For too long, pastoralist women have remained largely invisible in global environmental and development debates, even though they are central to the stewardship of nearly half the Earth’s land surface. Rangelands cover approximately 50 percent of the world’s land area, and pastoralism remains one of humanity’s oldest and most widespread livelihood systems. Yet the women who sustain these landscapes through herding, animal care, food processing, water management, and keepers of traditional ecological knowledge are often excluded from policy decisions that shape their lands and futures.
At the heart of this gathering is a simple but transformative proposition: pastoralist women are not victims of climate change or passive beneficiaries of development. They are knowledge holders, innovators, land stewards, entrepreneurs, and leaders.
Hosted by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) together with the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) Working Group on Pastoralism and Gender, and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Nepal, the gathering will bring together women from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania whose lives and livelihoods are rooted in rangelands and mobile pastoralism. Around 90 pastoralist women from across all inhabited continents are expected to participate.
Revisiting Mera
The Gathering builds on a strong legacy that began in 2010, when pastoralist women convened for the first Global Gathering of Women Pastoralists in Mera, Gujarat, India. There, they came up with a collective action agenda known as the Mera Declaration – a landmark document that articulated the rights, aspirations, and demands of pastoralist women globally. Sixteen years later, the Kathmandu gathering, “Mera+16”, seeks to revisit and renew that agenda in the context of accelerating climate change, land fragmentation, biodiversity loss, conflict, and social marginalisation.
The stakes are far higher now. Across East Africa, prolonged droughts are devastating pastoral livelihoods. In Central Asia and the Himalaya, changing snowfall patterns and shrinking alpine pastures are disrupting seasonal migration routes. In Mongolia, desertification and dzud events (severe winters following drought) continue to threaten nomadic herders. In Latin America, pastoral territories are threatened by mining, industrial agriculture, and infrastructure expansion. In addition, pastoralist youth, especially young women, face difficult choices between preserving traditional livelihoods and seeking economic survival elsewhere.
Yet despite these pressures, pastoral systems continue to demonstrate remarkable resilience. Scientific research increasingly confirms what pastoral communities have always known: mobility is not an outdated tradition; it is adaptation. Pastoralism is the most effective livelihood system for managing uncertainty and variability in drylands, mountains, tundra, and other marginal ecosystems, and women are central to that resilience.
The road to Kathmandu
Prior to the Kathmandu meeting, regional gatherings have been organised in Africa, South and Central Asia, Europe, and North America. These regional dialogues are crucial because pastoralism is extraordinarily diverse. The realities of Maasai women in Kenya differ from those of yak herders in Nepal, Sámi reindeer herders in northern Europe, Mongolian nomads, or ranching women in North America. Yet, they also share common struggles around land access, climate shocks, invisibility, and exclusion.
The Kathmandu gathering recognises this reality explicitly. Its objectives include facilitating knowledge exchange, strengthening solidarity among pastoralist women’s organisations, sharing successful practices, developing gender-responsive pastoral policies, and building a global advocacy platform. The gathering is designed not as a top-down meeting of experts but as a space led by and for pastoralist women themselves.
Mongolia and the global policy moment
For decades, global land policies too often framed pastoralists as environmentally destructive or economically inefficient. This misconception justified sedentarisation (settling in one location) schemes, land privatisation, and exclusionary conservation policies that undermined mobility and weakened rangeland governance. Contemporary ecological science tells a very different story: well-managed pastoral mobility can enhance the health of ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, and improve resilience in highly variable environments.
The Gathering therefore comes at a historic convergence. The United Nations has declared 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), recognising the ecological and cultural importance of pastoral systems worldwide. This global recognition creates a rare political opening to ensure the voices of pastoralist women are at the centre of climate, biodiversity, food systems, and land governance conversations.
The Kathmandu gathering aims to prepare women representatives to deliver these messages globally, including at the 17th session of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification Conference of the Parties (UNCCD COP17), the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – 31st Conference of the Parties (UNFCCC COP31), and the Convention on Biological Diversity COP17. Their advocacy will focus on securing land and mobility rights, recognising Indigenous and traditional knowledge, improving access to services and markets, strengthening women’s leadership, and ensuring that climate finance and restoration programmes reach pastoral communities equitably. This is particularly important because global restoration agendas are expanding rapidly. Massive investments are flowing into ecosystem restoration, carbon sequestration (capturing and storing), and climate adaptation initiatives. Without meaningful participation of pastoralist women, such programmes risk reproducing old injustices under new green labels.
