The seasonal movement of people and their herds has historically shaped economies, landscapes and societies. In collaboration with the World Alliance of Mobile Indigenous Peoples (WAMIP), Rooted Magazine will prepare a special issue to mark the 2026 International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. We are seeking experiences and perspectives that centre pastoralist and mobile Indigenous voices, knowledge systems and struggles as lived, political, creative practices.

Today, nomadic and transhumant pastoralism supports an estimated 100–200 million people – living around the world in landscapes ranging from tundras to deserts – who safeguard a major part of the world’s livestock genetic resources. Pastoralists make a living by using strategic mobility to take advantage of natural environments characterised by variability. Strategic mobility also supports biodiversity and rangeland health. Pastoralists supply protein-rich foods by managing low-input systems and have provided stable livelihoods for generations.

Yet pastoralist livelihoods are increasingly threatened by organised land scarcity, land fragmentation or fencing, enclosures, fortress conservation, mining, soil carbon credit projects, unpredictable rainfall, and large-scale agriculture and infrastructure projects. All these issues limit mobility and access to grazing lands, minerals and water. These pressures are endangering people and herds, impacting pastoralists’ rights and cultural resilience. In the last decades, many pastoralists have lost access to a large part of their grazing areas because of sedentarisation, modernisation and rural development policies. In many contexts, they face structural discrimination.

Pastoralist communities are not remnants of the past. Around the world, they are resisting, adapting and devising strategies and initiatives that offer promises for a thriving future. They advocate for mobility as a right, secure communal tenure, protect their customary institutions, and promote biodiversity protection, gender justice, the protection of Indigenous knowledge and governance, and community-led climate resilience.

We are seeking stories, reflections and insights from real experiences that explore the following questions:

1. Which grounded initiatives show how pastoralist communities are securing, protecting and defending collective rights to land as well as safeguarding livelihoods, biodiversity, climate resilience and dignity?
2. What roles do pastoralists’ movements play in territorial agroecological initiatives?
3. How are pastoralists navigating tensions with other land uses – such as farming – that may undermine mobility and customary grazing rights? How are multiple land uses enabled in practice?
4. In what way are agroecological principles, such as animal wellbeing and biodiversity (especially breed diversity), being used or adapted to support mobile pastoral systems?
5. What grassroots strategies used by pastoral communities have been effective in resisting land dispossession resulting from mining, large-scale agriculture, soil carbon credit projects or protected-area expansion,  as well as in preserving livestock migration corridors? How do they engage with sub-national, national and regional governments to strengthen their rights, power and agency?
6. What forms and practices of customary governance, biocultural protocols,  or communal land use have proven resilient under pressure?  What role do pastoralist cosmovisions play here?
7. How are pastoral women leading transformative economic, ecological or political change within their communities?
8. How are youth preserving and reimagining pastoral futures that ensure sustainable livelihoods and cultural continuity?
9. How are pastoral communities protecting and sharing Indigenous ecological knowledge and traditional practices across locales and generations?
10. How are pastoral practices adapting to the climate crisis, and what are their climate resilience strategies? How is pastoralism successfully integrated in biodiversity and climate mitigation strategies or promoted as part of the agroecology transition?
11. How are pastoral communities using appropriate (digital) technologies to advance their understanding of the land, to connect communities, or to advance other strategic goals?
12. Or any other relevant issues of your choice.