The Foundation for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage is a UNESCO-accred-ited NGO located in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It was established in 2000 with the objectives of protecting and safeguarding various natural and cultural heritage elements, including intangible heritage values, and carrying out various activities for researching, studying, and promoting natural and cultural heritage properties and ICH values. Since its establishment, the Foundation has been actively involved in state efforts to implement the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH and introduce its new requirements in Mongolia. Both members and the president of the Foundation himself have initiated new ICH amendments into existing heritage law to be more compliant with the 2003 Convention (2006). \nSince 2007, in close cooperation with other ICH NGOs, experts and members of the Foun-dation have elaborated on and implemented action policy, introducing the UNESCO Living Human Treasures program in Mongolia. As a result, in 2015, the primary registration work of ICH elements and their bearers was conducted for the first time in Mongolia, and, overall, 88 ICH elements and more than 3,000 individuals as ICH bearers were identified. One hundred individuals were registered on the “National List of ICH Bearers Possessing the High Level of Skills and Knowledge.”

The Foundation for the Protection of Natural and Cultural Heritage is a UNESCO-accredited NGO located in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It was established in 2000 with the objectives of protecting and safeguarding various natural and cultural heritage elements, including intangible heritage values, and carrying out various activities for researching, studying, and promoting natural and cultural heritage properties and ICH values.

List of ICH Festivals applied for the Silk Roads Living Heritage Network Membership

A triad of spring festive rites—biye baylau, ayghyr kosu, and kymyz murundyk, identified and documented in Terisakkan Village in the northern outskirts of Ulytau District, Central Kazakhstan—is a testimony to nomadic culture surviving up to today. Regarded by its bearers as the most important annual festive event, it starts in early May with first spring warmth, new grass, flowers, and foals, opening a new year-round cycle of life reproduction and a new season of making koumiss, an ancient sacred drink.