The main objective of this review is to identify policy and research issues on range livestock production in Central Asia. This report reviews collected material in English, and presents a bibliography and abstracts of works in Russian, on extensive livestock production systems dependent on natural pastures in the ex-Soviet Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.' Pasture is the predominant type of agricultural land in these republics. Migratory livestock husbandry - the traditional livelihood for many Central Asian peoples - persisted in altered forms during the Soviet period of collectivisation and continues today to make an important contribution to the national economies of the newly independent states of Central Asia. Much of Central Asia , being semi-arid to arid grassland, is suited to extensive livestock production, but can only be converted to other uses through irrigation, which has proved to have major environmental costs. Many livestock management questions revolve around the seasonal variability of usable pastures, due to differences of altitude, cold, biomass production and pasture quality. These are recurrent problems in the dry desert-steppe-mountain ecology of Central Asia. Over the last century, several approaches have been applied to these problems. Prior to Soviet collectivisation, animals migrated in order to avoid areas of temporary feed insufficiency, snow and/or cold, and to take advantage of natural forage surpluses in other areas. Later, under collectivisation, livestock movement was restricted, cultivated forage substituted for the natural pastures previously captured through migratory movements, and winter settlements were imposed.