cess to grazing the lack of emphasis on pastoral practices by the formal educational system.
5. As more marginal areas become degraded to the point of being unable to support livestock, so the pressure on available resources increases, further straining inter- and intra-community relationships.
This is also leading to conflicts between us and wildlife, as they too
face food shortages and compete with our animals for fodder and
have begun to invade our maize, and wheat fields.
6. An increase in population numbers is adding to the strain on our local
resources, including forest clearing for housing and charcoal burning, leading to rivers becoming affected.
7. The above factors are making our lives more precarious. Men in the
village are having travel further afield to find grazing; this raises the
dangers they face from raiders. Women are walking further to find
drinking water and to bring leaves and twigs from the forest for survival rations for the animals. Our children’s health is suffering too.
The Samburu
Community
Protocol about
the Samburu
Indigenous
Livestock Breeds
and their
Rights to their
Indigenous
Livestock Genetic
Resources and
Role in Global
Biodiversity
Management
8. Lack of services and access to market for our animals and their products is limiting our capacity to earn livelihoods from livestock leading
some of us to abandon livestock keeping at the detriment of the survival of our indigenous breed.
All of the above raises questions about the long term tenability of our
way of life. We are deeply concerned that these associated challenges
are increasing in their severity to the point that our whole way of life will
be threatened. Already many pastoralists in the North East of the country
have been forced to abandon their livelihoods. The loss of our way of life
would also adversely affect our indigenous breeds, much of our culture,
our various types of traditional knowledge and the bonds between us,
our land and the region’s environment and living resources. The changing climate is heavily affecting us and so does the encroachment on our
land.
OUR RIGHTS UNDER NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL
LAW
Kenyan law: Under the Environmental management and Co-ordination
(Conservation of biological Resources, Access to genetic Resources and
Benefit Sharing) Regulations (2006) we have a right as a group of “interested persons” to be consulted with a view to obtaining our prior informed consent if our livestock, plants and other resources are accessed.
Although the Regulations do not mention traditional knowledge, we assert that we also have the right to have our prior informed consent sought
if our traditional knowledge is to be accessed.
The Regulations also stipulate that activities that may have an adverse
effect on the environment, lead to the introduction of exotic species, or
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