Community protocols for pastoralists & livestock keepers

The CELEP member organisation LPP (League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development) and the Local Livestock for Empowerment (LIFE) Network have brought out a manual on “Community protocols for pastoralists and livestock keepers: claiming rights under the Convention on Biological Diversity” (2018, 101pp). A community protocol is a document, produced by a local community, about the biological diversity it creates and conserves. Community protocols are an important way for local people to claim their rights under national and international law, especially through the Nagoya Protocol to the Convention on Biological Diversity. Community protocols also have many other uses: telling the outside world about the community’s role in conserving biological diversity, documenting its knowledge, and raising awareness among community members about their unique livestock and livelihood system.

This manual shows how pastoralists and other livestock-keeping communities can draw up a community protocol about their animal breed or production system. It describes why they should consider producing a community protocol, walks through the steps of doing so, and advises how to use the finished document. It explains in easy language the complex concepts of access and benefit sharing and how the community protocol can be used within the legal system.

It refers – among many more, mainly from India – to the community protocol made by Samburu pastoralists in Kenya and the case of documenting the Ankole Longhorn cattle breed in Uganda. The example of “The Samburu community protocol about the Samburu, their indigenous livestock breeds, their rights to their indigenous livestock genetic resources and their role in global biodiversity management”, compiled in 2010 in English and Samburu by the local livestock keepers, can be found here. The documentation on the Ankole cattle came out in 2009 in English and Runyankore – the local language of the livestock keepers who compiled the information with the support of Elizabeth Katushabe in collaboration with LPP and LIFE.

Posted on 16 August 2018 in Pastoralism & Culture, Value of Pastoralism