Paper long abstract:

Mobile pastoralism is practiced in drylands and highlands. We may divide mobile pastoralism into several types according to geographic, economic and cultural diversities. One of them is the Central Asian steppe type that covers steppes, deserts, and semi-deserts. Drylands of this area consisted of several small oases with limited water resources and pastures were available for grazing livestock in certain times of a year. For these reasons, pastoralists usually had to graze their herds in various areas by moving one pasture to the other one.

When the Russian Empire came to Central Asia, stockbreeding began to lose its value for colonial authority because stockbreeding was not satisfying a requirement of colonial administration in political and economic cases. Therefore, the colonial authority took direct and indirect measures intended to destroy stockbreeding as practiced in Central Asia. One of these measures was the creation of forest areas in the steppe areas in Central Asia that which caused stockbreeders to limit their seasonal migrations. This paper forwards an idea that the creation of forests in the pasture territories of Central Asia in 1886-1916 made difficulties to pastoralists in moving from one pasture to another one. Furthermore, I will attempt to show that pastoralists had to pay additional fees for using pastures that they used them free before. This paper is based on archival documents that held in National Archive of Uzbekistan. These sources include reports and petitions. Reports made by the colonial administration and petitions written by pastoralists provide evidence on the creation of forest areas in Central Asia under Tsarist rule and how this process impacted mobile pastoralism. By comparing these materials, I will attempt to catch some examples regarding mobile pastoralism in the forest-pasture areas.