As climate change reshapes Mongolia’s environment, herders are being pushed to cities – not by sudden disaster, but through slow erosion of options. Their stories challenge dominant ideas of choice, agency and what counts as ‘displacement’.

Climate change is accelerating internal displacement globally. However, much of the attention from policymakers and the media remains on cross-border movements, especially those framed as ‘threats’ to securitised borders of the Global North, or on cataclysmic weather disasters. In contrast, the slower, cumulative processes displacing people within countries, especially in the Global South, receive far less visibility in Western media and international policy. In Mongolia, tens of thousands of herder families who have relied on nomadic pastoralism for generations are struggling to survive amid harsher winters, droughts, desertification and pasture degradation. Owing to its unique geography, Mongolia has warmed three times more quickly than the global average,[1] making it one of the most affected countries, where climate impacts are pushing rural populations to migrate.[2]

Official policy discourse often frames migration from rural Mongolia to Ulaanbaatar as a matter of personal choice or economic adaptation. Yet displaced herders describe a form of forced displacement that does not fit existing policy categories. Seasonal movement between pastures was long part of herding life, but relocation to the city occurs under very different conditions. Rather than a continuation of herding practices or a search for improved livelihoods, it marks a departure from a pastoral way of life that had become increasingly difficult to sustain. As winters worsen and pastures deteriorate, moving to the city becomes one of the few remaining options. As reported by UNHCR, over 818,000 individuals migrated to Ulaanbaatar from rural areas between 1990 and 2024, accounting for almost 50% of Ulaanbaatar’s total population in 2024.[3]

This article draws on interviews with displaced herders in Ulaanbaatar’s ger districts (areas characterised by the traditional dwellings favoured by nomadic herders[4]) during fieldwork in 2016 and 2024 to explore how environmental pressures, economic hardship, and institutional neglect influence migration decisions.[5] It explores how herders experience and interpret their movement, the pressures they face and how they try to rebuild their lives. Displacement in this context is neither wholly voluntary nor entirely forced, but a process shaped by limited options. Recognising these experiences is essential for developing more inclusive and humane responses to climate-linked mobility.

Why are herders moving?

For Mongolian herding families, leaving the pastures for the city is rarely a simple choice. Migration often comes as a last resort after mounting pressures make herding unsustainable. As climate change intensifies, pastureland and water sources are disappearing, undermining traditional livelihoods. While official narratives frame such movement as voluntary or economically motivated, herders describe it as a matter of survival, not opportunity.

Environmental change remains central to these transformations. Winters have become longer, harsher and deadlier. Dzud, extreme winter events that follow dry summers, have caused widespread livestock deaths: in 2024/2025, over 8 million livestock (12.5% of the national herd) perished, and over 180,000 herder households were severely affected.[6] Once rare, dzud events now occur almost annually due to climate change. Amid these shocks, herders also described gradual changes: shorter summers, erratic rainfall and shrinking grazing land due to mining. Open‑cast mining operations and infrastructure have fragmented pastures and dried sacred water sources, further undermining mobility and grazing practices rooted in seasonal patterns. Participants in the study described these changes as deeply unsettling forces, disrupting both the material conditions and emotional foundations of the ecological and cultural rhythms that had sustained pastoral life for generations.

The economic fallout is equally severe. Feeding livestock in harsher winters has become costlier, while returns from wool and meat have declined. Many families have gone into debt trying to keep animals alive, but formal loans have often been inaccessible, leaving them trapped between rising costs, unreliable markets, mounting debt and limited institutional support.

These conditions have intensified long-standing structural vulnerabilities. Many herders recalled the 1990s post-socialist transition, when rural infrastructure was dismantled under neoliberal reforms. Collective systems for winter shelters, veterinary care and income support were replaced by a model of individual responsibility and market efficiency, despite generations of reliance on community-based support. These reforms eroded essential safety nets and shifted environmental and economic risks onto individuals and families, who were left to navigate mounting pressures with ever-diminishing resources.

