Ilse Kohler-Rollefson


Ilse Köhler-Rollefson is a German scientist known for championing pastoralism, Ethnoveterinary medicine and camels with special reference to India. She found the Raika people whose way of life was under threat because of their dependence on camels and she decided to help. In 2017 she was awarded the highest award for women in India, the Nari Shakti Puraskar and, in 2018, the Federal Cross of Merit of the German Federal Government.

Life

She came to notice when she went to India on a fellowship of the American Institute of Indian Studies in 1990/91 to study camel socio-economics and management patterns. There she engaged with the Raika people whose lives are traditionally built around camels. However because the Raika can no longer make a living from breeding camels, the camels are disappearing and the traditional camel culture is being lost.
The Raika people are an ethnic group who believed that they were created in order to care for camels by Shiva. In 1992 she published "Raika Dromedary Breeders of Rajasthan: A Pastoral System in Crisis". They are pastoralists mainly in India.
She was trained as a veterinarian and an anthropologist and these come together in Ethnoveterinary medicine. She has found that traditional practices of veterinary medicine are legitimate and seeks to validate them. She has noted that at least since colonial times scientists had noted indigenous expertise in animal health and their diagnostic skills before implementing their Western-technology projects.
She noted and researched the role of the Raika and other pastoralists as creators of indigenous livestock breeds and guardians of domestic animal diversity and was a moving force behind the concept of Livestock Keepers' Rights. Later she promoted Biocultural or Community Protocols for pastoralists as a tool for obtaining their rights under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.
She created the NGO "" which lobbied the government of India for help, together with Hanwant Singh Rathore. She is the co-founder and key worker with the League for Pastoral Peoples.. In order to create income for the Raika she set up the social enterprise which markets camel milk and other camel products.
In 2002 she received an Associate Rolex Award for Enterprise. In 2017 President Pranab Mukherjee presented her with the highest award for women in India, the Nari Shakti Puruskar. The function took place at the Presidential palace, Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi,

Works include