Pastoralist women’s participation in UNCCD COP17 discussions in Mongolia could therefore reshape international narratives around rangelands and restoration.
Why pastoralist women matter
Pastoralist women are often the first to detect ecological change. They observe shifts in grazing quality, livestock health, medicinal plants, water availability, and seasonal patterns. Their knowledge informs herd management, food security, and community adaptation strategies. Yet globally, their contributions remain systematically undervalued.
Women pastoralists frequently lack land rights, education, access to credit, veterinary services, practical advisory and training services, representation in producer organisations, and meaningful participation in governance structures. In many regions, they carry disproportionate labour burdens while having limited influence over policy and resource allocation. Ignoring pastoralist women means sidelining some of the world’s most experienced custodians of fragile ecosystems at a time when climate adaptation is urgently needed.
Building a global movement together
Women pastoralists can feel isolated within both mainstream feminist spaces and conventional agricultural policy arenas. Building horizontal connections across regions allows women to exchange practical innovations, legal strategies, organising tools, and emotional solidarity. One of the aims of the gathering is to strengthen a global network of pastoralist women and their organisations to support ongoing knowledge sharing, solidarity, and advocacy.
Such networks are already emerging. In East Africa, women-led pastoral associations are increasingly advocating for land rights and peacebuilding. In India, organisations such as Anthra have supported marginalised farmers and livestock-rearing communities to better understand, prepare for, and cope with changing conditions. In Mexico, Mujeres Ganaderas de México (MUGAM) strengthens women’s participation in project development and decision-making processes within the livestock sector. In North America, women ranchers are building networks around regenerative grazing and climate resilience. The Kathmandu gathering will connect these diverse experiences into a shared global conversation.
Why the gathering in Nepal is deeply significant
The Hindu Kush Himalaya is home to some of the world’s highest rangelands and most climate-vulnerable pastoral systems. Yak herders, transhumant communities, and agro pastoralists here are already experiencing rapid ecological and socioeconomic transformation. These challenges are accelerating outmigration of pastoral youth, threatening the intergenerational transfer of transhumance knowledge and undermining the long-term sustainability of pastoral practices that have shaped mountain landscapes and livelihoods for centuries.
Hosting the Global Gathering of Pastoralist Women in Kathmandu offers an important opportunity to elevate the voices and contributions of pastoral women, advocate for greater policy recognition and investment, and engage regional decision-makers on the future of pastoralism in the Himalayas. The leadership shown by the Government of Nepal in advancing the momentum of the IYRP 2026, including the development of a dedicated national action plan, the declaration of National Yak Day, the revision of national rangeland policies, and the preparation of provincial level rangeland management strategies and action plans further reinforces Nepal’s suitability as a regional host for this significant event. As a regional knowledge and intergovernmental organisation working across the Hindu Kush Himalaya, ICIMOD can play a pivotal role in convening stakeholders, fostering regional collaboration, and amplifying the experiences and leadership of pastoral women in shaping resilient mountain futures. ICIMOD’s involvement reflects growing recognition that mountain rangelands and pastoral systems deserve greater attention within global environmental policy.
A moment the world should not ignore
At a time when global environmental governance often feels disconnected from lived realities, pastoralist women offer something urgently needed: grounded knowledge of how humanity can live with uncertainty while sustaining ecosystems across generations. Their experiences challenge dominant assumptions about development, productivity, and land use. They remind us that mobility can be sustainable, that collective stewardship matters, and that resilience is rooted not only in technology but in relationships between people, animals, landscapes, and cultures. As women delegates gather in Kathmandu and later carry their messages to Mongolia and other global forums, the world will have an opportunity to listen to and learn from them. The question is whether policymakers will finally hear them.
Pastoralist women are no longer asking merely to be included. They are asserting their place as leaders in confronting the intertwined crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and food insecurity. And perhaps the future of the world’s rangelands, and the communities that depend on them, rests on recognising that they have been leading all along.