Faced with the loss of animals, income, and state protection, many herders tried to hold out but were eventually forced to leave. Moves to the city were reluctant, driven by necessity rather than opportunity. In rural Mongolia, displacement unfolds quietly, through accumulated hardship. Herders move not because they are pulled toward better futures, but because their ability to stay and carry on has been steadily worn away.

Decisions under pressure: not voluntary, not forced

Herders described migration as a last resort, undertaken after exhausting all other strategies. Some delayed relocation by splitting up families, leaving livestock with relatives, or maintaining seasonal ties to rural areas, but such arrangements proved unsustainable. Others moved repeatedly, settling where possible, often without tenure or stability. In this context, what appears as a single move was often a fragmented, drawn-out process marked by uncertainty and improvisation.

Education often disrupted families’ efforts to remain in rural areas. Several herders moved after struggling to secure schooling for their children. In some cases, one parent would stay behind to tend the remaining livestock while the other relocated with the children (contributing to the rising divorce rate in Mongolia); others moved as a household hoping to return. However, in many cases moves that were initially envisaged as short-term or seasonal became extended by necessity. With each shift, from countryside to a regional centre, to a provincial town, and then eventually the capital, the prospect of returning grew increasingly remote.

Families arriving in the city settled wherever they could, often in unregulated ger districts on Ulaanbaatar’s outskirts. Lacking land titles or registration, many found themselves shut out of essential services, forced to navigate welfare systems that turned them away or to send children to distant, overcrowded schools. In these conditions, some turned to relatives or informal networks for support with housing and income, while others described family members who had left the country altogether, overstaying short-term visas to take up precarious work abroad. Rather than hopeful ventures, these movements reflected a pattern of decisions shaped more by resignation and narrowing options than by opportunity.

Displacement for many was not a singular moment but an ongoing, often uncertain process. The line between staying and moving blurred, and decisions were rarely clear-cut. “For people from the countryside, when they lose their livestock, the city becomes the only option,” one herder explained. “But in reality, there is not much to be found there either.”

Life in displacement: coping with urban hardship

The move to Ulaanbaatar brought new challenges rather than stability. The ger districts on the city’s margins had expanded rapidly with little planning or public investment. These neighbourhoods, lacking basic infrastructure, presented daily challenges: electricity was often shared through a single makeshift electricity cable between households; toilets were outdoor pit latrines that froze in winter; and water had to be carried from distant communal wells. Without piped services or insulation, homes were cold and damp, and coal heating filled the air with toxic smog, particularly during winter months.[7]

Administrative status shaped access to essential services. Families without land titles or registration faced obstacles enrolling children in school or accessing welfare and healthcare. Adults without registration were excluded from formal employment, relying instead on low-paid or irregular work found through informal networks.

Most households relied on their own skills and social ties, but the transition remained difficult. Some generated income through small-scale trade or casual labour; a few received remittances from relatives abroad, though this too was unreliable. Daily life centred on practical adjustments – managing heating, sourcing water or fuel and doing what was needed to get by. One participant summarised it plainly: “We came here because we had no choice. But here, it’s a hard life too.”

Women often found ways to earn money from home or within their neighbourhoods – sewing, selling food or cleaning. Children’s education remained a priority, shaping household routines and decisions. Though rarely viewed as a guarantee of improvement, education offered one of the few ways to imagine a different future.

Support networks helped in small but tangible ways. Families living near relatives or others from their home province often shared food, childcare and information. Some helped each other navigate paperwork or access services. Yet few participants spoke of long-term plans or expected change. Several also reported rising mental health challenges, increasing levels of alcoholism and domestic violence linked to the strains of urban precarity and displacement.

One woman, a former herder living in a remote ger without electricity or water, said she no longer thought about the future at all. Growing older, she was preparing for the end of her life. Her greatest concern was her daughter, who had a disability and no one else to turn to. Her only connection to the outside world was a battery-operated radio. Reflecting on what lay ahead, she noted that she no longer really knew what was happening in the present, let alone what the future might bring. Her story, like many others, was not framed as desperate but as a quiet, matter-of-fact account of ongoing uncertainty.

