PARTNER CONTENT – Over the past three years, the Sustainable Fibre Alliance (SFA) has been building a roadmap that focuses on supporting environmental stewardship and the development of herder communities within the cashmere sector. Through the SFA’s work with herders and indigenous communities across the rangelands of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and, most recently, Afghanistan, the SFA has found that it is critical to integrate gender considerations and human impact alongside environmental concerns.
Women in these contexts have the potential to hold influential roles in building herder resilience, ensuring the future of the cashmere sector and wider rangeland communities globally. In response, the SFA has focused their efforts on championing and empowering female herders and the next generation
Supporting and assisting comprehensive studies is a key target for the SFA to deepen their impact in line with Goal 5 of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls”. There is a pressing need for multi-stakeholder involvement in research and large-scale Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning (MEL).
The knowledge and understanding gained through MEL are critical for supporting herders in making responsible decisions on the ground in key impact areas. It is vital to ensure governments and decision-makers invest in suitable MEL, particularly when presented in the context of recent voting at the Council of the European Union on the Green Claims Directive and the Product Environmental Footprint (PEF) methodology.
The research already undertaken by the SFA allows them to be well-positioned to understand what is effective and what factors may be leading to unintended negative outcomes within the sector. A recent study on decent work in Mongolia (May 2023) centred around a series of workshops with a total of 36 women attending, during which SFA gained valuable insights into the roles of women herders.
The study discussed the common challenge that many women in pastoral communities face globally, which is balancing the pressures of caring for their family, livestock and their environment amidst the devastating effects of climate change. This has provided the SFA with information to better integrate gender and decent work into their strategy plans and standard systems.
The SFA also seeks to work in some of the most challenging contexts where women’s empowerment has acquired even greater salience on the global stage. In autumn 2023, the SFA began training efforts in Afghanistan to bring better social, environmental, and animal welfare to 5,000 Afghan farmers, of which 30 per cent were female herders. Bringing capacity building to over 1,500 women pastoralists in Afghanistan has highlighted the crucial roles these women have in supporting their families’ livelihoods. With so many widowed after decades of conflict, these female-headed houses are especially vulnerable to the continued social and economic instability of the region.
As a membership-based not-for-profit organisation, the SFA is fortunate to draw on members and participants to facilitate research and projects. J.Crew supported a multiyear project (2020-2021) on women empowerment, which has been foundational for developing the SFA’s remit for gender-transformative research.
Together with members and project partners, the SFA has developed pioneering pathways in multi-stakeholder research and action. With their focus set to remain on empowering women herders and the next generation, they are shifting to include the increasing need for climate risk resilience within herding communities following the devastation caused by the effects of Dzud this past winter.
It is imperative to the SFA’s mission that people and livestock work harmoniously within their environment, which has led the SFA to participate in multistakeholder projects to deepen their impact through landscape-based approaches to rangelands. Most recently, the Eastern Steppe Project (2021-2025), continues to make strides in protecting Mongolia’s dryland ecosystems and supporting the resilience of herder communities.
The Eastern Steppe of Mongolia covers over 860,000 km2 and represents a vastly important ecological region that is crucial for the survival of species like the Mongolian gazelle, White Naped Cranes, and Great Bustards. Throughout 2023, the SFA carried out an in-depth study on the environmental impact of cashmere in the Bayan-Ovoo province of Mongolia, focusing on biodiversity, water, and social impact. This was developed in partnership with a Science-Based Target Network (SBTN) project from LVMH that included elements of participatory sustainability assessments and monitoring plans, integrating biodiversity targets into land use planning at the jurisdictional level.
These projects, focused on landscape-based and MEL approaches, provide the SFA with essential learning to help the next generation of standard implementation and support the Rangeland Stewardship Council’s (RSC) development of a Global Rangeland Standard (GRS).
By taking an approach based on continual improvement, the SFA is furthering their work to support herding communities to better adapt to climate risks by building resilient supply chains. If you are interested in learning more about their projects and ways in which to invest in this area, email info@sustainablefibre.org or visit sustainablefibre.org/our-work
