Although the Mongolians and Buryats who practise nomadic pastoralism define themselves primarily as herders, and Buryat pastoralists are commonly referred to as those who live ‘on a farm’ (stoyanka deer) – characterized as a place of habitation that is particular, fixed, isolated or outside the village – the seasonal mobility of humans and animals is still an essential component of the pastoralism of the Mongols. This mobility is a means of maintaining the balance between resources and the pressure exerted on the land by pastoralists and their animals. ‘Nomadic mobility consists […] fundamentally of a strategy not to abandon a territorial unit of known resources’ (Legrand 2011: 394). In other words, nomadizing is a way of staying put. But in fact, nomadic pastoralism is really defined by the cyclical nature of movement concerning the domestic group and their herds. It is, however, completely distinguishable from transhumance, where only part of the human group travels with livestock (Ferret 2013: 11).

On both sides of the Mongolian-Russian border, structural differences and similarities characterize the nomadic practices which have been determined by environmental constraints – although political, economic, and social factors can also be influential. In this period of increasing climatic changes and sociopolitical evolutions, specific and lasting modifications to nomadic practices can be observed within a few years, testifying to their flexibility. In Mongolia, the winter of 2009-2010 and the summers of 2013 and 2016 were sadly marked by severe climatic episodes, while the Buryats faced significant political reforms concerning the ownership of land from 2011. How, therefore, do pastoralists adapt their nomadic practices to these external changes?