Mongolia and ILC break new ground with launch of pastoralist tenure indicator pilot

10 February 2026, more than 320 participants from across Mongolia joined a national training & meeting to introduce the Pastoralist Tenure Security Indicators, marking a major step forward in how countries measure, understand, and strengthen pastoralist land rights.

Co-organised by Mongolia’s General Authority for Land Administration, Geodesy and Cartography (GALAGC, the National Land Coalition of Mongolia, and the International Land Coalition (ILC)—and it represents the first national launch following the 2025 Memorandum of Understanding between ILC, the Mongolia NLC, and GALAGC.

This moment positions Mongolia as the first country in the world to pilot the newly developed pastoralist tenure security indicators, co-developed with SPARC and ODI, further advancing its global leadership in rangeland governance.

“A critical milestone” – why this pilot matters

Opening the meeting, Dul Baatar, Head of the Land Monitoring Division at GALAGC, emphasised the importance of the collaboration and Mongolia’s commitment to strengthening evidence-based land governance:

Participants included officers from all of Mongolia's 21 provinces, soum land officers, government and civil society representatives and herders - ensuring the pilot is as inclusive and participatory as possible with wide national reach and strong institutional grounding.

ILC Asia Regional Coordinator Anu Verma reinforced the global significance of this step:

During the session, ILC’s Data and Land Monitoring Lead, Eva Hershaw, presented the full indicator framework developed with pastoralist organisations throughout 2025.

Pastoralists manage land differently, and traditional land tenure indicators are unable to sufficiently capture:

• Seasonal movement
• Shared and overlapping rights
• Customary governance
• The fluid boundaries that define pastoralist systems

The new indicators address this gap through three dimensions:

• Legal recognition (de jure) – whether pastoralists’ rights and mobility routes, as well as FPIC processes concerning them, are formally recognised
• Process and practice (de facto) – how governance, customary systems, and relationships work on the ground
• Perceptions – how secure pastoralists feel about their land tenure and reasons for insecurity

These indicators align with and inform monitoring of land tenure in existing global frameworks including the SDGs, the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, the UNCCD, and the UNFCCC.

Throughout 2026, GALAGC, the Mongolia NLC, and ILC will work together to:

• Implement pastoralist indicators for the Mongolian context
• Engage diverse actors, including herder communities, in data collection
• Analyse findings to inform national land policies
• Present results and joint recommendations for COP17(August 2026)

This work can inform policies and plans to combat land degradation, supporting Mongolia’s commitments under Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) and recognising areas with potential for community-led restoration. It will also engage and elevate herders’ traditional knowledge and voices through data in policymaking spaces, a win-win for all.

A model for the world

The launch of the pastoralist indicator pilot in Mongolia is not just a national achievement—it is a global first. The collective leadership of GALAGC, the National Land Coalition in Mongolia and pastoralist networks across the country is setting a precedent for how countries can better recognise the land governance systems that pastoralists have sustained for centuries.

Mongolia has once again shown what global leadership looks like: grounded in community knowledge, aligned with national priorities, and connected to international commitments.

Part of the Mobility Matters campaign - data that moves policy

This pilot is a cornerstone of Mobility Matters, ILC’s global campaign advancing the rights, visibility, and policy recognition of pastoralists. At the heart of the campaign is a simple message:

Pastoralists have long been missing from official data systems.

When they’re invisible in the data, they’re invisible in policy.