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Gradually, pasturelands are being converted into other land uses or enclosed for exclusive uses under various national laws or policies. Resilience of pastoralist communities to the changing environments – ecological, economic and political – has great potential to protecting and conserving the pastureland landscapes or waterscapes. Such resilience is more talked in context of climate change and its impact on the herder communities surviving in marginal environments. In the view of widespread regional and national policy failures and modernity-catalyzed societal rejection of transhumance and nomadic pastoralism, International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists 2026 declared by the United Nations General Assembly is a grand opportunity for all to revitalize the least-external-input driven systems of livestock raising and mobility across the continents. This international blind peer-review journal, ‘Pastures & Pastoralism’, will contribute to the science, policy and practice across the world by providing a novel platform to seasoned, budding and young scientists, experts and practitioners, including the pastoral community members.
Kanna Kumar Siripurapu*1, Sushma Iyengar2
1South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies, Plot No. 164, Road No. 6, Vayupuri, Sainikpuri, Secunderabad - 500094, Telangana, India.
Email: kanna.siripurapu@gmail.com | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1244-4373
2Sahjeevan, Hospital Rd., Jalaram Society, Vijay Nagar, Bhuj - 370001, Gujarat, India.
Email: sushmasiyengar@gmail.com | ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0002-0196-6328
*Corresponding author
Pastures & Pastoralism, 01, 30-46. Doi: https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0103
Received: 30 December 2022
Reviewed: 29 January 2023
Revised: 26 February 2023
Accepted: 18 March 2023
Published: 07 April 2023
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The concepts of culture animals and biocultural diversity do exist since the time immemorial; however, they made inroads into scientific research relatively recently. Indigenous livestock breeding communities have a tradition of assigning social and cultural meaning to the livestock they breed. In this regard, an attempt is made to review the term ‘biocultural diversity’ and to define tentatively the term ‘culture animals’ with reference to the Indigenous Poda Thurpu cattle breed reared by pastoralists inhabiting the Telangana state of India. Indigenous livestock breeds, such as the Poda Thurpu cattle, represent the collective heritage of communities they are associated with, and cannot be conserved in isolation. Such breeds will survive only when the Indigenous knowledge and production systems, which they are a part of, would also survive.
Culture animals; Biocultural diversity; Pastoralism; Poda Thurpu; Deccan Plateau; Banjara; Golla
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Siripurapu, K.K., & Iyengar, S. (2023). Biocultural Diversity and Culture Animals in Mobile Pastoralism: Cattle-Culture of Pastoralists of Telangana State, India. Pastures & Pastoralism, 01, 30-46. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0103
Siripurapu, K.K. and Iyengar, S. (2023). Biocultural Diversity and Culture Animals in Mobile Pastoralism: Cattle-Culture of Pastoralists of Telangana State, India. Pastures & Pastoralism, 01: 30-46. Doi: https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0103
Siripurapu K.K., Iyengar S. Biocultural Diversity and Culture Animals in Mobile Pastoralism: Cattle-Culture of Pastoralists of Telangana State, India. Pastures & Pastoralism, 2023, 01, 30-46. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0103
Siripurapu, K anna Kumar, Iyengar, Sushma. 2023. “Biocultural Diversity and Culture Animals in Mobile Pastoralism: Cattle-Culture of Pastoralists of Telangana State, India” Pastures & Pastoralism, 01: 30-46. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0103
Siripurapu, K anna Kumar and Sushma Iyengar. 2023. “Biocultural Diversity and Culture Animals in Mobile Pastoralism: Cattle-Culture of Pastoralists of Telangana State, India” Pastures & Pastoralism, 01: 30-46. https://doi.org/10.33002/pp0103
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