‘Hoofprints on the Land’: Why we need livestock in the landscape! With Ilse Köhler-Rollefson

Event details

Abstract

Pastoralism is often perceived as a marginal, outdated way of livestock production, although it is practiced in a far greater area than sedentary farming and is an extremely efficient and solar-powered way of protein production that does not eliminate biodiversity. It is a way of raising animals that is practiced by indigenous groups from the Arctic to the Sahara and has everything to recommend it, but that has been ignored, denigrated and even fought by policy makers. This attitude is rooted in a historical fear of nomads and a colonial mindset; it is reinforced by ‘animal science’ that perceives farm animals as mechanical input-output machines rather than co-creatures with their own intelligence. ‘Hoofprints on the Land’ seeks to set this right and shows how pastoralism is the future rather than artificial meat and milk.

Bio

Ilse Köhler-Rollefson is a veterinarian by training and founder of the League for Pastoral Peoples. She has spent most of the last 30 years working with the Raika camel herding community in India, promoted ‘Livestock Keepers’ Rights’ at UN level and is co-founder of India’s first camel dairy. She is the author of ‘Camel Karma. Twenty Years among India’s Camel Nomads’ and recently published ‘Hoofprints on the Land. How traditional grazing can restore the land and bring animal agriculture in balance with the Earth’ which details how pastoralism can support humanity in addressing many of the world’s greatest challenges.

Back to events