Mongolia's territory ranges from the super-arid desert in the south to moist Taiga forest in the north, and from rolling steppe grasslands in the east to alpine terrain and glaciated peaks in the west. This varied terrain contains a wide array of ecotypes; many exhibiting unique characteristics found nowhere else on the globe. This unique, varied, and substantially undisturbed territory supports a wide diversity of living organisms, many of which are endemic to Mongolia. Mongolia harbors the last remaining populations of a number of species internationally recognized as threatened or endangered, including the snow leopard, Argali sheep, wild ass, saiga, bactrian camel, mazalai bear, and others.

However, Mongolia's biodiversity resources are facing substantial and increasing threats. Factors like Mongolia's growing population, coupled with urbanization, economic development, and an increasing per-capita demand for natural resources, have resulted in expansion and intensification in land use by people and domestic animals, and in increasing pressure to develop and utilize the country's natural resources. At the same time, the recent transition from a centrally controlled economy to a free market economy has opened the country's natural resources to free enterprise and market forces. Increasing economic activity such as mining, land cultivation and crop farming, and the production of wild and domestic animal products for internal consumption and export, have resulted in the disturbance hitherto undisturbed natural areas and the loss of wildlife habitat. Inadequately controlled or illegal hunting, and predator eradication programs also contribute to pressures on wildlife and on the natural balance in many areas.