CELEP webinar on “Pastoralism & climate change”

On 13 December 2021, CELEP presented a webinar on pastoralism and climate change, hosted by European members DITSL (German Institute for Tropical and Subtropical Agriculture and Transdisciplinary Socio-ecological Landuse Research) and VSFB (Vétérinaires sans Frontières Belgium). It was attended by 78 participants mainly from Europe but also including a fairly balanced participation from Africa, Asia and Latin America.

After brief introductory remarks by Brigitte Kaufmann (DITSL), Tobias Feldt (GIZ), Anthony Denayer (CELEP) and Ann Waters-Bayer (Agrecol), on behalf of the group campaigning for an International Year of Rangelands & Pastoralists (IYRP), Saverio Krätli – freelance consultant and editor of Nomadic Peoples – presented the key points from a draft brief on “Pastoralism, Resilience and Climate Change”. He is the lead author of this brief, which is being prepared for GIZ (German agency for international development). His presentation highlighted how variability in ways of operating, especially mobility, is crucial to pastoralists’ adaptive capacity. It underlined the importance of addressing non-climate stressors as key to climate resilience of pastoralists.

Comments on the draft brief were then made by Sadia Ahmed (Somalia), Abdulkadir Mah (Ethiopia), Shoba Liban (Kenya), Hussein Wario (Kenya), Véronique Ancey (CIRAD/FAO) and Camilla Toulmin (IIED, UK). Other webinar participants also offered their spontaneous comments and suggestions.

The learning brief for GIZ will now be finalised, taking into account the points raised during the webinar. The essence of this brief will be further developed into a shorter CELEP policy brief on pastoralism and climate change. The key points in the brief for GIZ are completely in line with CELEP’s understanding of pastoralism.

CELEP regards the webinar and policy brief as contributions to the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists (IYRP) initiative.

The recording of the webinar (90 minutes) can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExVNJbA4rXk

A 20-page technical background paper “Pastoralism and resilience of food production in the face of climate change” and an 8-page policy brief “Climate resilience – what can we learn from pastoral systems in Africa’s drylands?” were published by GIZ in 2022. An animated video on “Climate change and pastoralism” was also prepared for the 2023 MOOC on pastoralism.

Posted on 17 December 2021 in CELEP Documents, News, Pastoralism & Climate Change