Transcript Slide 1

Animal genetic resources
and pastoralism
Beate Scherf,
Barbara Rischkowsky, Irene Hoffmann, Mateusz Wieczorek,
Alberto Montironi, Ricardo Cardellino
Animal Production & Health Division
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Presentor: Evelyn Mathias, League for Pastoral Peoples and
Endogenous Livestock Development (LPP)
Content
 Global status of animal genetic resources
 Pastoralism
 Animal genetic resources in drylands
 Threats to pastoralism
Introduction
 Livestock genetic diversity for food and agriculture
 animal species that are used, or may be used, for the
production of food and agriculture, and the populations within
each of them
 populations within each species can be classified as wild and
feral populations, landraces, standardized breeds, selected
lines, varieties, strains and any conserved genetic material
Global strategy
What is pastoralism?
 Pastoralism = adapted land use strategy
 Mobility and mix of species and breeds allows
 Use of scarce resources
 Adaptation to seasonal changes and climate
 Avoidance of diseases (e.g. tsetse flies)
 Possible through
 Use of species adapted to drylands (camel, yak, donkey)
 Development of adapted breeds (cattle, sheep, goat)
Pastoralists
 190 million (?) pastoralists
 Many different societies
 Occur especially in drylands: deserts, steppes, and
mountains
Threats to pastoralism
 Value of pastoralism recognised only recently
 Threats (according to experiences LPP)
 Reduced access to resources e.g. grazing lands through
o agriculture (often irrigated)
o recently: biofuels
o national parks
 Growing populations
 Conflicts
 Droughts
 Education that disregards value of traditions