More than 93% of the territory of Kyrgyzstan is occupied by mountain ridges of Tien-Shan and Pamir-Alay. Mountains are valued for its natural pastures with total area more than nine million hectares. Out of all agricultural lands, 85% are natural pastures. 44% of the whole territory of the Kyrgyzstan is occupied by pastures. The average altitude of pastures is 2750 m above sea level. 1/3 of them is located on the altitude from 400 to 3000 m above sea level.

The geographical location and mountainous ecosystem forced the local residents to be engaged in cattle breeding since ancient time. Mountain pastoral communities have accumulated a thousand-year experience of year-round livestock farming without harming the environment. Due to the different altitudes, as well as the exposure of individual pasture areas, the vegetation on them occurs in different periods (from one month to 9-10 months), which historically determined the seasonal nature of pasture use. That is why local communities developed original traditional land use systems that have been substantially eroded over seventy years of Soviet Union through settlement, collectivization, and the industrialization of livestock production, followed by a chaotic transition to independence and the free market.

As a result, many pasture users stopped moving their cattle to distant pastures, refusing, in fact, traditional methods of moving cattle to pastures. Because of the useless attitude and unsystematic use, the process of secondary degradation of pastures has gone everywhere.

Seasonal pasture rotation: moving from one pasture to another according to 4 seasons: Djazdo’o/ koktom – spring pastures; Djailo’o – summer pastures; Kuzdo’o – autumn pastures; Kyshto’o – winter pastures. Every seasonal pasture was used only for one season. This allowed to soil and plants to fully recover during all other seasons.

However, for the last decades the pastoral stopped using whether the traditional or modern methods of grazing and pasture management. That resulted in degradation of pastures/range lands.

During the last 20 years, over 50% of pasturelands in the country became degraded and depleted. Increase in number of livestock and unsystematic grazing resulted in deterioration of grass, and destruction of soil and its fertility. Local herders almost forgot traditional knowledge and traditional pasture management, and harmed biodiversity and challenged unique mountain landscapes.

In order to address the degradation of pastures and explore the customary ways of pasture management, our organization developed a case study to demonstrate and further integrate the community-based pasture conservation approach through the collaborative strategies. Current ecological challenges as climate change and its negative effect on nature were also taken into account while implementation of the initiative. We focused on Cholpon rural municipality[1]. It is located in the north of Kyrgyzstan in Inner Tien Shan Mountains in Kochkor district of Naryn province. 1900-4000 m above sea level. The total area of the territory is 52,928 hectares, of which 49,386 hectares are pastures. The total population is 8,723 people. The total number of households is 1,624. This is a mountainous area with a very fragile natural environment, with average winter temperature -15 °C and in summer +25 °C. Pastures are mainly desert and semi-desert. As a result of excessive grazing, local pastures are severely degraded, which leads to a deterioration of ecosystem. Majority of the local residents are engaged in cattle breeding and exploit the pastures for grazing. Due to poorly developed infrastructure and limited opportunities for employment, cattle breeding became the only source of income for local families that resulted in irrational use and overload of ecosystem for the last decade. Today the locals are reviving the traditional ways of preserving nature and consolidating wisdom to secure diverse ecosystem services.

[1] Rural municipality or Ayil (village) aimak is an administrative-territorial unit consisting of one or several villages, in which the local community exercises local self-government in the manner established by the Constitution and laws of the Kyrgyz Republic.

Picture 1: Landscape of the targeted area

Picture 2: Local herders on summer pastures

The main objective of Cholpon municipality’ projects (2015-2019) is to empower local community members to increase their resilience and adaptation to climate change through revival and preservation of traditional pastoralism practices and collaborative strategies to mitigate vulnerability of ecosystems in Cholpon rural municipality.

The project achieved mid-term results that include revival of nomad pastoralism practices, development and endorsement of collaborative strategies of community-based pasture conservation and establishment of climate monitoring system.

In frame of the project, a Community Climate Change Adaptation Center was established to revive traditional systems and climate adaptation strategies by Participatory Rural Appraisal approach to map traditional knowledge and practices reducing the vulnerability of the local community to the effects of climate change, reveal the available tools of collective solutions for climate change, and pasture management.

We supported the local residents and pastoralists to deliver inventory and documenting cattle and pastures to develop pasture management and conservation strategy and introduce it into practice. The project fostered the revival of traditional knowledge and customs of nomadic migration to remote pastures and conservation of pastures. As a result of community mobilization and public awareness campaigns, the local community members and pastoralists learned how to balance between scientific approach, traditional nature management and pasture ecosystem. This result was achieved due to intensive series of learning sessions and practical workshops that equipped the herders with traditional methods of nomadic movement and do not remain in the same place all season to support plants recovering.

Joint initiative of ISDS and Cholpon rural municipality/pasture users association integrated the practice of community-based conservation concept by involving local people/pasture users in decision-making around pasture/natural resources management. We developed collaborative strategies of pasture conservation using traditional knowledge with long-term effect to improve the well-being of pasture users, while preserving and improving the condition of land resources. The main outcomes of the project are that local pastoralists revived traditional practices on pastures using, herders moved from degraded pastures near the village to the remote pastures on the Son-Kul Lake located on the altitude more than 3000 m above sea level. Before it was used only on 20% resulted in spreading uneatable herbs. Conservation started from 30 hectares (2016), then 900 (2017) and finally 9,500 hectares (2018) conserved based on traditional knowledge (TK)/practices.

