International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists

at the Utah Theater in downtown Logan.

And this is a film festival centered around a United Nations designation for 2026 as the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.

Sounds fancy, right? Well, they have to make these things sound fancy, but what we're actually talking about here is basically recognizing the importance of ranching, cattle grazing practices, not just here in the United States, not just in the Intermountain West, where it's a very prevalent practice and way of life for people, but throughout the world.

Ranching and grazing is something that is done in some aspect, in some way, in every country, on every continent, and without it, our entire food supply changes pretty abruptly, actually, and not in a good way.

And they'll be here in our studio later on today.

Lane Coppock, Professor Emeritus at Utah State University in the Department of Wildland Resources, will be joining us with friends here in the studio.

I've linked to this on our Facebook page, but you can also check out this International Year of Rangelands as a global event via the link I've posted on our Facebook page, which is IYRP.info. International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, IYRP, IYRP.info. You can see some of the video highlights of events that have already taken place this year around the globe.

And also, this was really cool.

But leaving the station hasn't meant leaving pastoralism behind.

In this episode, we talk about Debbie's involvement in the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, what's happened with wild dogs since we last spoke, and the book she's written about her experiences on the land.

So IYRP is the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, and it comes through the United Nations.

And it's not like you can just ring up the United Nations and go, hey guys, make an International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.

It took, I think, about 15 years of lobbying, beginning with the government of Mongolia, who proposed the idea to the UN, and then Over time, they had to generate support from other countries.

I remember the Southern Rangelands Pastoral Alliance writing a letter of support to the IYRP, and they took all these letters of support and all of the information to the United Nations and proposed that they do the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, and it did.

It took a very long time and a great deal of effort worldwide.

But by having it fed through the United Nations, you've got access to every country that's involved in pastoralism and high-level access as well.

This is part of our current research that I find really enjoyable and engaging.

So this is part of our engagement with the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists.

I mean, these aren't official events of the IYRP, but throughout this year, each month, we're taking on a different what we call rangeland myth.

And This is important because for a lot of modern history, discourses around rangelands and pastoralism, whether we're talking policy discourses or just broader kind of received wisdoms or even scientific approaches, have been profoundly shaped by a long and well-documented legacy of stories that are flawed, that are incomplete, that are decontextualized, but very powerful and enduring, even in the face of evidence.

And these are what we call myths.