Following the Silk Road: ILC in Kyrgyzstan
Pastoralists have always known something the rest of the world is only starting to understand: moving with the land is how you survive on it.
The Silk Road Caravan carried that message from Riyadh, host of the last United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) COP16, to Ulaanbaatar, host of this year's COP17. As part of the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026, it stopped along the way to bring together herders, farmers, community organisations and researchers from around the world. They swapped stories, compared challenges and traded solutions.
In June 2026, ILC joined the journey in Kyrgyzstan through the National Land Coalition, and bringing members from Ethiopia, Somalia and India along.
In the Issyk-Ata district, they met local communities managing their rangelands with knowledge passed down through generations, while in the Ton district, they had the opportunity to engage with young women who shared knowledge on traditional skills such as different types of crafts and traditional livestock heritage.
Their stories gave life to the #MobilityMatters campaign, which shows why pastoralists matter more than ever as climate change and land degradation tighten their grip.
Facing the same challenges and united by a shared commitment to the land, ILC Members reflect on what they brought home:
''In Kyrgyzstan, I learned it from entrepreneurs doing this traditional medicine. They have already standard quality for exports, that means it is supporting for their livelihoods''
''I feel a same similarity in my regions also, like the livestock, food, even the challenges facing the pastoralist here for the rangeland degradation, and also the solutions which we use in my region for the restoration of rangelands here, and they are using their traditional knowledge for the artificial glaciers to maintain grassland and water management''
''One important familiar thing that I have seen is the active role communities play in making mobility accessible through legal ways and how they take care of their nature, and how they prepare for the livestock and for the hard times. When pastoralist move to a different place, those that move usually survive and those that stay are usually swallowed by the effects of climate change, like drought''
''I think pastoralism is the only one occupation that sustains in a most variable atmosphere''
''Mobility is a highly productive strategy that supports the livelihood of pastoralists. It is not a random movement, it is strategic and it is a calculated type, it should be supported by different technologies''
Across the Issyk-Kul region together with the National Land Coalition Kyrgyzstan
''Pastoralists matter, they contribute a lot to the economy and to the country and it’s time that the government put in place policies and laws that help them live their life''
''One message for the world leaders for the COP: don't blame us, we are not the problem, we are the SOLUTION''
Tezera Getahun, ILC Member
Bhavana Desai Rabari, ILC Member
The Silk Road Caravan showed the pressures pastoralists live with every day. Above all, though, it showed them as they are: not victims of a changing climate, but some of the
people best equipped to adapt to it.
