LPP’s partner in India, Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, has launched the Camel Conservation and Livelihoods Project. This aims to show that the conservation of animal genentic resources can go hand-in-hand with rural income generation and create jobs not only for the livestock keepers, but also for other rural people. The project aims specifically to serve widows in isolated desert villages who process camel wool.

The project is still at the beginning, but it opens up exciting vistas about how conservation can be integrated into other rural development activities and thereby more or less pay for itself.

It also shows the importance of collaboration with a wide range of other actors: in this case designers and technical experts are crucial.

“We believe that this approach has wide applicability”, says LPP’s Ilse Koehler-Rollefson. “It contextualizes indigenous breeds within the major policy debates (climate change, food security, poverty alleviation, etc.) and thereby turns breed conservation from its ‘niche activity’ status into a fundamental strategy for addressing these issues.”

“We would be glad to hear from anybody interested in this approach”, adds Ilse.
Contact her at ilse@pastoralpeoples.org

Download the project brochure.

Issue 2 of Common Voices, a magazine published by the Foundation for Ecological Security, focuses on pastoralism. It contains an article by LPP’s Ilse Koehler-Rollefson: “Biocultural Community Protocols: A Tool for Pastoralists to Secure Customary Rights to the Commons?”.

Click here to download.

A rights-based approach to invoking justice for pastoralists and biodiversity conserving livestock keepers

Ilse Köhler-Rollefson and Evelyn Mathias
Policy Matters 17, pp 113-115. 2010

Adapted livestock breeds enable their keepers to take advantage of common property resources. They are an important resource for maintaining food security in remote areas and in the adaptation to climate change. To ensure their long-term survival, the livestock keepers who have bred and nurtured these breeds need a bundle of rights that enable them to continue keeping these breeds and make a living from them. Players in livestock development should support the struggle of the livestock keepers for recognition during the negotiations at various international forums.

This article summarizes the three principles and five rights that make up Livestock Keepers’ Rights.

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Complete issue of magazine