Ulaanbaatar: In northern Kenya, a herder scans the sky for rain that hasn’t come. The grass his animals need is thinning by the day. He’s not alone; from Africa’s grasslands to the salt-crusted plains of Central Asia, this same story is playing out for millions of people who depend on land many people may never think about: Rangelands.
According to United Nations, rangelands, which are found on every continent apart from Antarctica, are the grasslands, shrublands, and drylands that don’t get farmed in the traditional sense but are nonetheless a key part of the world’s food system. Approximately two billion people rely on them for food, livestock, and livelihoods, supplying nearly 70 percent of the world’s livestock feed. Yet, up to 40 percent of these crucial lands are already degraded or at risk of vanishing, worn down by drought, overgrazing, and years of being overlooked. When a rangeland fails, it’s not an abstract environmental loss. It’s a family’s herd with nothing to eat, a market with fewer animals
to sell, a community’s food security unraveling in real time.
In Southern Africa, Botswana’s rangelands underpin its economy, from beef exports to safari tourism, but a recent nationwide ecosystem assessment revealed that grasslands are shrinking as invasive plants spread and droughts hit harder and more often. Encouragingly, this assessment found that where traditional, community-led land governance is strong, the rangelands hold up better.
In Central Asia, the Aral Sea has largely vanished, leaving a 5.4-million-hectare salt desert behind. In Kazakhstan’s Kyzylorda region, over 80 percent of pastures are now degraded, and toxic dust storms carry salt for thousands of kilometers, demonstrating how an environmental disaster in one place can poison land and livelihoods far beyond its borders.
Marsabit County in northern Kenya, home to the Chalbi desert, has seen grasslands steadily turn to barren ground since 1990. The desert is projected to double in size within decades if nothing changes, threatening the
pastures that generations of pastoralist communities have relied on.
Efforts to address these challenges follow a hopeful pattern across all three countries: pairing hard data with the knowledge of the people who live on the land. Botswana’s national ecosystem assessment involved more than 2,000 contributors, including government bodies, researchers, and traditional knowledge holders, creating an evidence base to guide future land policy. Kazakhstan has commissioned a study of the links between climate, land, and water, shaping pasture restoration and irrigation plans, alongside a saxaul tree replanting program aiming to cover 1.1 million hectares by 2030. Kenya has combined 33 years of satellite data with the memories of Indigenous elders, leading to practical solutions like flood-diverting structures and vegetation test plots.
The key takeaway is that restoration sticks when people see their own knowledge and experience reflected in the solution. Data alone doesn’t save a rangeland; trust, ownership, and
lived expertise do. For the herder still watching the sky, that combination might be the difference between a herd that survives and one that doesn’t.
The challenges rangelands face are due to be discussed at a UN desertification conference held in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from 17 August. The Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Network (BES-Net) is one of the flagship initiatives of the UN Development Programme Nature Pledge, focusing on strengthening efforts to protect and restore the planet.