Rethinking ‘choice’ in the context of climate displacement

The experiences of Mongolia’s displaced herders challenge simplified understandings of mobility in the context of climate change. These families are not migrating by clear choice, nor are they always moved by sudden catastrophes. Instead, their mobility reflects a gradual loss of viable options driven by environmental stress, economic fragility and the erosion of rural infrastructure.

In Ulaanbaatar, these families continue to live with uncertainty. While physically relocated, many remain socially and economically unsettled. The official narrative continues to frame their movement as adaptive or voluntary, yet their stories reveal a pattern of movement shaped by constraint, marginalisation and shrinking alternatives.

For policymakers, there is both a conceptual and practical need to rethink how climate-related migration is understood. Rather than an aspirational dash from one place to another, this kind of mobility is often a long, ‘sticky’ process, which unfolds over time and across many locations. People do not simply move from point A to point B: they may return seasonally, move between relatives or live in a prolonged state of precarity without ever fully settling. This understanding requires us to extend the concept of climate-linked displacement both spatially and temporally, and recognise it as a process shaped by accumulation, interruption and adaptation, rather than a discrete moment of departure or arrival. Addressing such complexity demands coordinated responses across sectors and levels of governance.

For national policymakers in Mongolia:

Ensure access to rights and services in urban areas.Administrative procedures should be simplified to allow displaced families to register land, enrol children and access health and social protection.
Strengthen rural infrastructure.Investing in veterinary care, seasonal services and early warning systems can reduce the likelihood of forced movement.
Support mobility and transition for displaced households. For those who are forced to relocate, provide assistance that facilitates safe movement, including temporary shelters, livelihood transition schemes and guidance on administrative and legal procedures. This support should also cover families settling in peri-urban or informal areas who may not yet have access to full urban rights and services.
Recognise climate-related internal displacement as a distinct category.Formal mechanisms should be introduced to identify, document and address climate-related internal displacement. This would enable better coordination between disaster response, migration governance and social policy.

For international donors, development actors and urban authorities:

Treat displacement as a long-term process. Programmes in urban planning, education and livelihoods must be designed to reflect the extended and unsettled nature of mobility. This includes recognising that arrival in a new location does not necessarily end displacement.
Coordinate across sectors and timelines. Responses should cut across emergency relief, development and social protection to avoid siloed or short-term interventions.

If these steps are not taken, displacement linked to climate change will persist through silence and neglect, experienced not as a crisis, but as everyday erosion. Listening to those affected is a necessary first step toward a more just and informed response.

Kiril Sharapov
Associate Professor, Edinburgh Napier University, UK
k.sharapov@napier.ac.uk

linkedin.com/in/kirilsharapov/

The author would like to thank Bayartsetseg Terbish and Nandintsetseg Battulga at the National University of Mongolia for their invaluable support with fieldwork, interpretation and translation, as well as for their insights and generous sharing of local knowledge throughout the research process.

[1] IMF (2019) Mongolia: Selected Issues

[2] UNDP (2023) Impacts of Changing Climate on Mongolia’s nomadic herder

[3] UNICEF (2025) Study on the Situation of Migrant Children in Ulaanbaatar

[4] A ger is a traditional Mongolian dwelling used primarily by nomadic herders. Circular in shape, it consists of a collapsible wooden frame covered with layers of felt and canvas. Designed to withstand Mongolia’s extreme climate, gers remain a common form of housing in both rural and peri-urban areas.

[5] The article draws on qualitative fieldwork in Ulaanbaatar, including interviews with displaced herders in ger districts, conducted in Mongolian, translated into English, and carried out with institutional ethical clearance.

[6] IFRC (2025) ‘Mongolia: Helping herders survive the “Iron Dzud”’

[7] During the cold season, air pollution levels in Ulaanbaatar are among the highest in the world. On 30th January 2018, for instance, concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) were 133 times higher than the limits recommended by the WHO. See UNICEF (2018) ‘Mongolia’s air pollution is a child health crisis’.

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