The United Nations has declared 2026 the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP). This is not just symbolic, it’s vital recognition of a way of life that feeds millions while protecting our planet. Rangelands play a crucial role in food security, biodiversity, and climate resilience. Pastoralists have managed these landscapes for generations with knowledge and experience that are indispensable today.
Their future is connected to ours.
Healthy Rangelands for Our Future
Rangelands cover more than half of the global land surface. They store huge amounts of carbon and are essential for climate regulation, water management, soil fertility, and biodiversity. Without healthy rangelands, ecosystems weaken, productive landscapes stall, and food supply comes under pressure.
Yet many of these landscapes face heavy pressure. Through deforestation, intensive agriculture, mining, urbanization, and poorly aligned policies, rangelands are converted, fragmented, or degraded. What seems profitable short-term leads long-term to exhausted soils, more drought, and higher greenhouse gas emissions.
Why Rangelands Matter to Us All
© Loïc Delvaulx
When soils degrade, they lose their ability to retain water, store CO₂, and support fertile grazing lands for people and animals. This intensifies the climate crisis, weakens ecosystems, and puts global food systems under pressure, from rural areas to urban markets. Over 500 million pastoralists directly depend on healthy rangelands. For generations, they have managed savannas, steppes, and drylands, regions often unsuitable for crop farming.
Pastoralism is not an outdated practice but a refined system of sustainable land management. Through seasonal movements, careful herd management, and deep ecological knowledge, pastoralists ensure vegetation can recover, nutrient cycles stay balanced, and soils remain fertile. Where pastoralism functions well, rangelands recover, even under extreme climate conditions.
© KARAI
Pastoralists play a key role in climate resilience, biodiversity, and food security. In many regions, they also contribute significantly to the availability of milk and meat, even for urban areas. At the same time, pastoralists are often insufficiently heard in political decision-making. Their freedom of movement is restricted, and their role in sustainable land management remains underrecognized. If we don’t act now, poverty, conflicts over natural resources, and climate change impacts will increase further.
IYRP 2026: A Chance to Do Things Differently
The International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists offers a unique opportunity to turn the tide. It creates global attention for protecting rangelands and strengthening the position of the communities managing them for centuries.
Together with the VSF International network, we commit to:
- sustainable protection and restoration of rangelands
- strengthening the rights, safety, and mobility of pastoralists
- investments in community-led animal health and integrated One Health services
That’s why we published a manifesto: a joint call to governments, institutions, and citizens. We demand that pastoralists and rangelands finally get the place they deserve in climate, agriculture, and food policy.
Join Us
With your signature, you support healthy rangelands, resilient communities, and sustainable land management. You help build pressure for policies that protect pastoralists, recognize their knowledge, and invest in solutions benefiting people, animals, and nature.
Our shared future demands strong pastoralists and healthy ecosystems. Join the movement.