Tola Ram Bhil performs in Europe

The hills were alive with a different kind of music - the Raika in Switzerland

Meeting a Swiss shepherdess on the mountain trail

The Raika with Spanish sheep herds in a rally through the streets of Madrid

Nomadic pastoralists use drylands in a sustainable and “natural” manner. That is well supported by ecological studies. Keeping animals on the move means they can use seasonal resources and protects vegetation from overgrazing.

In drought-prone Rajasthan, mobile livestock keeping is a traditional way to use the land - though government policies are not kind to this way of life.

Recently a group of Raika - a prominent pastoralist group in Rajasthan - had the chance to project their traditional knowledge in managing livestock in dry areas to an international audience in three European countries.

Composed of Rama Ram, Dailibai, and Mangi Lal Raika, all from Pali District, the delegation was headed by Hanwant Singh, director of Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan. The Raikas were accompanied by Tola Ram Bhil, a musician and bard from Jodhpur.

The mission created quite a buzz wherever they went. The purpose of the tour was to raise awareness about the pressures on the pastoralist way of life and the crucial role of pastoralists in managing livestock biodiversity.

The tour was arranged by the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development with support from the Christensen Fund.

The first stop on the tour was at the headquarters of the League, in the small village of Wembach in Germany. Here the group was surprised to learn that the local shepherd was employed in nature conservation: he used his sheep to maintain the biodiversity of rich patches of land in a government-sponsored programme.

The Raika also visited a goat dairy and an organic farm, besides enthralling local media with their trademark red turbans and Tola Ram’s spell-binding music, relating how the first camels were brought to Rajasthan about 700 years ago.

The next destination was Switzerland, where the delegation participated in the First International Conference on Animal Genetic Resources and joined other pastoralists in the Animal Diversity Forum, a parallel NGO event that was co-organised by the LIFE Network for community-based management of animal genetic resources and other NGOs. An excursion took them high up into the Alpine meadows where they exchanged experiences with a young woman goat herder who spends the summers in total isolation in the mountain pastures, processing the goat milk into cheese.

The final leg of the trip was to Spain to attend a Global Gathering of Pastoralists organised by the Spanish shepherd association. In Spain too, there is recognition of the value of pastoralism for biodiversity conservation, and the century-old system of transhumance between the coastal lowlands and the central plateau has been revived. Traditional passageways for sheep, hundreds of feet wide, are once again being used. The right of shepherds to drive their herds through the centre of Madrid has also been re-established, and is occasion for a big annual festival.

This year, the Spanish sheep herds were joined by the over 200 pastoralists in their rally through Madrid. The rally ended on the Plaza Mayor in front of the city administration. Dozens of journalists were waiting to get quotes and sound bites from the pastoralists.

The Raika rounded off their eventful trip with a side-event at a meeting of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, where they organised a side-event on “The Role of Pastoralists in Conserving Biodiversity", showing the Film “Keepers of Genes. India’s Pastoralists and their Breeds”.

The Raika were not only excellent ambassadors for their home country, but brought back many lasting impressions. According to Rama Ram, the most useful learning was how highly valued pastoralism is in Europe as a tool for nature conservation and a source of specialty products.

A group of Raika herders from Rajasthan, India, will be leaving on 26th August for Europe to speak up about their rights at a series of international gatherings dealing with issues crucial to the continuation of their traditional livelihoods. The Raika are the nomadic camel and sheep breeders of Rajasthan who are famous for having created some of the country’s best livestock breeds, but whose future is on the brink, as their traditional pastures are dwindling away. The government has been given preference to irrigation agriculture, and is now in the process of allotting so-called wastelands – that actually represent customary grazing areas – for bio-diesel cultivation.

From 1-7 September, the delegation will attend the First International Conference on Animal Genetic Resources in Interlaken (Switzerland), together with more than 200 government delegates from around the world. This conference has been convened by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations to discuss strategies for countering the dramatic rate of extinction of farm animal breeds that is regarded as a threat to future food security. The reason for this trend, among others, is that industrialized livestock farming systems are expanding while the farmers and herders that keep locally adapted breeds are being squeezed out.