Figure 1: Restoration of pasturelands (restored lands near village across the village road (marked in violet color) by using traditional practices of movement to distant pastures (marked in light green color)

• Conducting inventory and documenting the cattle and pastures to develop pasture management and conservation strategy and introduce it into practice;
• Revival of traditional knowledge and customs of nomadic migration to remote pastures and conservation of pastures by combination of modern methods of pasture management and traditional practices (Integration of traditional knowledge and practices into community-based pasture conservation);
• Community campaigns and public meetings to systematize traditional knowledge and popularize it among other pastoral committees in the region (Interaction of all stakeholders to enhance the adaptive potential of the local population, including youth, to climate change by creation and development of the Community Climate Adaptation Center);
• Integration of climate monitoring system based on the best practices of traditional pastoralism.
• Restoration of 9,500 hectares of the Kyzart pasture near the village by reviving the traditional practice of conservation of pastures.
• Reviving intergenerational connections and passing traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and ancient pastoralist culture to young generation of Cholpon municipality (young herders and local schools children) – Trainings for herders; Local festivals; Forum-Theaters with participation of local schools’ students & Street Theaters with involvement of local pasture users/villagers.

Participatory exercises with the community to increase their understanding and assessing impacts, vulnerability and adaptation to climate change.

• As a result of the exercises, the following findings were revealed:
• Large concentration of livestock during herding led to a disturbance of the grass stand
• The replacement of the eaten vegetation with poisonous, harmful one
• Lack of climate monitoring system
• Pasture load and overgrowth of uneaten plants led to fall of productive mass of animals and the forage dignity of pastures, as well as pasture degradation and soil
• The population irrationally use pasture resources due to loss of tradition of nomadism and careful attitude towards nature
• The locals ignored traditional methods, culture of using pastures and zootechnical methods, which caused the degradation of pastures

Activities to integrate nomad pastoralism customary practices in climate change adaptation strategies:

• Participatory Rural Appraisal approach to map traditional knowledge and practices reducing the vulnerability of the local community to the effects of climate change, reveal the available tools of collective solutions for climate change, and pasture management
• Inventory and documenting the cattle and pastures to develop pasture management and conservation strategy and introduce it into practice
• Revival of traditional knowledge and customs of nomadic migration to remote pastures and conservation of pastures
• Combination of modern methods of pasture management and traditional practices
• Community campaigns and public meetings to systematize traditional knowledge and popularize it among other pastoral committees in the region
• Climate monitoring system is integrated and revised based on the best practices of traditional pastoralism

Enhance the pastoralists to use traditional practices to sustainably maintain livelihoods and improve resilience to the impacts of climate change:

• Local communities and pastoralists consider the balance between scientific approach and traditional nature management and pasture ecosystem
• The herders are equipped with traditional methods of nomadic movement and do not remain in the same place all season to support plants recovering
• They learned to determine seasonal pastures, depending on the mountainous terrain of vertical roaming, up into the mountains according to the traditionally worked annual cycle
• Collaborative strategies of pasture conservation using traditional knowledge have long-term effect to improve the well-being of pasture users, while preserving and improving the condition of land resources
• The approach fosters a balanced distribution of livestock in pastures during grazing seasons and be proactive to address climate change

However, it took time to enhance the local communities and pastoralists consider the balance between scientific approach and traditional nature management and pasture ecosystem. The herders could not understand the importance and rational of traditional methods of nomadic movement, and continued to remain in the same place all season and prevented the plants recovering.

Traditional knowledge and practices reduce the vulnerability of the local community to the effects of climate change

Local communities and pastoralists consider the balance between scientific approach and traditional nature management and pasture ecosystem

Traditional methods of nomadic movement (instead of remaining in the same place all season) will support plants recovering

• Carol Kerven, Bernd Steinman, Chad Dear, and Laurie Ashley, Mountain Research and Development, 32(3):368-377 (2012), Researching the future of pastoralism in Central Asia’ mountains: Examining Development Orthodoxies
• Inim Ur Rakhim and Daniel Masenin, University of Central Asia (2011), A manual for shepherds
• About Priorities for the Conservation of Biological Diversity of the Kyrgyz Republic for the period until 2024 http://www.ecology.gov.kg/page/view/id/25

Syn-Tash pasture users union (which replicates the practice of Cholpon municipality in Chuy province) – series of video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YponVTPGaMk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiCOfj9xvDc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gdoNe-efIc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGtLOddBCKw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHAgFX4UCCo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrIXLCA9sjM

Anara Alymkulova holds Master of Social Work with concentration on Community & Organizational practice from Michigan State University. She has over 18 years of experience in community-oriented programs focusing on capacity building/outreach/resilience, and empowerment around social/biocultural issues.

Urmat Omurbekov is a head of a Pasture Users’ Association of Cholpon rural municipality. From 2011 to now, he has been a Chairman of the Pasture Users Association of Kochkor District of Naryn province.

Nazira Satyvaldieva holds Master of Public Administration from Academy of Management under the President of Kyrgyzstan, she is a national expert on community development and capacity building, has over 10 years of experience in organizational and institutional development of non-government organizations, strong expertise in gender mainstreaming and conflict management, and communication/advocacy.