This guide is a tool to advance legal, policy, and implementation reforms. Where Moving Rights Forward focused on mobility and access alone, this guide reviews the minimum set of rights that must be legally recognized for pastoralism and mobile livelihoods to be secure, including the specific rights of women within these systems.
This report includes a brief presentation of findings across seven countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on the legal status of pastoralist and mobile communities’ and women’s rights to mobility and access, key barriers and implementation issues, and a collection of eight case studies across these countries providing insights into the lived realities of pastoralists.
Pastoralists are well adapted to harsh environments and have deep knowledge about their natural resources. They have also suffered from drought, famine, political interference, physical insecurity, armed aggression, increasing impoverishment, and marginalization. Despite these obstacles, pastoralists have long managed their lands for various purposes including livestock mobility, which depends on large commonly owned landscapes, knowledge of ecosystem productivity, and on the ability to negotiate access to resources.