Mission

"The Virtual Centre promotes multidisciplinary research and development activities and increases awareness among key stakeholders of the complex interactions of human needs, animal production and the sustainability of global natural resources and improve their familiarity with the wide array of policy and institutional tools available to manage the environmental effects of livestock production"

Background

The first phase of a multi-donor Livestock, Environment and Development Initiative (LEAD) identified, at a global scale, the consequences of increased pressure on grazing and mixed farming systems and the dangers of the shift to industrial modes of production. It highlighted the close interaction between government policies and the environmental impact of livestock production, and showed the large number of technologies, which are available to mitigate the negative effects in all different production modes, provided the appropriate policy framework is in place. The subsequent International Conference on Livestock and the Environment held in Wageningen, the Netherlands in 1997, attended by about 100 experts of the developing and developed world, confirmed these findings and identified almost unanimously, among others, the following critical follow-up needs:

To increase communication and enhance the relevance of research and development issues regarding livestock-environment interactions, by establishing a Virtual Centre for Research and Development in Livestock Environment Interactions to:

- promote multidisciplinary research and development activities, and increase awareness among key stakeholders of the complex interactions of human needs, animal production and the sustainability of global natural resources, and improve their familiarity with the wide array of policy and institutional tools available to manage the environmental effects of livestock production. In the first years, particular activities proposed are:

- through additional studies, fill the gaps in the current knowledge of livestock-environment interactions, most notably in the areas of the use of fossil fuel in the different production systems, and the social consequences of the ongoing transformation of the livestock sector and associated resource degradation; and
- research and development in key areas of livestock-environment interactions, most notably in livestock-wildlife integration, livestock-associated deforestation and the establishment of area-wide integration of specialized crop and livestock activities.

The Virtual Centre for Research and Development

The creation of a “Virtual Centre for Research and Development” for livestock and environment research is the centrepiece of the follow-up actions and was a key recommendation which emerged from the global electronic conference on Balancing Livestock, the Environment and Human Needs organized in 1997 by IDRC, ILRI, and FAO in which more than 1,000 people from 87 countries participated. After an analysis of various alternative approaches to address the important issue of livestock and environment interactions, the Steering Committee of the LEAD Initiative, following their meetings held in Washington DC in October 1997 and Copenhagen in February 1998, agreed to seek the resources needed to set up a virtual research and development centre for livestock and environment.

Justification

A “virtual” centre is similar to a “real” research and development centre in that it brings together scientists from different disciplines to address important research and development issues. The key difference is that a virtual centre relies on electronic communications technologies to help scientists and development workers plan and implement their collaborative efforts and share data, information, and knowledge. Resources that are usually invested in infrastructure (office, laboratories, etc.) and expensive support activities, such as moving scientists and their families to a “centre,” are, instead, invested towards setting up electronic communications linkages between participating scientists in different countries and different regions of the world.

While there are, of course, many advantages to the traditional approach of bringing scientists to a central location so that they can interact both formally and informally, there are also distinct advantages associated with setting up a virtual centre, including:

- Scientists from developing countries do not need to leave their home countries where their expertise is often in very high demand in order to participate in international research and development initiatives.
- Collaborative research and development initiatives can bring together the most capable experienced scientists in the world instead of being limited to individuals whose institutional or family responsibilities allow them to relocate.
- Many research and development projects can benefit greatly by conducting the research in a wide range of different environments instead of only in environments in close physical proximity to a central research centre and few outreach sites.

The Focus of the Virtual Centre for Research and Development

The multi-donor Study on Livestock and the Environment, the Electronic Conference, and the International Conference clearly demonstrated that in almost every country local people are faced with difficult trade-offs between short-term human needs for food, fibre, energy, etc. and equally important long-term needs for environmental services, such as clean air and water and productive natural resources. New technologies, practices, and policies that encourage the development of land-livestock-food systems that meet both short and long term human needs, is a very high priority everywhere.

It is clear that what is not needed is more livestock or ecological research and development where livestock and environmental issues are addressed separately. Instead, what is urgently needed is:

- to “bring together” through improved communication, the best animal scientists, ecologists, social scientists, and decision makers in the area of economic policy;
- to set up mechanisms to ensure that their research is in response to local demands; and
- to find the necessary resources so that they can combine their expertise and experience and plan and implement appropriate collaborative interdisciplinary research and development.

Because of that, setting up a virtual research centre is the most effective way to bring these different disciplines and different scientists together and to allow them to work in the range of environments found world-wide, where short and long term human needs are in conflict.

Objectives and Functions

The objectives of the Centre are:

- provide local, regional and national communities and authorities with alternative technologies and their policy requirements for land-livestock-food systems that meet their short term needs for food, forage, fibre, and fuel as well as long term needs for environmental services; and
- provide policy decision-makers with the knowledge they need in order to develop and promulgate policies that encourage the development and use of sustainable land-livestock-food systems.

To obtain these objectives, the centre assumes the following functions:

- to assist in capacity building in developing countries and function as a “clearing house”, disseminate results and provide baseline information and resource intelligence;
- to facilitate international pilot development programmes among research and development institutions and individuals, and assist in carrying out additional studies on livestock environment issues;
- to provide support to decision-making on livestock-environment issues, support mainstreaming of livestock and environment issues in donor operations, and assist in the formulation in national action plans.

Capacity Building, Clearing House and Dissemination of Results

The programmes for the general capacity building and clearing house functions of the virtual centre are structured along those different “environmental hot spots” identified by the multi-donor study, such as land degradation from overgrazing, deforestation from ranch encroachment, nutrient involution in densely populated areas, pollution from feed import-based nutrient excess systems, livestock-domestic and wild bio-diversity interaction, within different types of livestock systems. A critical issue will be to ensure that longer term environmental concerns and shorter term human needs are given equal emphasis within programmes – to ensure that ecologists, social scientists, and animal scientists work together to exploit synergies.

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