Widely seen as relics of an era gone by, animal herders come to public attention mostly when their herds disrupt vehicular traffic. However, according to a recent University of Oxford Policy Report, they provide nearly Rs 6,000 crore worth of services annually in Jammu & Kashmir alone. These ecosystem services are key to preventing natural disasters like forest fires and floods; and supporting irrigation, hydropower, and urban water supply in the Himalayan Union Territory.
The report is based on J&K’s ‘transhumant’ pastoralists — semi-nomadic animal herders who move with their animals during summers from villages in the plains or foothills (the districts of Jammu, Samba and Kathua) to high pastures in the upper reaches (Udhampur, the Chenab Valley, and a small number of spots in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab), seeking climate and fodder best suited for their animals. As winter sets in, they walk back on foot. The 600-km ‘vertical’ journey takes between 30-45 days. Of the nearly 600,000 transhumant pastoralists in Jammu and Kashmir, nearly 500,000 undertake this biannual trek.
Twenty countries across the world witness comparable seasonal transhumant migration. However, few can match the scale in India. The transhumant population in Jammu and Kashmir alone is more than the total populations of 55 countries.
“..The relationship between nature and human settlements is maintained by those who go between these two with their animals…,” reflects Aamna, a leader from Uttarakhand’s Van Gujjar community, in the graphic novel ‘Uprooted’ by Ita Mehrotra. The Van Gujjars are transhumants too, like Jammu and Kashmir’s Gujjar, Bakkerwal, Gaddi, & Sippi communities. Just like Kashmir’s transhumants, their biannual migration through forests and deep into uninhabited pastures makes them emissaries between society and nature.
The policy report identifies and evaluates the following specific ecosystem services that Kashmiri transhumants provide:
Rangeland management: By grazing their animals alternatively between summer pastures in the upper reaches and lower-lying areas during the winter, transhumant production systems enable both to regenerate.
Fire risk mitigation: As transhumant pastoralists move, they pick up and dispose of pine needles and brushwood, which reduces fire risk. The report estimates that in Jammu and Kashmir, this reduces the risk of fire over 7,000-12,000 hectares of land.
Soil fertility and moisture retention: As animals on the move tread soil, they increase its capacity to absorb water. This also means that when it rains, water is more likely to go deeper into the soil rather than run off the surface and erode the top soil in the process. This has implications for the likelihood of landslides, which are becoming all too frequent in Himalayan settlements. Besides, animals depositing their excreta upon the land boosts soil fertility and facilitates dispersion of seed.
The policy report values the above three services alone to be Rs 5,880 crore. This is not even counting other important functions like carbon sequestration (a direct consequence of better rangeland management and wildfire prevention), conservation of biodiversity, and preservation of cultural traditional knowledge and linguistic diversity.
“Transhumants have known the value of medicinal plants for a long, long time; we have only relatively recently started studying those,” said Shahid Choudhary, lead author of the policy report. “Besides, these communities are keeping alive rare languages and cultural heritage, which we can at best try to capture and showcase in museums. So there is plenty of motivation to support and conserve them.”
As an IAS Officer, Choudhary has held several positions at district and state levels in Jammu and Kashmir, as well as at the central level. As Secretary, Tribal Affairs Department in J&K, he led a 2021 transhumant survey which counted transhumant communities’ numbers (over 6 lakhs), mapped their routes, camping sites (‘dhoks’) and the area over which they graze their animals (around 1.2 million hectares). It also evaluated their access to education and healthcare services. The survey created spatial evidence of how transhumant pastoralists engage with rangeland and forests. This evidence formed the basis of the policy report, which he prepared during his career break as a scholar at Oxford University (2024-25).
Choudhary himself belongs to a transhumant community. He grew up making the biannual trek with his family and animals. So, yes, this is personal to him. However, he goes to great pains to emphasise that the study has a solid grounding in robust scientific methodology. “This is a scientific study, the methodology and results have been put through the scrutiny and guidance of scientists from across the world,” said Choudhary. “The question of overt bias does not arise.”
“However, my upbringing did shape my ideas, and my choice of this topic to begin with. Growing up, I noticed the distinct lack of information about the value of ecosystem and rangeland services provided by such communities. Public policy has consistently framed transhumants through a deficit lens: as beneficiaries of welfare rather than providers of ecological services. ”
The lack of understanding regarding mobile pastoralism also means that while state and central-level climate change assessments and plans recognise forestry and agriculture, they are missing the opportunity to harness the potential of practices such as rotational grazing and fire risk mitigation.
