What Happens When The Frontlines Go Quiet?

Imagine you are standing in the middle of a desert in western India, standing among solar panels that stretch for miles, marking territory that once belonged to the Maldharis (pastoralists). It’s an Indian summer, the temperature is a scorching 50 degrees. Now imagine surviving this every year when what was once open grazing land can no longer provide sustenance for people and animals. This is Charanka village in Gujarat, the site of one of Asia’s largest solar parks.

From a distance, these projects signal climate progress, man-made sun worshippers, row after row of silicon against blue skies, harvesting light. On the ground, they raise a harder question: what will happen when the frontlines go quiet, when the guardians of fragile ecosystems migrate to urban zones in search of survival? According to a UN report, "by 2050, two-thirds of global growth is projected to occur in cities and the remainder in towns." It is therefore critical, as the report suggests, to “achieve balanced territorial development, countries must adopt integrated national policies that align housing, land use, mobility, and public services across urban and rural areas.”

Who is paying for the green transition?

In December last year, more than 150 pastoralist women leaders from across Asia gathered in Gujarat, India, for the Asian Pastoralists Women Gathering (APWG), the largest regional assembly of pastoralist women in fifteen years. Organized by ILC members, the Maldhari Rural Action Group (MARAG), along with the South Asian Pastoralists Alliance, Pastoral Women's Group & co-covened with the Central Asian Pastoralists Alliance, the meeting came as governments focus on the UN’s International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026) and the International Year of Women Farmers (IYRF 2026).

The stakes are enormous.

According to the International Land Coalition and the global IYRP campaign, rangelands cover roughly 25% of the Earth’s land surface and support nearly 500 million people worldwide. These landscapes store carbon, preserve biodiversity, and sustain food systems in some of the world’s most climate-vulnerable regions.

Yet the women who sustain pastoralism remain largely invisible in climate policy.

They face what advocates describe as a “double marginalisation”: excluded as women and sidelined as mobile land users whose rights are rarely secured in formal systems.

If climate justice is serious about equity, pastoralist women must be at its centre.

“Even if the children want to stay.”

Maldhari women Jivatiben and Lasuben, whom I met at the Asia Pastoralist Women’s Gathering in Ahmedabad last December, told me,

“Yes, we have cattle, but the grazing land is not there anymore.”

She is referring to gauchar, village commons that historically allowed herders to move livestock in response to erratic rainfall. Mobility is not cultural nostalgia. It is an ecological adaptation.

“Even if the children want to join livestock work,” she says quietly, “there is no land.”

Wind and solar energy projects have expanded across Kutch. Roads fragment grazing routes. Access narrows multifold for women, multiplying gender based issues like safe healthcare and education for pastoralists. The parks that symbolise decarbonisation now stand on land that once buffered drought and sustained local economies.

Renewable energy is essential. But mitigation cannot come at the cost of communities that have long managed these landscapes sustainably.

Solar power, water scarcity, and exclusion

From the location of her lived experience in Charanka village in Patan district, in the western state of Gujarat, Sunny Rabari, who is in her early 20s, describes what large-scale solar development has meant for pastoralists.

Water comes from a single rain-fed lake shared by people, livestock, and pasture. Desertification is accelerating. Women travel up to fifty kilometres for healthcare. Jobs at the solar plant are mostly reserved for literate men from the community.

Sources say much of the land was purchased by the company for the project, while the remaining land is largely arid and faces severe water shortages. Despite solar panels being installed on the land, the landowners do not receive free electricity.

Large-scale land acquisitions, whether for agribusiness, mining, or renewable energy, frequently occur in areas governed by customary tenure systems. Women, in particular, are less likely to hold formal documentation, making them especially vulnerable to exclusion.

Green energy must not reproduce old patterns of land injustice.

Climate stress and shrinking migration routes

In another Western Indian state, Maharashtra, pastoralist women Kamalbai and Ranjabai Shelke describe how climate change itself is altering migration:

Their community once migrated nearly 350 kilometres annually. Now the journey grows more uncertain each year.

“As mothers, we want our children to have a better and easier life,” they say. “But this also means that the next generation may not continue pastoralism.”

They are clear that migration to cities is not necessarily an aspiration.

“The truth is that this migration is often unwilling. No one truly wants to live away from their community in urban isolation.”

Strengthening tenure and protecting mobility corridors is not about preserving tradition for its own sake. It is about climate resilience and rural stability.

Choosing to stay, if supported

In Dur Village in Bhutan’s highlands, Tsewang Choden made a deliberate choice.

“I chose to stay behind… to continue our pastoralist way of life without losing it for the generations to come. The climate is harsh, the work requires intense physical labour, and we often live in isolation… We are determined to stay, provided we receive support from the government.”

Her message to youth is pragmatic:

Across Asia, pastoral youth are not abandoning their communities lightly. They are responding to policy environments that fail to secure land rights, provide infrastructure, or create viable rural economies.

In Mongolia, Jigjid Ijilseg observes another shift,

“Many young people return to the steppes from the cities because of pollution and overcrowding… Especially those who have families begin to prefer the countryside.”

But she also sees tension.

“Many young women are now highly educated and often do not see themselves marrying men who are pastoralists.”

As a mother, she wants choice. Yet she worries pastoralism could slowly fade.

From recognition to redistribution

Fifteen years ago, pastoralist women from 32 countries gathered in Gujarat and issued the Mera Declaration, demanding recognition of mobility, secure grazing rights, and women’s leadership.

Today, they are pushing further.

The emerging MERA+15 Declaration calls for among other agenda items:

• At least 20% of climate finance is to be allocated directly to pastoralist women.
• Binding Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for all land-based projects affecting rangelands.
• Compensation for climate-related livestock and pasture losses.
• Payment for ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and biodiversity stewardship.
• Governance Quotas and Decision-Making Power for Pastoralist Women.

This shift is profound. Pastoralist women are no longer asking merely to be acknowledged as stewards; they are now seeking to be recognized as leaders. They are asserting themselves as climate actors entitled to finance, authority, and enforceable rights.

Bhavana Rabari of the Maldhari Rural Action Group puts it plainly:

Anu Verma, Asia Regional Coordinator for the International Land Coalition, adds:

A policy test for UNCCD Parties

As Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification operationalise Land Degradation Neutrality targets and national drought plans, rangelands cannot remain an afterthought.

Rangelands cover a quarter of the planet. They are not empty spaces awaiting investment. They are living systems sustained by half a billion people.

Land restoration targets cannot be met if mobility corridors are fragmented.
Drought resilience strategies will fail if customary grazing rights remain unsecured.
Climate mitigation projects risk accelerating degradation if FPIC is treated as procedural rather than binding.

A credible response requires:

1. Integrating rangeland governance into LDN strategies, formally mapping and securing transhumance routes.
2. Embedding gender-responsive tenure reform in National Action Programmes, codifying collective grazing and women’s inheritance rights.
3. Mandating binding FPIC for all land-based climate and renewable investments in drylands.
4. Allocating direct climate and restoration finance to pastoralist women’s institutions.
5. Including pastoralist women in national delegations and UNCCD technical processes.

Renewable megawatts will rise. Climate targets will tighten. Carbon markets will expand.

But climate justice will not be measured only in gigawatts installed.

It will be measured in terms of whether pastoralist women gain secure land rights, binding consent, fair compensation, and a defined share of climate finance.

Follow ILC's Mobility Matters campaign for more on the work of our members.