The goal of the Raika and other representatives of herding cultures is to convince the governments that they should be given an official role in efforts to conserve animal genetic resources. They emphasize that many breeds will only survive, if they themselves are given grazing rights and are lobbying for reference to Livestock Keepers’ Rights in the official documents of the meeting. Livestock Keepers Rights are a bundle of rights or principles that would ensure that traditional livestock keepers can continue to make a living from their animals and thereby sustain the diverse breeds that compose biodiversity and are considered essential for long-term human food security. While African countries have strongly supported inclusion of Livestock Keepers Rights, other countries have not taken up the issue, and the term remains “bracketed” (subject to further discussion).

From 8-12 September, the Raika will attend an International Gathering of Nomads and Pastoralists held near Segovia in Spain. They will also participate in a meeting convened in Madrid by the governments that have signed the United Nations Convention on Combating Desertification (UNCCD) to emphasize that pastoralism (or herding) makes an important contribution to conserving biodiversity in drylands. While scientists have accumulated evidence for the positive interlinkage between grazing and biodiversity, the UNCCD has not yet acknowledged this connection.

The group composed of Mangilal Raika, Ramu Ram Raika and Srimati Daili Devi Raika will be accompanied by Tola Ram Bhil, a Bhopa (traditional musician) who is specialized in performing the story of how their ancestor, Harmel Ram Raika, brought the first female camels to Rajasthan. The tour is facilitated by the NGO Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, whose director, Hanwant Singh Rathore will act as translator for the group.

On the way to Switzerland, the group will spend time in Germany at the invitation of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, an organization that is supporting pastoralists and other marginalized livestock keepers throughout the world through training and advocacy for favourable policy frameworks. In Germany, the Raika will interact with local sheep and cattle herders and learn from them about the use of herding animals in nature conservation. In many countries in Europe, grazing with sheep and other species is used to conserve certain cultural landscapes as well as types of plants, and therefore supported by the government.

Contacts

Hanwant Singh Rathore, Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (India), www.lpps.org, mobile +94-148-18564; phone +94-2934-285086

Ilse Koehler-Rollefson, League for Pastoral Peoples (Germany), www.pastoralpeoples.org, +49-6154-53642, ilse@pastoralpeoples.org

This text in Word format

About 50 stakeholders in livestock keeping, breeding and management from nine African countries, Europe and India met in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on 24-25 May 2007, to discuss the future of Africa’s domestic livestock and poultry breeds and diversity.

The participants urged that Livestock Keepers’ Rights be adopted into the agenda of the intergovernmental Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. They also pointed to the need to investigate the implications of patenting and other forms of intellectual property rights on the sustainable management of animal genetic resources.

The meeting was organized by the Ethiopian Society of Animal Production, , the Ethiopian Institute of Biodiversity Conservation, the International Endogenous Livestock Development Network, the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, the LIFE Network, and Pastoralist Forum Ethiopia.

Summary report 56 kb

The interdependence between pastoralists, breeds, access to the commons, and livelihoods

This book by Ilse Köhler-Rollefson and the LIFE Network focuses on a key threat to the survival of pastoralists and their livestock breeds: the loss of access to grazing and water. Pastoralists are losing their traditional pasturelands for many reasons - new restrictions on grazing in nature reserves, the expansion of irrigated agriculture, expropriation by settled villagers, and the elimination of fallow land because of intensified cropping.

Less grazing land means that pastoralists cannot maintain a herd large enough to be economic. Many are forced to give up livestock production altogether. That does not just mean the loss of livelihoods for the pastoralists themselves. It also means settled villagers can no longer rely on the hardy stock from pastoralists to pull their ploughs and provide them with meat and milk. And it spells doom for many valuable livestock breeds and the gene pool they represent.

Based on years of research in rural India, this book has wide applicability to other parts of the world where pastoralism is important. It forms a valuable input to the First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources, to be held in Interlaken, Switzerland, in September 2007.

Download 1589 kb, 80 pages

Pastoralists present a statement to Dr DK Sadana, Director of the National Bureau of Animal Genetic Resources

Lobbying by LIFE-Network India is beginning to bear fruit as policy changes that benefit indigenous livestock and rural livelihoods.

