Kyrgyzstan pastoralism has significantly changed its form in the context of Soviet history from the founding to the collapse. Prior to the founding of the Soviet Union, Kyrgyz recognized that the pastures were common property. With no administrative organization in charge, they were managed by the kin or tribal groups actually practicing the grazing, the chiefs of which met together to discuss the grazing. The pastures were divided up on a kin or tribal group basis according to the natural topographic conditions such as rivers and valleys, and were used through shifting the sites for grazing subject to the condition of the pastures (rotational use) (Esengulova et al., 2008). In the Soviet era, all the livestock and pastures became state-owned and operated under the Soviet production regime composed of the kolkhoz and the sovkhoz, as mentioned above. Though the rotational use of pastures was encouraged under the control of the state, the maximization of livestock production under the collective production system led to a major problem of the intensive use of all the pastures. In the post-Soviet era, as mentioned in section (2) above, the pastures, which remain state-owned, were separately managed by different organizations and were leased out to livestock farms or owners until a new law was adopted in 2009. However, they had not been appropriately distributed due to the blurred boundaries, as well as to a lack of management capability, as exemplified by the fact that many of the organizations responsible for management even have no maps of the pastures. In the context of this situation, a number of the herders did not follow the traditional pattern of transhumance and have overused, for their convenience, the Winter and Spring- Autumn pastures, which are located closer to their villages. As a result, these pastures have become degraded and this has allowed the invasion of species unfit for grazing. In contrast, it was often the case that the Summer pastures, which are located further away from the villages, were underutilized. Although some have recovered from the degraded situation attributed to their intensive use during the Soviet era, many more underutilized pastures have declined in economic value due to the progress of plant succession with the invasion of secondary plants unfit for grazing (USAID, 2007; Esengulova et al., 2008). According to the Gosregister, the situation of grassland coverage in 2005-2006 was categorized into the lush growth of non-edible weeds (27%), soil erosion (19%) and substantial degradation (33%). Other problems that have been pointed out include the low profits from leasing out the pastures (US$ 0.35/ha on average), the lack of any role played by the local communities in the pasture management and the underdevelopment of the infrastructure (USAID, 2007).

In order to improve the situation concerning the pastures, a new law which was adopted in 2009 completely changed the pasturage system of Kyrgyz. It is expected that by managing all pastures at the local level, and clarifying the pasture areas and the payment, the state of pastures will be improved and also qualified pastures will increase the productivity of the livestock.