C44 SIDE EVENT Closing Ceremony of the International Year of Camelids 2024 Opening Remarks

Your Royal Highness,

Distinguishes delegates from Saudi Arabia and Bolivia,

Dear Colleagues, 

I am so pleased to welcome you to the official closing of the International Year of Camelids 2024. At FAO, we observe so many International Years and International Days, but this is one of the best!

Not because you put in some resources, but because you have worked with  passion and seriousness.

We need to respect nature, especially animals and plants that are our heroes. For camelids, I lived with them for seven and a half years in Ningxia, the Muslim Province in China, so I know them well.

They are still researching to see how camelids can survive in such harsh environments – dry, cold and almost no water – that is the power of life, the power of evolution.

Genetically camelids are heroes as they not only survive in deserts, but also in the Andes Mountains where they can get extremely cold and dry with high exposure to the sun. In all the harsh environments across the different continents of the world they can survive. That is the power of the gene – adaptation, evolution.

Second, what is it that we can learn from the camelids?

As a scientist, I know that from the little worm to the fish to the plants to the big animals, we all have something in common – DNA.

So how can we learn to face challenges and build our resilience? That’s why as human beings we are not as strong as camelids. So, when you see the little camelid calf, learning to survive from infancy to adult, and how their journey started for their whole life – that is what we need to learn from camelids. As humans we have lost our ability to face resilience.  

Third, at FAO we need more International Days and International Years. While some people say we have too many, I say that we have 365 days every year at our disposal during which we can promote traditional culture, traditional technology, and, as they say in Europe, indigenous knowledge from indigenous plants, indigenous animals, and indigenous ecosystems that spans across animals, plants and microorganisms.

That is something we need to promote at FAO. So, I welcome all Members that wish to promote an International Day or International Year or even an International Week!  

You can imagine, over the past 80 years of FAO we could have promoted 80 animals or 80 plants – one per year!

Let’s make FAO an important center for its Members, for its farmers, for local cultures.

Not so many people have seen Bolivia’s mountain dancing and folk songs. If you listen to the folk songs, they are very beautiful and completely different from those in Saudi Arabia.  

I was fortunate, 40 years ago I was in the Andes Mountains, where I listened to their music (when I was young at 22 years of age) which is a fond memory from my life.

Lastly, you have set a very high bar for future International Years and International Days.

We have to learn from the FAO Animal Production and Health Division who have a lot of experience to share with other International Days like World Bee Day for example, while next year we will celebrate the International Year of Rangelands and Pastoralists, sponsored by Mongolia, as well as the International Year of the Woman Farmer promoted by the United States.

So, with the International Year of Camelids you have raised the bar and created healthy competition with other Members, which will spur them to be even more creative! This is very healthy to improve global food and agriculture!

Throughout this year, we have come together to celebrate the vital role of camelids in the lives of millions of people across the world, especially those that are highly vulnerable to extreme poverty.

We have raised awareness of the important contribution camelids make to food security and nutrition, livelihoods, and the conservation of fragile ecosystems.

These remarkable animals do not only provide milk, meat, fiber, and transportation in challenging environments, but they also play important cultural and economic roles.

They are champions of resilience and adaptation.

In the face of the climate crisis, desertification, and biodiversity loss, they support livelihoods where few other animals can survive.

And yet they have not received the attention they deserve.

This International Year has brought Camelids into the global spotlight, highlighting their social, cultural and economic value for households in deserts and other arid and semi-arid lands of Africa and Asia and in the Andean highlands.

FAO, together with our partners, organized numerous events at global, regional and national level, and produced a wide range of communication and outreach material to promote the Year, reaching millions of people globally.

The exhibition we inaugurated a short while ago also emphasizes the critical need of continued investment in capacity development, research, and outreach, to further strengthen camelid value chains.

These efforts are essential to advancing our shared goal of sustainable development to ensure global food security,

And for the Four Betters – better production, better nutrition, a better nutrition and a better life – leaving no one behind.

My sincere congratulations to everyone who contributed to the success of the International Year of Camelids, from governments and development partners to research institutions, producers, and the private sector.

I extend my particular thanks to the Government of the Plurinational State of Bolivia and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for their leadership in co-chairing the International Steering Committee.

Let us build on this momentum; let it be the start, not the end, of our attention on Camelids.

Thank you.