WRh, ICR and UNEP to Collaborate in New York

Welcome to the Reindeer portal

Written by Philip Burgess

Sunday, 15 May 2011 00:22

On Wednesday, May 18th, the EALAT team, ICR and WRH will in collaboration with UNEP will host a side event to the 10th session of the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York. The event will focus on the issues of adaptation of nomadic herders to globalisation and will highlight the cooperation between UNEP, WRH and ICR on this issue in Mongolia.

Read the press release and download the poster and more information below.

Nomadic pastoralism provides a highly efficient way of managing sparse vegetation. Pastoralists adapt their
social and herding systems according to seasonal or spatial weather conditions and the availability of fertile
pastures. Biological diversity is enhanced and ecosystem integrity and resilience is maintained. In other words,
pastoralism is vital for conserving large areas of natural and semi-natural habitats, and the abandonment of
pastoralism threatens biodiversity. However, Indigenous pastoral livelihoods are increasingly stressed by land
use change and loss of biodiversity due to increased infrastructure development, resource exploitation and
other forms of human activities that create barriers to livestock mobility.

The focus of this side-event will be on land use changes of grazing land traditionally used by Indigenous
reindeer herders. There will be presentations of cases from Russia, Mongolia, Sweden and Norway. See next
page for the side-event programme.

The side-event builds on the Special Rapporteur report of Lars-Anders Baer on reindeer husbandry presented
at the 9th Session, the results of the International Polar Year/ Arctic Council EALAT project, as well as the
UNEP Nomadic Herders project recognized by the 9th Session. The EALAT Arctic Council report and video
will be distributed at the event.

The event will be held Wednesday 18th May 1:15-2:45 pm, in the UNESCO Conference Room
in the UN DC2 building – on East 44th Street near 1st Avenue, across the street from UN Headquarters
and directly across from UNICEF Headquarters on East 44th Street. UNESCO is on the 9th floor.

Download documents below
Download Programme

Download poster

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