For example, the scope of the “Recognition of Forest Rights Bill 2005”, that originally only gave rights to forest-dwelling tribes, was expanded to include the grazing rights of nomadic and settled pastoralist communities in forests. This legislation was passed by parliament on 7 December, 2006.

The National Draft Policy on Farmers emphasises the close relationship between livestock keeping, sustainable livelihoods, and access to grazing land. It spells out the need for securing pastoralists’ forest grazing rights, including in national parks and other protected areas.

An increasing number of Indian government actors are starting to take notice of the role of pastoralists as custodians of livestock breeds and their role on conserving biodiversity.

Further details 27 kb

On this year’s Human Rights’ Day, 10th December, representatives of herding communities from all over India rallied in Delhi to draw attention to their plight and discuss strategies for reviving their customary grazing rights. For hundreds of years these mobile livestock keepers have held together rural life by providing draught animals, milk, meat, wool, manure, and general eco-system services.

But in the last several decades these diverse and colourful people that include the Raika and Gujjar of Rajasthan, the Maldhari of Gujarat, the Gaddi in Himachal, Bakkarwal in Kashmir, Van Gujjar in Uttaranchal, Changpa in Ladakh, Golla in Orissa, Kuruba in Karnataka, Toda and Konar in Tamil Nadu, and many more, have felt the squeeze of “development” and of generally unsympathetic government policies. The establishment of wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, joint-forest management schemes, allotment of common land for commercial plantation or bio-diesel cultivation, expansion of irrigation agriculture are all developments that have constricted their customary grazing areas.

The situation is much the same throughout India, says Perumal Vivekanandan of the NGO SEVA in Madurai. “The present situation of humiliation and harassment is forcing many herders to abandon their traditional life style. This is also leading to the disappearance of hardy indigenous livestock breeds, such as camels, Kankrej cattle, Gir cattle, Nari cattle, Malaimadu cattle, Neeli Ravi buffalo, Toda buffalo, Kachakatti black sheep, Pulikkulam cattle and many others that can cope with difficult environmental conditions. It means a loss of an important part of India’s biodiversity and cultural heritage, as well as an environmentally sustainable way of life”.

There is now danger that the grazing rights that the herders once enjoyed will be abolished unceremoniously, according to Hanwant Singh Rathore, director of the NGO Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan working with pastoralists in Rajasthan. “The Raika Sangarsh Samiti has requested clarification from the Supreme Court about their grazing rights in the Kumbalgarh Sanctuary. Now the Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan has recommended that no grazing be allowed. If the Supreme Court supports this, it means that existing rights have just been done away with.”

Dr. Minoti Chakravarty-Kaul, a retired economics professor from Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi, who has undertaken long-term research with Gaddi pastoralists, points out that transhumance is a sustainable system of forage utilization and livestock production that saves the Government tremendous costs. Three dams constructed in the foothills of the Siwaliks have forced the Gaddis to change their migration patterns with deleterious effects for themselves and the environment. Ignoring the needs and the experience-based wisdom of pastoralists will lead to a tremendous loss of social capital and destroy a system of self-governed livelihoods which cost the governments next to nothing.

Ironically, demand for the products of pastoralists is on an unprecedented high: practically all the goat meat in India is produced by such herding groups; there is a huge need for manure for fruit cultivation, organic agriculture and to sustain crop yields in general, while camel milk is making headlines as treatment for diabetes.

Dr. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, an international NGO based in Germany and with long-term involvement in India, believes that pastoralism is necessary to sustain the environment. “In Germany, when people stopped grazing livestock in the forests, this led to a change in vegetation, totally altering the landscape. The government now actually pays herders to graze their animals in the forest and to maintain the pasture landscape that people see as their bio-cultural heritage.”

In India, two important pieces of policy and legislation in draft form support the cause of pastoralists. The draft National Policy for Farmers that has been circulated by the Ministry of Agriculture in April 2006 has emphasized in its Section 2.4.8.4 the need for securing pastoralists’ forest grazing rights including those areas which are declared as Joint Forest Management, Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks. The Recognition of Forest Rights Bill 2005 tabled in Parliament by a Joint Parliamentary Committee has also underscored in Chapter II Section 3-d the forest grazing rights of nomadic and settled pastoralist communities.

