The UN has declared 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists. This idea started with the Mongolian UN delegation and has been championed in North America by the Society for Range Management.
https://iyrp.info/
In Nebraska, rancher and conservation organizations, together with SRM and UNL, have been planning programs, events and displays for over a year.
https://nebraskasgrasslands.org/iyrp/
Our Nebraska IYRP display will be at various locations in 2026 and in Hardin Hall for part of March. Drop by and grab a sticker. Emeritus professor Walt Schacht talked about the display recently at the Nebraska State Capital.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8VG2gUWvLw
The Nebraska IYRP group also made a short video celebrating grassland, grazing animals and their stewards with former Volleyball Coach Cook. Thanks Platte Basin Timelapse and Ethan Freese for the nice job.
https://unl.yuja.com/V/Video?v=14343086&a=176699104
Half of Nebraska is covered by grassland and most of that is privately owned, working rangelands. Ranching and beef are not only important to Nebraska’s economy, but these working grasslands are critical to our biodiversity, soils and water. However, I challenge you to think more deeply about the 10,000 year relationship between pastoralists, livestock and grasslands. Nebraska has had a beef industry since the 1860’s, but pastoralism in the Great Plains is much older. Great Plains tribes have raised horses since around 1700 and Navajo raised their distinctive churro sheep since the mid-1600’s. And a question to ponder – were bison “wild” or were they managed since the end of the Pleistocene by Native Americans using fire and routine harvests? We could go back even further when camels (including ancestors of alpacas and llamas) and horses evolved in North America before crossing into the Old World, but that’s a story for Morrill Hall.