Happy International Year of Volunteers for Sustainable Development (IVY), International Year of the Woman Farmer (IYWF), and International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) 2026!
These three UN designated new years all aim to highlight vital, often overlooked, contributors to global well-being, sustainability, and food security. Through these awareness campaigns, the UN is calling upon all of us to focus on empowering women in agriculture, valuing pastoral lands, and recognizing volunteers as key drivers for achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Our New Year Resolutions for 2026 mainly focus on providing supports to the UN Water Action Decade, Decade On Restoration, and Ocean Decade, and taking part in the three International Years designated for 2026.
As a long-term advocate and practitioner for volunteerism and a Partner for the California Volunteers/Office of the Governor’s Climate Action Counts (CAC), I’ve registered CIEDM’s January events at the Arcadia Ecohome to take place on January 5 and 26 with voluntary actions of providing local supports to several national and global awareness campaigns for sustainable development, such as the 2026 International Zero Waste Month throughout January and International Day of Clean Energy and World Environmental Education Day on 26 January.
The Resolutions include also planned voluntary actions to take part in IYRP: With a large portion (75-78%) of rangelands being drylands at global scale and more than 50% and 60% of land in, respectively, the arid Southwest of the US and the State of California, where I reside, being rangelands, as a member of the UN Global Alliance for Rangelands and Pastoralists and of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) Community of Learning and Practice, I’ll focus my voluntary services on the issues of land degradation and afforestation of rangelands/drylands.