The United Nations International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP 2026) will be launched at an event at the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation in Rome on December 2nd. Next year will be a full year of celebrations of the importance of rangelands and pastoralism across the world, with advocacy around a range of themes.
The PASTRES (pastoralism, uncertainty, resilience: global lessons from the margins) programme, which closed at the end of 2023, was very much involved in the build-up to IYRP 2026. All those who were involved in PASTRES are deeply committed to the international year’s goals, which are to:
- Increase public awareness of the societal value derived from rangelands and pastoralists.
- Promote pastoralist knowledge, innovation and coalition building to meet contemporary needs.
- Advocate for evidence-based policy and legislation that supports sustainable rangeland stewardship and pastoralist livelihoods.
- Foster ethical investment to address challenges confronting rangelands and pastoralists in the 21st century.
A new narrative for pastoralism and development
PASTRES research over five years in China, Ethiopia, India, Italy, Kenya and Tunisia (and beyond through our network of affiliate researchers and postdocs) generated a new narrative on pastoralism, with issues of uncertainty central to understanding pastoral systems.
The ten-part blog series showcases the collective work, linking to many of the blogs, papers and other materials on the PASTRES legacy website. Check out the series to get a flavour of our findings, alongside our edited book, Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development, which has chapters from all our core sites.
The new narrative must be at the centre of advocacy efforts during IYRP 2026, and we will be sharing more of our work around IYRP themes next year.
Global lessons from the margins
When PASTRES started, we set ourselves an ambitious task – to generate ‘global lessons from the margins’ through understanding how pastoralists navigate uncertainty in diverse settings around the world.
Beyond focusing on pastoral areas, we believe that IYRP 2026 needs to highlight how pastoralists can offer wider insights for humanity, emphasising how we all must live with and from uncertainty, learning lessons from pastoralists.
These ‘global lessons’ have been explored in seven journal articles – on pastoralists’ practices, economics, migration, pandemics, knowledge, insurance and knowledge networks, as well as in the book Navigating Uncertainty: Radical Rethinking for a Turbulent World, published open access in 2024.
The journal articles were in turn interpreted in a series of comics by Daniel Locke and curated in the ‘Uncertain Worlds’ exhibition. The core argument is captured in a short animation by David Blandy.
Find the comics and journal articles[IS1]
Podcast: Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development
PASTRES features on the Between the Lines podcast from the Institute of Development Studies. PASTRES affiliate researcher Rashmi Singh interviews Ian Scoones, editor of the book Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Development, which presents the findings of PASTRES research.
Seeing pastoralism: visual methods
Our work with visual methods, led by Roopa Gogineni and Shibaji Bose, became a great way of exploring uncertainty and the contexts for pastoral livelihoods in all our sites.
Our exhibition – Seeing Pastoralism – has been seen in many places around the world, from Isiolo to Stockholm, as well as in our field sites and online. The photovoice guide and documentary photograph book offer a taste of what we saw, experienced and learned.
The PASTRES online course
The PASTRES online course is free to view and contains 16 sessions. The course shares insights many of the themes central to IYRP 2026, together with a reading list of materials.
The PASTRES website
The PASTRES website is an online legacy archive. We hope that those involved in IYRP 2026, and all who become interested in pastoralism through the year, will make use of the huge amount of material available.
Visit the legacy site homepage
PASTRES supporting IYRP in 2026
We will be sharing PASTRES legacy materials throughout 2026 as part of the international year, linking to the year’s monthly themes.
We hope that you will find PASTRES outputs useful and can share these widely in order to contribute to IYRP 2026.
Pastoralism, Uncertainty and Resilience - PASTRES 