Herding for Health

COmON is a proud supporting partner of the Herding for Health program — a collaborative initiative between Conservation International and Peace Parks Foundation. This program embodies community-driven livestock management, promoting the well-being of rural communities residing in and around protected areas. It simultaneously focuses on the restoration of rangelands and the preservation of biodiversity through practices such as herding, capacity building, and collective governance.

Program

Herding for Health is anchored by four fundamental pillars:

1. Ensuring the vitality of rangelands.
2. Promoting the health and welfare of animals.
3. Nurturing thriving communities.
4. Establishing a robust enabling policy framework.

This program champions community engagement, sustainable management of native rangelands, comprehensive disease risk and food safety control, and principles of rural development.

Strategy

A key strategy within the implementation of Herding for Health involves voluntary stewardship agreements forged with local communities entrusted as custodians of the land. Pastoralist communities willingly commit to practices like planned grazing for their livestock to mitigate overgrazing, eliminate invasive vegetation that impedes grass growth and water availability, and adopt wildlife-friendly methods, among other initiatives. In return, they receive support to enhance the quality of their livestock, reduce losses from wildlife predation and diseases, and gain access to facilitated livestock markets, among other valuable benefits. COmON takes pride in supporting this holistic approach to sustainable conservation and community empowerment.

Herding 4 Health, aimed at nature conservation and reducing poverty among people in rural areas, which took off last year. Farmers with livestock are encouraged to rotate grazing and place their collective livestock in large fenced ‘kraals’ at night. This programme results in healthier livestock, better prices for meat and milk, healthier communities, restoration of degraded land. Finally, the programme allows wildlife and livestock to coexist in harmony. A new PPF project that COmON will support in 2024 is the Partners4Nature Fund. A new fund where multiple donors collectively put an amount ‘into the pot’ to allow Peace Parks to make flexible use of freely available project funds.

COmON has been supporting Herding 4 Health structurally for some time and is pleased to see that the program, aimed at nature conservation and at the same time reducing poverty among people in rural areas, is paying off and experiencing exponential growth.