Don Burnside, on behalf of the Australian Organising Committee

 

June 2025 is not that far away and a fourth announcement for the Congress can be found on https://irc2025.rangelandcongress.org/ highlighting important key dates to ….

  • register,
  • be a sponsor
  • host a trade exhibit
  • run a weekend workshop,
  • take part in a pre-Congress tour.

 

Critical dates

  • Early Bird registration is open until 31 January 2025. Please take advantage of the reduced cost by registering early!
  • For those people who have already submitted Expression of Interest to join a Pre-Congress Tour, you will have been contacted about providing a $1,000 deposit to secure your place on the tour. Please pay that now!

 

If you are a serious rangeland person, this is an event you should not miss!

It is likely to be at least 24 years before Australia will have an opportunity to hold an International Rangeland Congress.  It will be a rare opportunity to network – and make friends, and renew friendships  – with people from all over the world, to learn about the different challenges and opportunities in the world’s rangeland regions, and to share experiences in working in the rangelands.  We are expecting to have 600+ people at the Congress, and so it will be a busy and exciting place.

 

The program – key note speakers, concurrent sessions, hosted sessions, posters, and workshops

 

The theme of the Congress is ‘Working Together for our Global Rangelands Future’.

The Congress will run over five days, with four days of keynote presentations covering the sub-themes, some specialist forums, and contributed presentations in 45 concurrent sessions, plus many posters.

Congress sub-themes are:

  1. Valuing rangelands and pastoral systems for their societal contribution
  2. Co-design, partnerships, and incorporating traditional knowledge for more enduring rangeland outcomes
  3. Technology, information systems, communication, and big data to aid monitoring and decision making
  4. Integrating rangeland ecology into management
  5. Managing risk – climate and other system shocks and trends
  6. Livestock production systems in a world of changing drivers
  7. Multi-functional land use in rangelands – moving beyond niche opportunities

The hard working Program and Publications Sub-Committees have reviewed 600 abstracts and 533 (168 from Australia) of these have been accepted as either 224 oral presentations, 111 as lightning presentations at 133 as poster presentations.

As well as the concurrent sessions dealing with the above themes, there will be several ‘hosted sessions’ dealing with

  • Women in Rangelands,
  • Strategies and tools to navigate global change in non-equilibrium rangelands,
  • Promoting pyric herbivory and mixed species grazing for enhancing livestock production from rangelands in the Great Plains – An integrated research–education–extension endeavour,
  • IYRP – Australian pastoralist groups session; and
  • Meeting the needs of multiple stakeholders from the rangelands of Saudi Arabia: the AlUla experience.

There will also be a number of pre-congress workshops held on Saturday May 31 and Sunday 1 June 2025. These include: Developing a standard for products produced in sustainable way from rangelands as part of the remit of an evolving Rangeland Stewardship Council (workshop sponsored by the International Livestock Research Institute); Considering multifunctionality of pastoralism to foster fruitful contributions of pastoralism to growing societal challenges (sponsored the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment – INRAE); Traditional/Indigenous  Knowledge Forum (supported by the Indigenous Land and Sea Corporation and the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance – NAILSMA).

 

Support to date for the Congress from sponsors

The IRC has attracted generous sponsorship from international and national organisations.

  • International support is being provided by the USDA -US Forest Service, the USDA – Agricultural Research Service, the International Livestock Research Institute ILRI), INRAE – the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment and the Royal Commission for AlUla (Saudi Arabia).

The funds provided by international sponsors will be used to support attendance by delegates from countries and institutions that require assistance.

  • National support is being provided by the South Australian Government, the South Australian Arid Lands Landscape Board, the Northern and Yorke Landscape Board, Green Collar, the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia, and CSIRO.

 

Looking forward to seeing you in Adelaide in June 2025

From the Australian Organising Committee and All Occasions Group in Adelaide