Maliasili Publication on Community Land Rights in Tanzania

Maliasili Initiatives has released a new publication entitled “Securing Community Land Rights: Experiences and insights from working to secure hunter gatherer and pastoralist land rights in northern Tanzania.” The report, published in partnership with two Maliasili partners in Tanzania, the Pastoral Women’s Council and Ujamaa Community Resource Team, seeks to answer vital questions around how marginalised communities can secure rights over land, resolve land conflicts fairly, and transform natural resource management.  

From the release, "the publication, which looks at local examples of these global challenges, combines a synopsis of the political economy of land rights in Tanzania, on-the-ground case studies by two of Maliasili Initiatives’ partners in Tanzania – the Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC) and Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT) – and insights from a one-day learning workshop. As part of its work to strengthen its partners’ capacity and to advance innovative and effective approaches to sustainable development in Africa, Maliasili Initiatives facilitated the learning event with PWC and UCRT to share and reflect upon their respective efforts to secure land rights, learn from each other in Tanzania and build on their achievements moving forward." 

Maliasili’s summary of the publication can be accessed here. The report can be downloaded directly here.

Review of BCPs for Pastoralists in India

Via ikrweb.wordpress.com/

Natural Justice partner Lokhit Pashu-Palak Sansthan (LPPS) recently hosted a workshop for pastoralist communities who have drafted biocultural community protocols in India, with representatives from the Raika, the Banni buffalo breeders, Kutchi camel breeders, Jaisalmer camel breeders and the Kuruba shepherds of Karnataka attending. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson (League for Pastoral Peoples) prepared a blog post on the workshop. 

Per the post, “while the pastoralists unanimously underlined the importance of BCPs, it was also quite evident that a lot of uncertainty still surrounds the concept and that undertaking the process is by no means easy or fast. It requires time, resources and commitment for it to be of value. Nevertheless, BCPs are a crucial and even essential tool – for groups of marginalised people that traditionally have not attached that much importance to land ownership and are now losing out rapidly.” 

The blog post can be accessed here.

FAO Study on Women's Role in Livestock Conservation

Via www.fao.org

While two-thirds of the world’s 600 million livestock keepers are women, the role of women in conservation and breeding indigenous livestock remains poorly documented and undervalued. A new UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) study, entitled “Invisible Guardians: Women manage livestock diversity,” seeks to address this shortcoming. 

The report notes the capacity of indigenous livestock breeds to adapt to harsh climates, resist disease, thrive on local fodder, and support themselves with low maintenance. The report argues that the role that women play in conserving and breeding these livestock has been significantly underappreciated. Study author and Natural Justice-partner Ilse Köhler-Rollefson argues that women are the guardians of livestock diversity. The report offers specific guidelines to ensure that gender issues are made central to projects, programmes and policies that focus on animal genetic resource management.

A summary of the report, along with a supplementary interview with study author Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, can be accessed here. The report can be downloaded here. An interview with Dailibai Raika, a livestock activist from Rajasthan, has been produced as a supplement to the brief and can be viewed here. 

Borana BCP Training

From 5-7 July, Natural Justice and Kivulini Trust facilitated a biocultural community protocol (BCP) training workshop for the Borana pastoralist community of the Waso Rangelands, Kenya. The increase in development projects, wildlife conservation areas and influx of other groups in Waso has contributed to the loss of the Borana’s traditional lands and diminished grazing areas for their livestock. This continued loss has led to a slow decline in their traditional institutions, customs and norms as members of the community are forced to choose other livelihood options. This change has also negatively impacted the biodiversity in the area, which was conserved and sustainably used by the communities through their traditional pastoralist practices. 

The BCP training in Waso was attended by a number of the community members, including elders, women, youth and NGOs supporting the community. The BCP process, or Fin Jiru Gumi Waso (Wellbeing of the Waso Community in KiBorana), will combine with a number of ongoing projects in the region which seek to protect the community’s resources and culture. The process will highlight the community’s customary laws and norms around biodiversity conservation, inform the community of their relevant international and national biocultural rights, establish representative bodies to dialogue with government or private enterprises interested in utilizing the resources and/or traditional knowledge on their traditional lands, and create a platform for discussion with neighbouring communities in the interest of peacebuilding. This initiative is supported by the Christensen Fund.

Maldhari BCP Photostory

As attempts to ban the Maldhari community from grazing their livestock the grasslands they have occupied sustainably for hundreds of years continue, a photostory presentation of the communities biocultural community protocol (BCP) has been prepared to link the document’s text to a visual representation of the Maldhari community’s intimate connection to their land.

The Maldhari BCP asserts the community’s traditional practices of grazing in the Banni grasslands of Kutch, Indi, and links those practices to protections and guarantees in national and international law.

The Maldharis are members of the BCP Initiative and their BCP can be accessed here. Read more about the challenges they are facing here. 

BCPs and Livestock Keepers' Rights in Nairobi

With drought and disease showing the potential to devastate livestock breeds developed for concentrated production, traditionally bred livestock are gaining attention from conservationists and commercial interests. In this context, the role of Indigenous peoples in breeding these livestock across generations and in ensuring sustainable grazing is increasingly recognised. This recognition is the foundation of the growing movement for national and international rights for livestock keepers. Biocultural Community Protocols (BCPs), through which communities can articulate their ways of life and practices of livestock breeding and sustainable grazing, are an emerging vehicle for asserting these rights.

In this context, Natural Justice participated in “Biocultural Protocols: An emerging approach to strengthening livestock keeping communities”, a one-day workshop hosted by the League for Pastoral Peoples (LPP) and the LIFE Network on 29th November in Karen, Nairobi, Kenya. Representatives from governments, NGOs, international organisations, and livestock keepers from six countries attended.

Jacob Wanyama (LIFE Network) presented on the history of the movement for livestock keepers' rights and Ilse Kohler-Rollefson (LPP) shared general comments on pastoralists, the breeds of livestock that they have developed, and the highly sustainable and promising ways in which they use and conserve the areas in which they live. Mwai Okeyo (International Livestock Research Institute) presented on the incredible lack of diversity in commercially promoted breeds of cattle around the world, the susceptibility of these breeds to drought and disease in Kenya, the comparative advantages of indigenous breeds through these conditions, and the challenges in protecting indigenous breeds from replacement or cross-breeding.

Gino Cocchiaro (Natural Justice) presented on the history of BCPs, their emerging significance and recognition in international law and policy especially in relation to the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Nagoya Protocol, and the importance of participatory processes for developing BCPs. Two communities who have already developed BCPs, the Raika of Rajasthan, India, and the Samburu of Kenya, presented on their objectives, the experience of BCP development, and some of the initial reception to their respective BCPs.

The participants were then divided into working groups to discuss whether BCPs were appropriate for livestock keepers and how BCPs can become more practical. The day closed with the working groups affirming the potential for livestock keepers to utilise BCPs and action points including the importance of building linkages between various communities developing BCPs and increasing the number of BCPs developed to gradually increase the significance and usefulness of BCPs.