Our latest WOLTS publication is a fascinating photo essay from one of our pilot research communities, Mundarara, in Tanzania. The piece by Jim Grabham, titled “Are rubies undermining Maasai culture”, shares insights gleaned from in-depth interviews with two participants in a one-year training programme on gender, land and mining that has been developed and carried out by the HakiMadini and Mokoro WOLTS project team in Tanzania.

The Zoigê grasslands may greatly benefit from removing the fences that divide them, but entrenched interests and government policy are pushing in the other direction, reports Feng Hao

Second Call for Panels, Papers and Posters Joint XXIV International Grassland Congress and XI International Rangeland Congress

Deadline: 

01/10/2019

Kenya is experiencing changes in its weather patterns. This includes changes in temperatures and wind and rainfall patterns – particularly shifts in the timing and length of rainy seasons. This has led to more droughts and floods. These changes have increased the vulnerability of pastoralists households whose livelihoods come from livestock like goats and cows.

The Land for Life Award was launched at the UNCCD COP10 in the Republic of Korea as part of the Changwon Initiative.

The latest report from Mokoro's WOLTS project team is the product of rigorous field research in a third Mongolian community, in collaboration with the Mongolian NGO, People Centered Conservation (PCC). The report addresses critical issues at the intersection of gender, land, mining and pastoralism in Tsenkher soum, in Arkhangai aimag in central-western Mongolia.

Pastoralists manage land in way that keeps carbon in soil instead of releasing climate-changing emissions, experts say

TURIN, Italy - Nomadic herders across Africa can work in tandem with farmers and produce sustainable food without damaging the land or harming the planet, experts and pastoralists said on Saturday.

"Gender, Land and Mining in Pastoralist Tanzania" is the product of rigorous field research over two years by WOLTS team members from Mokoro and HakiMadini. Significant stresses from mining, population growth and climate change, as well as disturbing levels of violence against women have been uncovered in this study of two traditional pastoralist communities in Tanzania. Initial findings are based on repeat rounds of participatory fieldwork by the WOLTS team and have already received attention at national and local level.

As climate-driven drought takes hold, Mongolia's nomads are retreating to the city - and facing choking pollution

ULAANBAATAR - With about 100 sheep and goats, Jugder Samdan makes just enough to scrape by as a nomadic herder in Mongolia, basking in the sun as he watches over his animals, but he worries about the future.

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The brutal rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl in India, that has triggered massive protests, highlights nomadic tribes’ vulnerability and lack of land rights, activists said.

According to the police, the girl was kidnapped, gang raped and killed in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir as part of a plot by Hindu residents to evict her nomadic Bakkarwal community from a village where they had temporarily settled.

The Kuchi nomads traditionally migrate in winter from eastern and central Afghanistan to graze their herds inside Pakistan

PHNOM PENH, Feb 19 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Donors have refused to support 200,000 nomadic herders in Afghanistan who are running out of food and stranded with their dying animals after Pakistan closed the border, blocking access to pastureland, an aid group said on Monday.