When Practice Spaces Shrink: Livelihood Transitions and the Erosion of Pastoral Knowledge among the Brokpa

In the high, thin air of the eastern Himalayas, a way of life has existed for centuries that depends on a deep, intimate conversation between people and the land. This is the world of the Brokpa, an indigenous community in Western Arunachal Pradesh, India, who have traditionally moved their herds of yaks between winter and summer pastures. For them, knowing the land is not just about having a list of facts; it is a skill learned by doing. It is the ability to read the grass to know when it is ready for grazing, to sense the weather in the wind, to treat a sick animal with a specific mountain herb, and to navigate a route that has been traveled for generations. This kind of knowledge, often called traditional ecological knowledge, is not stored in books or museums. It lives in the daily routines of herding, in the stories told while walking, and in the hands of those who have spent a lifetime caring for livestock. When these routines change, the knowledge itself changes, often in ways that are hard to see until it is too late.

Researchers from WWF-India recently traveled to fifteen Brokpa villages to understand what happens to this living knowledge when the world around it shifts. They did not simply ask people if they remembered old stories; they looked at how people actually live now. They found that the knowledge is not disappearing because the younger generation has forgotten their history or lost interest in their culture. Instead, the places where this knowledge is learned and practiced are shrinking. The researchers call this "practice-space contraction." Imagine a skill like playing a musical instrument: you can know the names of all the notes and the history of the composer, but if you never have an instrument to play or a time to practice, you cannot truly play the music. For the Brokpa, the "instrument" is the herd, the pasture, and the seasonal journey. When these become harder to access or less common, the ability to use and pass on the knowledge fades, even if the memory of it remains.

The study, conducted between 2024 and 2025, involved talking to 220 people, including elders, herders, women, and young people. The findings reveal a complex picture of change. In many villages, families are no longer relying solely on herding. They have taken jobs with the Border Roads Organisation (BRO-GREF), work in tourism, or serve in other contract labour and service-based livelihoods. These jobs offer steady income and less physical hardship than the grueling work of moving yaks across high mountains. As a result, fewer families move their herds seasonally. In some villages, only a handful of households still practice the full migration, while in others, herding has become a side activity or has stopped altogether.

This shift has a direct impact on how knowledge is passed down. In the past, children learned by walking alongside their elders, watching how they chose the path, how they treated a sick animal, and how they read the landscape. Today, many children attend residential schools far from their villages, often for months at a time. They learn about math and science in a classroom, but they miss the daily lessons of the pasture. A young person might know that yak wool is valuable or that a certain plant is used for medicine, but they may not know how to collect the wool at the right time or how to prepare the medicine effectively. The knowledge becomes a story they tell, rather than a skill they can do.

The researchers also found that the physical environment for herding has become more difficult. The border region is heavily monitored for security reasons. Military and paramilitary presence means that some traditional grazing routes are now restricted or require special permission to cross. Herders cannot simply move their animals when the grass is ready; they must wait for clearance or navigate around checkpoints. This makes the movement of herds unpredictable. When a route is blocked or changed, the specific knowledge of that path—where the water is, where the grass is best, where the predators hide—cannot be used or taught to the next generation. Furthermore, new challenges have appeared, such as unfamiliar diseases affecting the livestock and changing weather patterns that make old signs of the seasons less reliable. When a familiar remedy does not work on a new disease, or when the snow falls at the wrong time, the confidence in the old ways is shaken, not because the knowledge is wrong, but because the world has changed faster than the practices can adapt.

The situation is different for men and women. Women in the Brokpa communities do a vast amount of the daily work, such as milking the yaks, making cheese and butter, and processing the fine down fiber used for weaving. They possess deep, practical knowledge of these tasks. However, the power to make decisions about the land, the migration routes, and the rules of the community usually rests with men, who inherit the rights to the land through the father's line. This means that women often have the skills to care for the animals but no say in the decisions that determine whether those animals can graze or move. As the opportunities for herding shrink, the specific skills women hold are at risk of being lost, even as they gain new economic power through other jobs like weaving or government work.

The young people in these villages do not reject their heritage. They speak with pride about their identity as herders and understand the cultural importance of their traditions. However, they are making a practical choice. They see herding as risky, physically demanding, and uncertain compared to the stability of a wage job. They are willing to keep the symbols of their culture—the stories, the products, the identity—but they are less willing to do the hard labor that keeps the knowledge alive. Some are trying to find new ways to use their culture, such as creating tourism experiences or selling yak products, but the researchers note that these activities do not necessarily teach the deep, practical skills of reading the land or managing a herd.

The study concludes that saving this knowledge requires more than just writing it down or recording stories. Documentation is useful, but it cannot replace the experience of doing. To keep the knowledge alive, the conditions that allow people to practice it must be supported. This means ensuring that herders can still access their pastures, that young people have the chance to learn by doing, and that the institutions governing the land include everyone who works on it. The researchers suggest that the goal should not be to force communities to stay in the past, but to ensure that if they choose to continue herding, they have the space, the freedom, and the support to do so. If the practice spaces continue to shrink, the knowledge will eventually become a memory of what used to be, rather than a living guide for the future.