At the 76th Annual Conference of the Society for Range Management (SRM), its International Affairs Committee (IAC) and the IYRP ISG (International Support Group for the International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists) convened an online symposium on "Global issues influencing success for the IYRP, 2026 and beyond" on 7 February 2023, the week before the hybrid SRM conference in Boise, Idaho (12–16 Feb) where the IYRP featured in several sessions. The symposium contributions addressed rangeland stewardship, rangeland restoration, afforestation of rangelands and water governance issues. Film clips brought in rangeland voices from around the world and a video report on the Dana+20 declaration. A session on action planning by the Regional IYRP Support Groups (RISGs) focused mainly on the plans of the RISGs in North and South America. The symposium was simultaneously interpreted in Spanish and French. A link to the complete recording on the 3-hour symposium can be found below.
On 22 February 2022, at the 75th SRM conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the IAC and the IYRP ISG convened an online seminar supporting the Mongolian Government’s proposal to the UN for an IYRP in 2026: “Global rangelands & the IYRP: global framework, action plans and knowledge gaps” followed by two online workshop sessions on 23 and 24 February 2022. In the seminar, scientists and practitioners raised key issues affecting rangelands around the world and how the “marginalisation narrative” for global rangelands can be changed to a “global value narrative” to help arrest problems of poverty and natural resource degradation. The two workshops engaged IYRP stakeholders worldwide in preliminary deliberations to identify regional and global priority actions associated with 12 global themes identified by the IYRP ISG. More information can be found in the 2-page document below: “SRM/IAC 2022 symposium on IYRP”. All presentations made during the 2022 symposium can be found below, together with a summary report on the symposium and planning workshops.
In both 2023 and 2022, IYRP stakeholders with a complementary virtual registration, generously provided by the SRM, were free to browse all virtual or hybrid sites supported by the SRM conference.
