Pastoral nomadism is one of three general types of nomadism, where people groups do not live in the same place continually but move around cyclically and periodically. Pastoral nomadism, or pastoralism, is a system wherein a group of people migrate in a specific territory to find pasturage for their animals. Pastoralists sometimes depend entirely on their herds, but can also practice with a combination of hunting and gathering and agriculture. Their patterns are heavily influenced by the type of livestock, topography and climate.

The Van Gujjar community lives in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains and supplies much of India's milk. Extreme weather events like floods and landslides have increasingly threatened their livelihood. Severe flooding damages pastures and kills cattle, and changes in rain patterns create difficulty and complexity for the pastoralists' migration.

The Saami people (once called Lapps) live in Sápmi (their preferred name for Lapland), a region that spans areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. These reindeer pastoralists also practice agriculture and fur trading. The Saami's pastoralism is threatened by dams, roads, tourism and military bases, all of which disturb reindeer migration routes. Saamis once lived scattered across their territory but are increasingly clustered in towns with one of their main ethnically representative ways of life at risk.

In the Andean region in the south of Peru, pastoralists mainly breed alpacas, as well as some llamas and sheep. Most of these pastoralists rely solely on family labor to maintain their flocks of 100-300 animals, and practice ancestral traditions to manage their territories and care for their herds. This area is impacted by dry and rainy seasons, and their migration patterns are impacted by these.

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