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Conserving animal biodiversity and creating rural employment can go hand in hand – an Indian NGO is showing the way.

Camels are part of the past? Not according to Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan.

LPPS is running a project to boost the value of camel products such as milk and ice cream. Camel milk, the “white gold of the desert”, is highly nutritious and is used traditionally to treat tuberculosis and typhoid. According to scientists, it may also have a positive effect on patients with HIV/AIDS, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

Further details 63 kb

Pastoralists and other livestock keepers should have the right to participate in formulating national policies. That was one of the conclusions of a workshop on Pastoralists, Livestock Keepers Rights and Animal Genetic Resources, on 24 to 26 February 2007.

Around 100 pastoralists from all over India attended the workshop in Sadri, Rajasthan, along with delegations from Mongolia, Iran and the Philippines.

The workshop also demanded official recognition for pastoralists as custodians of animal genetic resources. Their mobile way of life and their traditional rights to use forest lands and other natural resources must be protected, said participants.

An international meeting followed immediately after the national workshop. Participants from Bangladesh, China, Germany, India, Iran, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, the UK and Vietnam, along with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, clarified the concept of Livestock Keepers’ Rights. This a bundle of rights and recommendations for strengthening the role of livestock keepers in animal genetic resource management.

Issues discussed included:

• The loss of grazing land and traditional knowledge, leading to the erosion of animal genetic resources
• The dangers of intensive, industrial food production systems and their narrowing of animal genetic diversity
• The threat to the right of livestock keepers to breed their own animals
• The lack of support for Livestock Keepers’ Rights from governments worldwide
• The need to build the capacity of livestock keepers

Report from the two meetings: 326 kb

The LIFE Network will host an international workshop on “Livestock Keepers and the Management of Animal Genetic Resources: Roles, Rights, and Responsibilities” in Sadri, Rajasthan, India, on 26-28 February 2007.

Registration and accommodation are free, but participants must cover their own expenses. The organizers may be able to provide assistance in certain cases.

Further information: 47 kb

The LIFE Network supports community-based conservation of animal genetic resources and seeks to strengthen rural livelihoods through the development of indigenous livestock breeds and species. See www.lifeinitiative.net for more.

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.

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LPPS has launched a project to promote camels as a source of income in Rajasthan’s deserts.

The project will:

• Educate and raise awareness of traditional camel breeding communities about new marketing options
• Support camel breeders in innovating their production systems
• Establish linkages with research institutes
• Liaise with and lobby government agencies for an appropriate policy framework
• Catalyze private sector involvement and investment in manufacturing and marketing camel products
• Strengthen camel breeders’ organisation to retain ownership of production processes
• Facilitate establishment of a common platform for all stakeholders in the camels.

LPPS has opened an office in Jaisalmer to manage this project. Contact:

Hanwant Singh Rathore
Reviving Rajasthan’s Camel Husbandry Project
LPPS, Plot #760, Anchalwansi Colony, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, India
Tel. 02992-250652, mobile 09414818564
camelherds@yahoo.co.in, www.lpps.org

Reviving Rajasthan’s Camel Husbandry is a project of Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan, conducted in cooperation with the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development in the context of the LIFE Network and supported by the Ford Foundation.

More information: 213 kb, 131 kb