Mobility in its different forms has been always an important feature of societies in different contexts. In recent decades, however, new patterns of human mobility by larger populations over wider geographical extent have been interpreted in opposite ways. Migration has been described either as an adaptive strategy or as a failure of adaptation to environmental, political or socioeconomic changes. It has also been considered either as “development from below” or as a failure of state and development, and either as an emancipatory pathway or as a passive reaction to change. Hence migration, a well-established livelihood strategy is mostly associated with tensions, the politics of fear, and the separation between the privileged and the poor. In addition and beside the fact that mobility and migration induce significant demographic changes in rural and urban areas, yet links between migration or mobility and landscape or ecosystems have been overlooked in the literature on migration and vice versa migration and mobility has been overlooked in the environmental literature. To fill those gaps and to capture the diversity of linkages between migration, adaptation and ecosystems, we analyzed adaptation and migration pathways in several cases studies in drylands. We explored the impacts and feedback loops of different migratory patterns on ecosystems and adaptive pathways of people, including the long term different impacts of remittances on wellbeing. We also analyzed how knowledge, values and rules evolved along the pathways and affected ecosystems. The findings show that policies and the intervention of state agencies, development planners and local organizations should better account for mobility and migration. Learning from case studies can help develop strategies, incentives and policies that can transform landscapes and improve human wellbeing.