Conceptualising resilience as emerging through bottom-up, transformational change processes, this project adopts a participatory action-research approach, co-constructing solutions for addressing climate responses in two pastoral grazing settings in Türkiye. The aim is to contribute to participatory rangeland management and grazing plans framed by local understandings.

The research team works with families engaged in livestock-keeping in northeastern Türkiye in the Kars-Ardahan-Iğdır region and centred on Boğatepe Village, and families of the Sarıkeçili community practising nomadic animal husbandry in the Taurus mountains between Mersin and Konya.

In both sites, artefacts (using materials from pastoral areas including felt, wool and leather) are being created by pastoralist communities to explore pastoral landscapes and challenges. Together with discussions on research findings and international exchanges, these will be shared at an international festival of pastoralism in Kars in July 2025.

Alongside other roundtables/workshops, the Kars festival of pastoralism will encourage policy engagement around Türkiye’s climate-livestock policies and the 2026 UN International Year for Rangelands and Pastoralists.