Beyond Land Restoration: Investing in Healthy Animals and Resilient Rangelands

Rangelands cover more than half of the Earth’s terrestrial surface and support the livelihoods and cultures of hundreds of millions of people. Yet, they remain among the world’s most undervalued ecosystems. At COP17 in Ulaanbaatar, rangelands and pastoralism have, however, moved firmly up the agenda, as a clear priority under Mongolia’s presidency, reinforced by the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists. Parties are also seeking to translate this political momentum into concrete efforts to mobilise investment, including the Rangelands Flagship Initiative, with around US$1.2 billion already pledged for the conservation, sustainable management and restoration of rangelands.

This focus on investment is welcome. But as finance begins to move, we need to ask what makes these systems resilient in the first place. Rangelands are not simply degraded land waiting to be restored. They are living, interconnected socio-ecological systems shaped by ecosystems, animals and the people who manage them.

Animals are integral to rangeland functioning

Rangelands and grazing livestock have evolved together over long periods, and pastoralists have developed management systems around this relationship, using mobility, seasonal grazing and generations of knowledge to manage highly variable landscapes.

When appropriately managed, grazing animals help maintain open landscapes, and contribute to carbon sequestration, while their movement across the landscape can help distribute grazing pressure and nutrients. The health of rangelands is therefore closely tied to how animals interact with the landscape.

But this relationship works both ways. The animals that help sustain these landscapes must themselves be healthy and able to move, graze and behave naturally.

Healthy rangelands depend on healthy animals

When animals are weakened by hunger, dehydration, disease, injury or heat stress, their ability to move is compromised. This can limit the mobility and flexibility pastoralists need to respond to changing pasture and water availability. Animal health is therefore not only an outcome of rangeland resilience, it is one of the pre-conditions that makes adaptation possible.

For pastoralist communities, livestock are more than a source of food or income. They are productive assets, stores of wealth, and sources of social security during drought and other crises. Poor nutrition, disease and injury can reduce fertility, milk production and increase mortality, weakening household food security and livelihoods.

What does this mean for animal welfare?

Animal welfare is about the conditions animals experience and their ability to have a good life, not simply whether they survive or remain productive. In pastoral systems, this means recognising that animals have physical, behavioural and social needs that need to be supported within the way the landscape is managed.

Mobility is central to welfare in extensive pastoral systems. Animals need to be able to move with their herds, respond to changing environmental conditions and express natural grazing and exploratory behaviours. Their social relationships matter too: maintaining herd dynamics and keeping mothers and young together where appropriate allows animals to express important social and maternal behaviours.

It means giving animals opportunities to respond to their environment. Access to diverse forage allows animals to select what they need, while shade, shelter and water enable them to regulate their exposure to heat and other environmental stresses.

But freedom to behave naturally cannot substitute for basic care. Good welfare also means protection from avoidable hunger, thirst, disease, injury and prolonged stress. Preventive veterinary care, adequate nutrition and water, appropriate husbandry and low-stress handling are therefore essential to ensuring that animals can both remain healthy and live in ways that meet their species-specific needs.

Degraded land creates a welfare and resilience problem

Rangeland degradation, drought and climate change can reduce forage and water availability while increasing heat and disease pressures, leaving weaker animals less able to reach the resources that remain.

This creates a damaging feedback loop: degraded rangelands undermine animal health and welfare, while weakened animals can be less mobile and less able to respond to changing conditions, making adaptive landscape management more difficult.

Breaking this cycle means investing in the conditions that allow both rangelands and the animals that depend on them to remain healthy and resilient.

A practical starting point: Recognise the husbandry behind healthy rangelands

At COP17, pastoralists are increasingly being recognised as co-investors rather than simply as beneficiaries of rangeland restoration finance. They are knowledge holders, managers and stewards who are already delivering many of the environmental outcomes that investment is intended to support.

Pastoralists use animal-based indicators such as body condition, behaviour and herd dynamics to inform decisions about mobility, grazing and resource use.

We need to look beyond merely physical restoration investments to the services and conditions that enable pastoralists to continue managing their animals and landscapes sustainably, this includes reliable and appropriately designed water infrastructure and fodder banks along mobility corridors.

Veterinary and livestock extension services are essential in helping pastoralists maintain animal health and prevent avoidable suffering. They provide guidance on disease prevention, nutrition and husbandry, support the early detection of illness and injury, and facilitate access to medicines and vaccines.

Yet, these services remain significantly underinvested in. WOAH estimates that animal diseases reduce global livestock production by more than 20% each year. Veterinary Services, meanwhile, receive on average only around 0.05% of national GDP. This investment gap represents a significant missed opportunity: bringing Veterinary Services up to international standards could generate returns of up to 86%.

Investing in these services can therefore deliver benefits well beyond animal health, supporting pastoral livelihoods, improving animal welfare and strengthening resilience to climate and environmental shocks.

Recognising the value of good husbandry

Good husbandry can also create value for pastoralists. In some pastoral systems, good animal welfare can support product differentiation, respond to consumer expectations, market access and price premiums.

Where value comes from the quality and distinctiveness of animal products, rather than simply maximising production volumes, good animal welfare can be part of that added value.

This is why animal welfare should not be seen as an additional objective to be layered onto rangeland restoration. It is part of understanding whether the system itself is healthy and functioning well and should be reflected in how we measure and reward environmental outcomes.

Keeping animals at the heart of rangeland resilience

In a year of three Rio COPs, rangelands and sustainable land management offer a practical opportunity to put greater synergy into practice. But doing so means recognising that resilient rangelands depend on the people and animals already living and working within them.

If we want to meet our commitments on land degradation, climate and biodiversity, we need to invest in keeping grazing animals on the land. That means directing finance towards the services, training, infrastructure and market opportunities that allow pastoralists to continue caring for healthy animals and stewarding resilient rangelands for generations to come.