting out there, and other authors (Silvius, Kohl) are publishing excellent work on the true sustainability-thinking aspect, and now that the idea is even slowly seeping into the PMBOK® Guide (see the two most recent posts here on People, Planet, Profits, and Projects), I think it’s okay, (no, not just okay, but a good idea!) to post about projects which are mostly ecological in their inception and execution.
And that takes us to the steppes of Mongolia. And a dog called the bankhar.
In the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, there is a need to protect the cashmere-yielding goats (animals that are the sustenance for the families of many Mongolian farmers) from predators such as snow leopards and wolves. Climate change, in the form of desertification (an interesting topic in and of itself) and over grazing has made the herds of these goats more susceptible to these predators.
Enter the bankhar. The Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project whose mission (from their web site) is “to help slow down and reverse the desertification of the Mongolian Grassland Steppes, and to preserve and protect traditional Mongolian culture. We strive toward these goals by resuscitating the traditional use of the livestock guardian dog known as the ‘Bankhar dog’.”
The project is the brainchild of American biologist (and entrepreneur) Bruce Elfström. Elfström, who was working on filming an IMAX movie in Mongolia, began talking to herders and researching livestock protection dogs as a missing link in the complex conservation puzzle. He realized that this was a historical solution to a highly modern problem. Discovering several families still using the original Bankhar dogs in remote areas of Mongolia, Bruce founded Mongolian Bankhar Dog Project in 2011 to put this research into practice.
If you’re interested in the chartering of this project, take a look at this TEDx talk by Bruce Elfström himself. From a purely PM perspective, it’s interesting to hear how Bruce identified stakeholders, found sponsors, and sorted out the threats and opportunities at the start of his project.
The project also has to deal with stakeholders who insist that “a dog is just a dog” and that there’s no need to bring this specific landrace back. So part of the project manager’s job (as usual) is to convince stakeholders of the value of the project. In this case, it involves using DNA research to demonstrate the value of bringing this particular dog back as a “missing piece” in the puzzle of supporting the nomadic Mongolian farmers. Using facts, persuading stakeholders to influence them to contribute… even though this is a project in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia, it sounds pretty familiar to a construction project just outside of Des Moines, Iowa, doesn’t it?
So what is the real motivation behind this project?
One single predator like a snow leopard can kill up to 40% of a herder’s flock in Mongolia over the course of a season
Mongolian nomadic herding families make an average of $3/day
In a program similar to ours in South Africa, use of livestock protection dogs was shown to reduce depredation by at least 33 percent at every participating farm and eliminated completely at more than 90 percent of farms
In North America, a study showed that livestock protection dogs reduced predation by 64%, and in one year, 53% of producers with LPDs had depredation losses reduced to zero.
What about the dogs themselves?
Bankhar dogs are an ancient landrace ( a domesticated, locally adapted, traditional variety of a species) which co-evolved with humans to serve as an effective guardian of livestock on the Mongolian steppe.
Males average 120 lbs and 30 inches at shoulder. Females average 100 lbs. Bankhar have heavy fur to protect them from the harsh Mongolian climate, as Mongolia is the coldest place on earth where livestock protection dogs are used. It’s not uncommon for Bankhar to live to 17 years old. Traditionally they eat a diet of herders’ leftovers—sheep innards, whey, noodles, and bones.
I would suggest that you read the entire article which triggered my interest in this project, to learn about the threats and opportunities the project actually encountered, including working with other non-profit NGOs such as the Snow Leopard Trust. [PAGE 65]
Community Champion
In fact, we even had to go negotiate with our publisher to find a book cover that expressed the idea better than their first proposals, which inevitably were photos of fields of daisies with wind turbines in the background, or children running through a forest, or even the inevitable whale’s tail. But our book was not a tale about whales, it was the story of how project managers could (and should) gain an advantage in their work by thinking long-term. In fact, it really never was about “green” per se, which limits the discussion to the ecological part of the Triple Bottom Line. Yes, it IS about that ecological portion, but it’s about all three – ecological, social, and economic. This is why we settled on a cover that had a tree that grew money. Money (economic) from a tree (ecological) can benefit people (social). Well, it worked for us, anyway.