WAMA Statement: Turning the Ulaanbaatar Declaration into Action

At the conclusion of both the global pastoralists gathering and the UNCCD COP, marking 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP), WAMA stands in profound solidarity with our Mongolian herder sisters and global pastoralist communities. We welcome the Ulaanbaatar Declaration 2026 as a historic, self-determined manifesto created by the world’s pastoralist peoples, who are not merely stakeholders, but the true rights-holders and guardians of our global rangelands.

For WAMA, this movement is deeply intertwined with the broader struggles of Indigenous women across Asia who are actively defending their customary lands, forests, and waters from the destructive impacts of extractive industries and large-scale development projects.

We welcome the inclusion of several key demands from the Gobi herders' Nomads' RED LINE within this declaration:

• Enforceable Consent: The explicit demand that the right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) be implemented and monitored across all land use and emerging technologies.

• Direct Access to Finance: The call to bypass intermediate bureaucracies and provide direct, flexible funding to pastoralist-led organisations through major mechanisms like the GEF, GCF, and Cali Fund.

• Defending the Defenders: Clear recognition of the need to protect environmental and rangeland rights defenders from criminalisation and violence.

• Gender Justice: The solid commitment to securing herder women's equal land ownership, use, and inheritance rights, alongside the call for a permanent seat in the UNCCD Gender Caucus.

The Path Forward

While we recognize this declaration as a significant milestone, we also emphasize that to fully safeguard our communities from the destructive impacts of unchecked corporate greed, future frameworks must go even further. To make these protections truly complete, we continue to call for:

• Legally Binding Domestic Accountability: Translating general calls for corporate responsibility into legally binding domestic laws that can hold multinational mining and infrastructure corporations accountable for environmental and human rights violations.

• Strict Inviolable Boundaries: Elevating pasture protections from "removing barriers" to establishing strictly "inviolable and undisturbed zones" for seasonal migration routes, summer/winter camps, and critical water sources.

• Explicit Vetoes on Forced Relocations: Securing an absolute, legally mandated prohibition on the forced relocation of herder families for extractives, industrial, or alternative energy projects.

A Unified Call to Action

A declaration is only as strong as its implementation. As we look to the future, WAMA calls upon national governments, international financial institutions, and UN bodies to take the following concrete steps:

• To National Governments (including the Government of Mongolia): Immediately translate the Ulaanbaatar Declaration's principles into national legislation. We demand the formalization of the Nomads' RED LINE as a legally binding boundary to protect customary lands and the robust enforcement of the Human Rights Defenders Law.

• To Global Funding Bodies: Operationalize direct, non-discriminatory funding windows that route climate and restoration capital straight to frontline, herder-led, and women-led organisations.

• To UNCCD Parties: Act immediately on the declaration's call to establish a permanent Pastoralist Caucus at the UNCCD to ensure pastoralists have a decisive voice in global rangeland governance going forward.

We stand united in our shared struggle. WAMA stands with women herders as they defend their ancestral rangelands, protecting the biological diversity, food security, and climate resilience of our entire planet. Together, we must ensure that rangelands thrive and the rights of those who protect them are secure.