Urgent appeal to protect livestock and residents’ livelihoods
LIBYA – The Libyan Wildlife Trust has issued an urgent appeal to the Prime Minister of the Government of National Unity and the relevant authorities over continuing deaths in sheep flocks in Wadi Kaam, according to local residents’ accounts, amid suspected foot-and-mouth disease and bluetongue, warning that the losses threaten the livelihoods of livestock breeders and their families.
Call for urgent veterinary support
The Trust said residents had for years relied on their own resources without adequate veterinary and technical support, calling for specialist teams to be dispatched immediately, the necessary care to be provided and the losses to be assessed in order to protect the livestock and their owners.
Holding those at fault to account under the law
It called on the Minister of Agriculture and Livestock to investigate any possible failure to carry out responsibilities and to hold to account anyone found to have neglected their duties, in accordance with the law.
Managing the Wadi Kaam reserve
It urged the authorities responsible for the environment and nature reserves to turn the designation of Wadi Kaam as a nature reserve from a paper measure into genuine management, including a fair partnership with local residents that takes account of their needs and livelihoods.
It questioned how residents could be asked to protect biodiversity and manage the reserve while losing their livestock without support, arguing that protecting people and their livelihoods must go hand in hand with efforts to conserve the environment and tackle climate change.
Protecting people and nature together
The Trust stressed that protecting wildlife does not mean ignoring the suffering of local communities, calling for trust to be built and for residents to be involved in solutions rather than marginalised, and said its demand was not directed against any particular body but was intended to urge everyone to shoulder their responsibilities.
It concluded by calling on the authorities to intervene to save the livelihoods of Wadi Kaam’s sheep farmers before the losses spread.
