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Annual Report 2010 / 2011

… male and female, He created them

EED’s gender strategy follows a two-pronged approach: integration of gender analysis and measures into all its programs and procedures and targeted funding of projects committed to improving the lives of women. The annual report before you takes a look at this latter aspect of our gender strategy.
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New Release

Encounter beyond routine

Documentation on an International Consultation, 17th-23rd January 2010
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The right to future

Nine examples of community based empowerment processes.
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Network

Pastoralists demand "Livestock Keepers’ Rights"

(Berlin, 18.05.2010) A delegation of pastoral peoples from Asia and Africa who visited Berlin on 18.05.2010 is demanding recognition and support from the German National Government for its role in conserving biological diversity in the International Year of Biological Diversity. It is calling for implementation of the rights that have been promised to pastoralists and pastoral peoples as the guardians of traditional knowledge and valuable genetic resources through the International Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Ilse Köhler-Rollefson from the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development stressed that nomadic livestock farming represents a traditional knowledge system worthy of protection without which the diversity of livestock breeds, flora and fauna as well as whole ecosystems cannot be conserved. Particularly significant for human food safety is the decisive role of pastoralists in conserving adapted livestock breeds.

Rudolf Buntzel, world food adviser with the Church Development |Service (EED) raises the following issue : "In contrast to the widely propagated high performance breeds, the genetic resources of the old livestock breeds are not dependent on protein-rich feedstuffs. The nutritional demands of these animals are thus not in competition with those of humans." In the unanimous opinion of the experts, these valuable genetic resources can only be conserved in traditional nomadic herding systems.

But the economic way of life and lifestyle of pastoral peoples is threatened all over the world. It suffers all manner of discrimination at the hands of today's legal and economic system.

On 18 May the delegation will present to the German Parliamentary Committee for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection their "Biocultural Protocols" prepared by their communities. These protocols document for the first time the central role of nomads and pastoral peoples in conserving ecosystems and livestock breeds together with the accompanying traditional knowledge.

The livestock keepers' rights are a list of principles and rights that would enable the economic and cultural survival of the pastoralists. It was developed by them during a year-long consultation process, which began in 2003. Without these rights, already met in part by the Convention on Biological Diversity, the pastoralists warn that in future they will no longer be able to carry out their important role as guardians of breed diversity.

The delegation of pastoral peoples and the participating organisations expect the German National Government to lobby for the correspondent proceedings and the global action plan at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and at the negotiations for the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The import of enormous quantities of feedstuffs and energy crops from developing countries must be accompanied by sustainability criteria that respect the rights of pastoral peoples with regard to land use, water and rights of way.

Contact:

Dr. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson
League for Pastoral Peoples and Indigenous Livestock Development e.V.
Pragelatostr. 20
64372 Ober-Ramstadt
Tel. 06154-53642; 576628. Mob.: 01789714925
www.pastoralpeoples.org

Dr. Rudolf Buntzel
Church Development Service
Charlottenstr. 53/54
10117 Berlin
Tel. 030-20355-225

Concrete demands from the delegation presented to the German National Government:

1. Recognition of legally binding "Animal keepers' rights" by the German National Government, the EU and the FAO.
2. More emphasis on research and support for keeping and breeding locally adapted traditional livestock breeds.
3. Reassessment of the "Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources" of the FAO.
4. Support the "Biocultural Protocols" on international regulation of "Access and Benefit Sharing" (ABS) at the  10th Conference of the Parties of the CBD in Nagoya 2010.
5. Stop the politically insensitive "Agricultural Export Offensive on Meat and Milk", of the German National Government in developing countries, which gets into competition with indigenous livestock keeping.
6. Inclusion of land use and water rights and rights of way for pastoral peoples in the sustainability criteria of the "Renewable Energy Directive of the EU (RES-D)", in the World Bank's and FAO's country policies.