But there is strong resistance against these policies becoming law, especially among environmentalists. The herders hope that their meeting in Delhi will help to push them a little bit closer to reality. Until and unless such policies are implemented, pastoralism in India is likely to become a piece of the past.

About the meeting

The herders meeting took place from 8-10 December in Delhi. On 10th December morning, a function was held in the India International Centre. The event was organized by members of the LIFE-Network, which is a group of NGOs and representatives of pastoralists communities that promote community based conservation and development of animal breeds and species.

The LIFE Network was initiated when NGOs and pastoralists gathered at Sadri, Rajasthan during a workshop on livestock keepers rights in the year 2000 organized by Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS) and the League for Pastoral Peoples. At present the LIFE-Network in India is coordinated by the NGO SEVA that is based at Madurai.

Contact for more information:

Perumal Vivekanandan, SEVA, 45, T.P.M. Nagar, Virattipathu, Madurai 625 010, Tamil Nadu, India. Tel. 0452-238 00 82, 238 09 43 (O), 0452-238 36 19 ®, fax (pp) 0452-230 04 25, e-mail numvali@sancharnet.in, website www.seva-ngo.org

Hanwant Singh Rathore, Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS), PO Box 1, Sadri 306702, District Pali, Rajasthan. Tel. 02934-285086, mobile 9414818564, e-mail lpps@sify.com, website www.lpps.org

Prof Dr Minoti Chakravarty-Kaul. Apt C-59,
Uttaranchal CGHS, 5 I.P. Extension, Patpargunj, Delhi 110092. Tel. 2272-0928 (fax on tel-demand), mobile 9873420089, email minoti.chakravartykaul@gmail.com

Dr Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, Germany. Mobile in India 9829477535, e-mail ilse@pastoralpeoples.org, website www.pastoralpeoples.org

Diversity in our livestock is essential to confront future threats to food supplies, but livestock breeds are becoming extinct at the rate of 5% per year.

Local livestock keepers and pastoralists hold the key to keeping this diversity alive - but only if their rights are recognized.

On World Food Day, 16 October 2006, the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development organized a workshop where small-scale livestock keepers and pastoralists from Africa, Asia and Latin America demanded the safeguarding of Livestock Keepers’ Rights to the genes of their breeds.

Timetable and presentations (from the LPP website)

More information:

• English 226 kb
• Français 119 kb
• Deutsch 241 kb

Why pastoralists need help to conserve livestock biodiversity

Old myths can die hard.

Many policy makers still think that desertification is caused by overgrazing by irresponsible pastoralists - even though scientists have shown that keeping large numbers of livestock is the most productive and sustainable use for drylands.

The World Day to Combat Desertification, 17 June 2006, is an ideal time to focus on the important, but little-recognized, role that pastoralists play in conserving the world’s livestock biodiversity. This role is being threatened by the expansion of crop agriculture into grazing lands and the spread of “livestock monocultures” of high-yielding, but high-input breeds.

More information:

• In English 46 kb
• In German 46 kb

In September 2007, the town of Interlaken, Switzerland, will host a major international conference on animal genetic resources.

The First International Technical Conference on Animal Genetic Resources comes at a time when the livestock sector is increasingly coming under the control of private firms. Livestock keepers are in danger of losing their rights to their own animals: their traditional rights to grazing lands, and the right to breed, sell and even to keep animals.

The LIFE Network is planning a series of activities to highlight the role of livestock keepers in creating and maintaining livestock biodiversity, and to press for their rights.

Click here for more information. 64 kb.

Conference on livestock biodiversity, indigenous knowledge and and intellectual property rights, organized by the League for Pastoral Peoples in Bellagio, Italy, 27 March - 2 April 2006

Purpose

To discuss the following issues:

• How to endorse and acknowledge the role of livestock keepers in conserving diversity and ensure that their contribution to the sustainable use of animal genetic resources is rewarded and supported.
• What are the legal options for protecting animal breeding related indigenous knowledge in the context of existing legal frameworks and emerging opportunities and new models. What are the respective advantages and disadvantages?

This paper provides arguments for an international agreement to govern the genetic resources of farm animals. How can breeds and genes be conserved, where are the biodiversity hotspots, and what should an international agreement cover?

Click here for a summary

Download 229 kb, 29 pages