Dear Sir/Madam,

The Coalition of European Lobbies on Eastern African Pastoralism (CELEP) is a coalition of European organisations, groups and experts working in partnership with pastoralist partner organisations to influence policymaking in Europe in support of pastoralism in the drylands of Eastern Africa. On the 5th of October 2016, at the occasion of CELEP’s annual meeting hosted by IIED at its London offices, the coalition is organizing a public debate on the opportunities and impacts of investing in pastoral areas.  Presentations by three key-note speakers will be followed by discussion and debate.

14h00 - 14h15 Welcome remarks

14h15 - 15h00 “The Land-Water Nexus in Semi-Arid Kenya – How Kenya’s pastoralists lose land and see their water resources depleted as a result of horticulture, biofuel and conservation initiatives" , Dr. Marcel Rutten, Senior Researcher at the Africa Studies Centre Leiden. Description: Presenting the impact of land tenure changes and subsequent outside investment in horticulture, tourism and biofuels by both local and foreign entrepreneurs in Kenya’s drylands. Safeguarding ownership of land and water in an age of globalization is a major challenge for pastoralist communities where the formalization of land and property rights is not necessarily a panacea for wealth creation in the arid- and semi-arid lands of Eastern Africa.

15h00 - 15h45 “Acces Benefit Sharing of What? Potential and pitfalls of Biocultural Community Protocols and implications for investments in pastoral regions”. Dr. Saverio Krätli, editor of the journal Nomadic Peoples and Dr. Ilse Köhler-Rollefson, League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development. Description: Following the Nagoya Protocol’s Access-Benefit Sharing framework (Convention on Biological Diversity), the African Union is planning to produce ‘Biocultural Community Protocols’ with pastoralist communities on a continental scale. These protocols are supposed to be community-based legal instruments defining the modalities for governments and private sector to access pastoralists’ ‘animal genetic resources’ and related knowledge. At the same time, discussions around the implementation of the Nagoya Protocol are being facilitated by FAO at the Intergovernmental Technical Working Group on Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. A focus on ‘material transfer agreements’ is moving the discussion away from the opportunity to include pastoralists’ interests. In both cases, a danger lies with the emphasis on ‘genetic’ or ‘natural’ resources, which effectively negates pastoralists’ resources by representing them exclusively in terms of what can be of use to outsiders. The potential of Biocultural Community Protocols in guiding investments in pastoralist areas is examined in this light.

15h45 - 16h45 Discussion

16h45 - 17h00 Closing remarks by the panelists

More info: www.celep.info