Raika leaders listen attentively
in a meeting with LPPS on 6th October

An estimated 100,000 sheep are taken on long-distance migration from the Godwar area in southern Pali district for about nine months out of the year. Although the migration pattern varies, depending on weather and other external circumstances, these herds leave their villages after Diwali and then move towards the Malva area in Madhya Pradesh, up to Jawra and Ratlam. Most of the time they graze on harvested fields and provide organic manure that is very much appreciated by farmers. These systems are extremely productive, but receive hardly any recognition and support.

On October 6th, the Raika patels (leaders of herding groups) invited LPPS director Hanwant Singh for a meeting in which they shared their problems: they experience almost nightly raids by gangs on motorcycles that rob their sheep. In order to protect themselves against these marauding groups, the Raika requested help with getting gun licences issued.

LPPS board member, Daylibai Raika, as well as Hiridevi Raika and Hindu Ram Raika, both shepherds going on long distance migration, represented LPPS at a Civil Society Dialogue hosted by the GAA (Global Agenda of Action towards sustainable livestock sector development) and MARAG that was held in Ahemdabad from 27th-29th September. At the meeting it was decided to create a mechanism for the participation of small-scale livestock keepers in the GAA process.

See Ilse Köhler-Rollefson’s Animal Cultures blog  for an update about LPPS’s work with creating a value chain for camel raw materials.

Biocultural Community protocols (BCPs) are an exciting new tool for communities that manage and conserve biodiversity, including domestic plants and animals that they have developed and are stewarding, agro-ecosystems that they have managed and conserved, as well as customary rules that they adhere to. BCPs are an approach conceived and developed in the context of implementing the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and ensuring that benefits trickle down to the people that are stewarding the world’s biodiversity in-situ.

Communities that are managing their resources traditionally are entitled to support under various international and national legal agreements, such as the CBD (Convention on Biological Diversity), the Right to Food, the Global Plan of Action on Animal Genetic Resources, the Nagoya protocol on Access and Benefit-Sharing, and many others. By establishing a BCP,  a community documents and makes visible its role and contribution in biodiversity conservation.

India’s indigenous livestock breeds are also the product of the traditional knowledge of their keepers. They can only be saved if two conditions obtain: livestock keepers that take care of them and their secure access to the land/environment in which the breeds were developed. BCPs can achieve two things: making visible the connection between livestock breeds and particular communities, as well as identifying the resource base and customary rights and practices that sustain the breed.

BCPs can also be oriented to indicating the potential of breeds for specialty products and new income and business opportunities. For the purpose of spreading the approach of developing BCPs, a three day training programme was organised by LPPS and WOTR at WOTR’s training centre in Darewadi, Maharashtra. The programme was supported by the Rainfed Livestock Network (RLN) and also represented an activity of LIFE Network India.

Together with WOTR and the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development, LPPS organised a one-day Seminar entitled “Towards Green and Equitable Livestock Development in India” on 13th April in Hyderabad. The main purpose of the seminar was to share the results of the “Ark-Project” and to provide an update on the participation of livestock keepers in the “Third Multistakeholder Platform towards sustainable livestock sector development“. The proceedings are available and will be put up here shortly.