Immense beyond imagination, the untamed rainforests of western New Guinea represent a biodiversity hotspot, home to several unique species of flora and fauna. The territory’s astonishing beauty and diversity is underpinned by a stunning array of natural resources. The island is also home to many indigenous communities practicing hundreds of local languages and traditions and depending on their natural environment for maintaining their traditional livelihoods, identity and culture. The territory’s much-contested decolonization process in the 1950-60s led to widespread discontent among indigenous Papuans and gave rise to persistent dissent from Indonesian rule, routinely met with disproportionately violent action by Indonesian security forces. Adding to these longstanding colonial ills and grievances, indigenous Papuan communities also struggle to grapple with inequitable allocation of land and resources, extreme pollution and environmental degradation caused by the mining and palm oil sectors. In the meantime, climate-exacerbated weather events have become more frequent in the region creating new tensions by putting an additional strain on natural resources and thus leading to an increased level of insecurity and inequality. In particular, these challenges have a disproportionate and profound impact on indigenous Papuan women, whose native lands are deeply embedded in their cultural and ethnic identity, and who are dependent on access to land to carry out their prescribed roles. Displacement also puts women at further risk of violence. Adding to sexual violence and displacement experienced by indigenous Papuan women, the loss of traditional lands and resources has been identified as having a singularly negative impact on women as it impedes their empowerment and makes them vulnerable to continued violence. The Papuan experience thus serves as a timely illustration to exemplify how environmental factors, such as resource extraction and climate change, not only amplify vulnerabilities and exacerbate pre-existing inequalities stemming from colonial times, they also give rise to gendered consequences flowing from large-scale degradation and loss of the natural environment.
This magazine presents the highlights of the applied research project “Inclusive and climate-smart business models in Ethiopian and Kenyan dairy valuechains (CSDEK)”. The CSDEK applied research project was conducted in six case study areas, three in Ethiopia and three in Kenya. At the time of publishing this magazine, research was still ongoing in some of the study areas. The projectteam and researchers hope to contribute to creating awareness of climatesmartdairy practices and development of the dairy sector in Ethiopia and Kenya. In two of the study areas, collaboration between VHL and dairy stakeholders will continue, preferably through local networks in a Living Lab approach.
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This booklet presents sixteen 'practice briefs' which are popular publications based on 12 Master and one Bachelor theses of Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences (VHL). All theses were commissioned through the research project entitled 'Inclusive and climate smart business models in Ethiopian and Kenyan dairy value chains (CSDEK)'. The objective of this research is to identify scalable, climate smart dairy business models in the context of the ongoing transformation from informal to formal dairy chains in Kenya and Ethiopia.
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