NEW GLOSSARY OF RANGELAND AND PASTORALIST TERMS

December 6, 2024

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Dana Kelly, Chair of the Australasian IYRP Group.  Email: dana@danamkelly.com

 

The International Rangeland Congress (IRC) has collaborated with members of the Global Alliance for the International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists (IYRP) to bring out “Rangelands and pastoralists: people and institutions – a glossary of terms” to provide guidance for understanding socio-institutional terms commonly used when talking and writing about rangelands and pastoralists. This glossary can be used as a reference in preparation for the IYRP proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly to be celebrated in 2026.

Pastoralists gain their livelihoods within very complex systems of resource tenure and use. It is of utmost importance that their rights of access to the natural resources needed for raising livestock be understood worldwide. This is why this glossary gives particular attention to issues of resource tenure and rights. All pastoralists depend on their relationships with non-pastoralists, e.g. to trade or market their products, to gain access to seasonal grazing and water in crop-farming areas, to negotiate resource use with other rangeland users and to negotiate regulations that affect their livelihoods. The glossary tries to shed light on these social relationships.

This is Version 1 of the glossary, being brought out now, more than a year before the IYRP2026 commences, in the hopes that – in the run-up to the Year – this will stimulate reflection and discussion about the use of these terms and thus generate even better understanding. Readers are invited to comment on the definitions in this glossary; contact the Glossary Team (glossary.iyrp2026@gmail.com). Version 2 will be published in January 2026, the first month of the IYRP, focussed on the theme “What are rangelands? Who are pastoralists?”

The glossary can be found on the IYRP website: https://www.iyrp.info/sites/iyrp.org/files/