The International Land Coalition (ILC) believes that a fair and effective monitoring of ongoing conversion and fragmentation of rangeland ecosystems is needed in order to provide a thorough understanding of the trends and their implications – and also to enhance informed and participatory decision making on land use and investments in rangelands, and on the trade-offs involved. To this aim, a Rangelands Observatory (RO) project has been established with the support of the Ford Foundation.

In June 2013 we organised the inception workshop of the Rangelands Observatory. The general objective of the workshop was to define jointly the change that the RO should seek to provoke and, accordingly, the structure, partnerships, functioning and institutional setting of the RO.

During the workshop, it was agreed to work initially on national or regional rangelands observatories (rather than in a single global observatory). Accordingly, available seed funds will be allocated to organisations strongly interested in initiating observatories at that scale.

Organizations, communities, individuals and administrations interested in taking part in and contributing to this Initiative are encouraged to contact the Rangelands Observatory coordinator at  rangelands@landcoalition.info.