Investor brief · Grassland dMRV · 2026

The Digital Steppe

Verified Tier 3 carbon assets from Mongolia's rangelands — measured, modelled and shared with the herders who restore them.

$3Mproof of concept

100,000 hapilot scale

24 monthsto verified credits

+$2Mherder incentive fund

01The problem

113 million hectares of Mongolian rangeland face green desertification. Restoration through rotational grazing works — but without credible, low-cost measurement it cannot be paid for, and herders carry the cost.

Carbon markets will fund restoration only when removals are measured, not modelled from defaults: Tier 3 data, independently verified.

02The solution

Measure — Maxar satellite imagery, multispectral drones, NaturaSpec Ultra soil spectrometry and LI-COR flux chambers, calibrated against physical samples by the NUM soil lab and the MAS Institute of Botany.
Process — an edge-to-cloud pipeline on Google Vertex AI (Random Forest and Vision Transformer models) builds a real-time national soil-carbon database. No generic LLMs; Mongolia keeps data sovereignty.
Monetize — credits packaged under an International Carbon Registry (ICR) Tier 3 methodology and reported by API to national and international registries.

03Two zones, two value streams

Sequestration zone — Khentii, Tuv, Dundgovi and Dornod provinces. Rotational grazing restores soil carbon and generates verified credits for the voluntary market.

Conservation zone — Khustai National Park. Avoided-degradation monitoring feeds ecosystem data into Mongolia's NDC 3.0 and the Joint Crediting Mechanism with Japan.

04Rights & integrity

Carbon credits and ITMOs remain the property of landowners, herders and the State. Technology and methodology IP sit with the project developer (Aerobotek / DX Mongolia); revenue flows back to the camps that practise rotational grazing.

ICR · Tier 3 — built for certification
ISO 14065 audit · third-party VVB · public comment

05Why now

UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, Land Degradation Neutrality targets
Paris Article 6.2 and the JCM with Japan
One methodology and platform for 113M ha of rangeland

The ask: fund the $3M proof of concept

Grant & blended finance

Fund the PoC build-out: sensors, drones, field campaigns, methodology and audit.

Development partners, climate funds, foundations, JCM programmes

Carbon pre-purchase

Commit to future verified credits from the pilot for early, predictable revenue.

Corporate buyers, carbon funds, Article 6 / JCM participants

Impact investment

Co-invest in the dMRV platform that can scale across Mongolia's rangelands and beyond.

Impact investors, climate-tech funds, strategic partners

06Use of funds — $5M total

dMRV tech & AIVertex AI, custom drones, NaturaSpec, LI-COR, API	$900k
Field data & operations100,000 ha, satellite imagery, NUM / MAS labs	$750k
Methodology & auditVVB, ISO 14065, ICR fees	$600k
Project management & legal	$450k
COP17 showcase, herder training, grazing pilots	$300k
Proof of concept	$3.0M
Herder incentive funddirect incentives & sustainable land management	$2.0M

0724 months to verified credits

Months 1–3Technology & preparationField baseline mapping, drone sensing, Vertex AI pipeline; ICR concept note and ISO 14065 audit started.
COP17Live debutLive showcase at UNCCD COP17 in Ulaanbaatar.
Months 4–12Validation & live MRVThird-party VVB audit, 30-day public comment, ICR Board Tier 3 approval, automated reporting.
Months 13–24CommercializationVerified credit sales on ICR, revenue to herders, NDC 3.0 data handover to the government.

08Alliance

DX Mongolia / Aerobotek: Project developer — dMRV architecture, AI, custom drones, ICR certification. Led by B. Tuguldur.
NUM Soil Laboratory: Soil baselines, sample validation, NaturaSpec calibration. Ts. Soyol-Erdene PhD.
Institute of Botany, MAS: Species classification, degradation baselines, restoration tracking. I. Tuvshintogtokh PhD.
Government & herder cooperatives: Mandate, land-use authorization and rotational grazing on the ground.

Cover image: 3D model built from Copernicus DEM GLO-30 (© DLR e.V. 2010–2014 and © Airbus 2014–2018, provided under COPERNICUS by the European Union and ESA) and modified Copernicus Sentinel-2 data (2024). Figures are from the DX Mongolia Grassland dMRV proposal; credit volumes and prices depend on the Tier 3 baseline and are not estimated here.