The 2021 survey also highlighted the difficulties faced by mobile communities within a state, a country, a society where schools, hospitals, employment opportunities, benefits and other systems are designed for settled populations leading sedentary lives. During their migration and while they camp on highland pastures, they are disconnected from healthcare, the Public Distribution System, electricity, education, drinking water supply and (very importantly) veterinary care. The survey validated government initiatives such as seasonal education centres set up in highland pastures where transhumants spend summers. There are over 1,900 such centres in the state, providing 33,000 transhumant children access to education while they live in their dhoks up in the upper reaches.
Historically, the relationship between transhumants and the State in India has been marked by suspicion, friction, and conflict. British laws viewed Indian forests and communal land as resources to fuel industry and the military. The Indian Forest Acts of 1865 and 1878 classified such areas as protected government property, reserved for government use. Activities like animal-grazing, shifting cultivation, and gathering of forest produce—which formed the basis of transhumants’ and other forest-dwelling communities’ ways of life—were criminalised.
The colonial legacy continued post-independence. While the tone of forest laws was no longer overtly extractive, they were still based on a top-down view of forest management with forest communities having little say in decision-making. The 1972 Wild Life (Protection) Act closed off large tracts of forest areas to forest communities in the name of conservation, impeding their livelihoods and often displacing them in the process.
It was only in 1988 that the first steps were taken towards recognising the role of forest communities in forest management, through the National Forest Policy of 1988. Taking this further, the Forest Rights Act of 2006 finally acknowledged “historical injustices” and recognised the rights of forest dwellers over forest land and other resources.
The Act was extended to J&K in 2019 (after the J&K Reorganisation Act was passed in Parliament which revoked the region’s special status under Article 370).
Consequently, a number of concrete steps were taken in 2022 to operationalise the law in the state. As a result, forest communities got greater latitude to collect, process, and commercialise Non-timber Forest Produce (NTFP), forest land titles started getting claimed and distributed, and the Tribal Affairs Department assumed a more central role in overseeing the Act’s implementation (signalling a shift towards forest communities’ engagement in forest management and away from forest conservation).
As always, there is a marked gap between the letter and spirit of the Act, and its implementation. Across India, there is dissatisfaction regarding the proof of occupancy required while filing claims for forest land titles, and communities are often dissatisfied by the lack of transparency in decision-making. Individual officials continue to view land and NTFP rights as regularisation of encroachment, rather than recognition of inherent rights. The involvement of communities in decison-making regarding forest land use continues to be suboptimal. Instances of relocation of communities under the Wild Life (Protection) Act continue to be reported.
So now that we know how many rupees transhumant communities’ contribution to society is worth, what practical implications does this valuation potentially have for the community?
There are 550+ different models for payment for ecosystem services across the world. They range from direct cash payment to service providers, to more indirect subsidies and carbon credits. For Jammu and Kashmir transhumants, the most immediate use this valuation can be put to, is as a basis of policymaking and allocation of resources.
“We hope that the valuation acts as a bridge between the resources available with the state government and the resources allocated. Specific allocations can be made in recognition of this amount, towards welfare schemes, seasonal education centres, and health services available to transhumants.”
Additionally, such a valuation helps bolster the case for these communities’ access to international climate finance, which requires concrete proof of ‘additionality’— environmental benefits that wouldn’t happen without their intervention.
This year (2026) presents an opportunity to spread awareness about Kashmir’s transhumant pastoralists (and transhumant pastoralism in general), to create real traction for policy change, and to take concrete measures. The UN has declared 2026 as the International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists, and is campaigning for member states to pledge more resources and bolster policy support for pastoralism and rangeland management. Jammu and Kashmir’s 2021 pastoralism survey and Choudhary’s policy report can be used to create a model of rangeland management in the state that leverages low-emission, adaptive, resilient means of land use which is rooted in tradition as well as scientific evidence. Through genuine good-faith involvement of Gujjar, Bakkerwal, Gaddi, & Sippi communities in this model, the state can also lead the way to come good on the stated objectives of the Forest Rights Act — to recognise and operationalise the rights of forest dwellers over forest resources.
Abraham Abhishek is a Project Manager at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands
Views expressed are the author’s own and don’t necessarily reflect those of Down To Earth