The aim of this glossary is to provide guidance for understanding socio-institutional terms – i.e. about people and their institutions – commonly used when talking and writing about rangelands and pastoralists. It is intended to reduce confusion and misinterpretation of expressions used by researchers and advisory service staff, by policymakers and politicians, by people in governmental and nongovernmental organisations, by pastoralists and their organisations, by teachers and students in universities and colleges, as well as by journalists, filmmakers and other storytellers around the world who are working in the English language – often not their mother tongue. Such a glossary is particularly important as a reference in preparation for the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) proclaimed by the United Nations to be celebrated in 2026.

Pastoralists gain their livelihoods within very complex systems of resource tenure and use. It is of utmost importance that their rights of access to the natural resources needed for raising livestock be understood worldwide. This is why this glossary gives particular attention to issues of resource tenure and rights. All pastoralists depend on their relationships with non-pastoralists, e.g. to trade or market their products, to gain access to seasonal grazing and water in crop-farming areas, to negotiate resource use with other rangeland users and to negotiate regulations that affect their livelihoods. The glossary tries to shed light on these social relationships. The contexts in which pastoralists operate are changing with increasing climate variability, additional demands on the use of land and its above-ground and below-ground resources – and often also strong political pressures on mobile peoples. These changes will mean that new relationships and institutions and therefore new terms will emerge and the meaning of existing terms may evolve. We therefore regard this glossary as reflecting an understanding of these terms in a moment in time.