We are pastoralist women of Asia. We are nomadic and semi-nomadic indigenous women herders who have walked with our livestock across vast landscapes for generations. Our lands are our homes, our livestock are our identity, dignity, and future.
As herders, we care for our livestock.
As food producers, we nourish communities worldwide with milk, meat, and traditional foods.
As custodians of mobility, we sustain our migratory way of life, which sustains ecosystems.
As protectors of biodiversity, we save our local breeds, native grasses, and different landscapes.
As environmental stewards, we protect soil, water, and climate by living simply and in harmony with the Earth.
As carriers of culture, we pass on our languages, songs, crafts, embroidery, and collective memories from one generation to the next.
As guardians of rangelands, we protect our commons and support life across deserts, forests, mountains, and borders.
This is our way of life, and we want to continue living like this. While carrying out these roles and responsibilities, we seek recognition and respect as “Pastoralist Women”.
After doing all this for generations, we now raise our voices to claim our rights and our vision for the future.
Our Land, Pastures, and Collective Rights
We need permanent and collective rights to our grazing lands, water sources, and commons. These rights cannot be denied due to forest exclusions, company encroachments, or land grabbing. Also, such fenced, taken, or destroyed land must be immediately returned and restored under the leadership of pastoralist women.
We do not accept our lands being taken over in the name of “development”, “conservation”, or “renewable energy”, including mining, solar projects, infrastructure, or climate-related activities, without our free, prior, and informed consent. Clear and separate consent from pastoralist women is mandatory.
Our Mobility and Migration Routes
Our seasonal migration is our lifestyle. Our traditional and identified migration routes, within and across the countries, must be legally protected. When climate shocks, extreme weather, or forced barriers impede our movement, we must receive fair compensation during migration.
Our Services, Markets, and Livelihoods
We do not seek services that require us to settle. Instead, we ask that essential support for health, education, animal care, disaster relief, food, and insurance reach us along our migration routes and during our seasonal periods. We want freedom from exploitative traders and middlemen. We demand direct access to markets, fair and guaranteed prices, and green value chains for our milk, meat, wool, fibre, and crafts.
Our Knowledge, Leadership, and Intergenerational Renewal
Our traditional knowledge encompasses native grasses, animal breeds, herbal medicines, handicrafts, weather patterns, climate change, and land management, all passed down from one generation to the next.
Under our leadership, we should ensure that our knowledge of education, rangeland governance, customary laws, community protocols, public policies, and research is included—and that we own and teach it.
Our Safety, Dignity, and Accountability
Our way of life truly protects nature and supports climate action. We therefore claim legal recognition and protection for pastoralist women and our communities. Acts of Violence, harassment, humiliation, and criminalisation against us must stop. When our rights are violated, there must be fair processes of justice, accountability, and redress at all levels, with our leadership and full participation. We also claim just compensation wherever our lives and livelihoods are harmed.
We speak for ourselves in our own voices and claim rightful authority over our lives, livelihoods, and territories. We stand together as pastoralist women across all borders of Asia. We will not settle, compromise, or disappear. We will not give up on our way of life.
We herd. We teach. We lead.
This is our declaration. This is our word.