Tamil Nadu’s Minister for Animal Husbandry, Thiru Pongalur N. Palanisamy, has launched LPP’s latest book, Biocultural community protocols for livestock keepers.

Biocultural community protocols are a new approach with great potential for empowering pastoralists and other traditional livestock-keeping communities. They are both a process and a document in which communities invoke their rights as guardians of biological diversity under Article 8j of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. Claiming rights for in-situ conservation, they also help promote Livestock Keepers’ Rights to maintain their breeds and continue their traditional management practices.

Biocultural community protocols put on record traditional knowledge and the biodiversity that communities steward, in a process that the communities themselves drive. In developing a biocultural community protocol, communities become informed about national and international laws that protect their rights. The book provides an overview of the process as well as its legal background and describes the first experiences with implementing this approach by livestock keepers in Asia and Africa.

The Minister launched the book at a meeting of livestock keepers at Kuttupalayam, Tamil Nadu, India, in August 2010.

League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, and Local Livestock for Empowerment Network. 2010. Biocultural community protocols for livestock keepers. Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS). Sadri, Rajasthan, India

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Raika pastoralists in Rajasthan, India, have protested against restrictions to their grazing rights.
Traditionally, the Raikas would graze their sheep, goats and camels in the forest during the monsoon season, when crops are growing in the fields. After the harvest, they would lead their animals to graze on the stubble, fertilizing the soil on the crop fields.
But the designation of large areas of forest as nature reserves means that the Raika have nowhere to go.
The Raika cite international law as supporting their case: the Convention on Biological Diversity requires India to “respect, preserve and maintain knowledge innovations and practices of indigenous and local communities embodying traditional lifestyles relevant for the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity”.
Hundreds of Raika staged a demonstration in Sadri, Rajasthan, in July to draw attention to their case. The protest attracted national press coverage. See www.hindu.com for more.

A four-country sheep trek across Europe to draw attention to the role of mobile herding in maintaining biodiversity and grassland will arrive in Brussels on 17 September 2010.
The shepherds and their animals were due to arrive in the European capital one day earlier, but have delayed their arrival so they can meet with members of the European Parliament.
The sheep trek has already attracted a great deal of attention in the local German press, says Guenther Czerkus of the German Shepherds’ Association.

More information (in German)