Grazing livestock is often identified as a vector for environmental degradation and desertification. Such consideration, arising from popular culture, ignores the vast natural extent of ecosystems with a limited tree cover, as well as the role of herbivore disturbances in maintaining them. Herbivore mobility is a fundamental precondition for the maintenance of natural ecological processes, and traditional livestock keeping has mimicked such mobility in order to sustainably produce food in grass-dominated ecosystems. While livestock mobility is crucial for sustainability, the complexity of ecosystems—and of the livestock social-ecological systems that interact with them—means that mobility alone is insufficient to guarantee ecological integrity. The socio-cultural and economic contexts that surround it, including elaborate practices relying on Traditional Ecological Knowledge but also local governance regulations, contribute to maintain ecological integrity. Erosion of the traditional grazing socio-ecosystem through fragmentation, but also loss of day-to-day pastoralist practices, market pressures from more high-yield livestock systems, and drives toward reduced manpower, evidence the threat that sustainable livestock systems are under. The whole socio-ecosystem of mobile pastoralism, including livestock mobility but also its surrounding cultural practices, must be safeguarded to ensure sustainable practice.