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)

Issue 6 of the Endogenous Development Magazine contains two articles on biocultural protocols relating to livestock.
A biocultural protocol is a document that records a community’s role in ecosystem management, and states its rights to benefit from the ecosystem. Several groups of livestock keepers have created biocultural protocols describing their animal breeds and their indigenous knowledge about their breeds.
The articles in the magazine are:

How Bio-cultural Community Protocols can empower local communities by Kabir Bavikatte and Harry Jonas of Natural Justice, a South African NGO specializing on social and environmental law

Bio-cultural Community Protocols, starting point for endogenous livestock development? by Ilse Köhler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development.

Bio-cultural Community Protocols enforce Biodiversity Benefits: A selection of cases and experiences. Endogenous Development Magazine 6, July 2010. COMPAS, Leusden, Netherlands

Download the magazine3 MB.

The biocultural protocol of the Lingayat community, who live in the Bargur forest in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu, details the Bargur breed of cattle and Mala erumai (Hill buffalo) breeds.

Download (1.4 Mb)