BIODIVERSITY & FOOD SECURITY
By Sara J. Scherr, Ph.D., Director, Ecosystem Services, Forest TrendsThe Millennium Development Goals commit the world’s nations to greatly improve food security and reduce biodiversity loss by the year 2015, among other Goals. These Goals cannot be met solely through independent sectoral initiatives, as the problems and their solutions are closely inter-linked. While trade-offs between food security and biodiversity conservation are sometimes unavoidable, there is far greater potential for synergies in achieving food security and biodiversity conservation than is generally recognized.
Interlinkages between food security and biodiversity
The rural poor depend heavily on natural biodiversity for their food security, while food insecurity threatens biodiversity when it leads to over-exploitation of wild species or land conversion. Some sector-focused “solutions” can exacerbate the problems, as where biodiversity conservation is achieved by excluding poor people from essential resources and where food security is achieved by promoting land and input use that destroys critical habitat.
Biodiversity loss threatens food security and income. International attention to biodiversity focuses mainly on conservation of “globally-important” biodiversity: rare, endemic and endangered species and ecosystems. Less widely recognized is the centrality of biodiversity to food security and livelihoods of the poor, and the impact of biodiversity loss. Low-income rural people rely heavily on the direct consumption of wild foods, medicines and fuels, especially for meeting micronutrient and protein needs, and during “hungry” periods. An estimated 350 million poor people rely on forests as safety-nets or for supplemental income. Farmers earn as much as 10 to 25 per cent of household income from non-timber forest products. Bushmeat is the main source of animal protein in West Africa. The poor often harvest, process and sell wild plants and animals in order to buy food (Scherr, White and Kaimowitz 2003). Sixty million poor people depend on herding in semi-arid rangelands which they share with large mammals and other wildlife. Thirty million low-income people earn their livelihoods primarily as fishers, twice the number of 30 years ago. The depletion of coastal fisheries thus has serious impacts on food security (Scherr and Hunger Task Force 2003; Burke, et al. 2000).
Wild plants are used in farming systems for fodder, fertilizer, packaging, fencing and genetic materials. Farmers rely on soil microorganisms to maintain soil fertility and structure for crop production, and on wild species in natural ecological communities for crop pollination and pest and predator control. Wild relatives of domesticated crop species provide the genetic diversity used in crop improvement. The rural poor rely directly on ecosystem services for clean and reliable local water supplies. Ecosystem degradation results in less water for people, crops and livestock; lower crop, livestock and tree yields; and higher risks of natural disaster (McNeely and Scherr 2002).
Food insecurity threatens incomes and biodiversity. Crop and planted pasture production – much of it in low-productivity systems – dominate at least half the world’s temperate, sub-tropical and tropical areas; a far larger area is used for grazing livestock (Wood et al. 2000). Food insecurity threatens biodiversity when it leads to over-exploitation of wild plants and animals. Low farm productivity leads to depletion of soil and water resources, and pressure to clear additional land that serves as wildlife habitat. Some 40 per cent of cropland in developing countries is estimated as being degraded. Of more than 17,000 major protected areas, 45 per cent (accounting for one fifth of total protected area) are heavily used for agriculture, while many of the rest are islands in a sea of farms, pastures and production forests that are managed in ways incompatible for long-term species and ecosystem survival (McNeely and Scherr 2002). Hunger itself reduces labor productivity, and the need to meet food needs during periods of food shortage can lead to depletion of household and community capital, compromising future potential (FAO 2002).
Recommendations for synergy between biodiversity and food security
Since biodiversity and food security issues are often intertwined, synergistic approaches are sometimes the most effective solutions to meet both needs. Diverse strategies have been demonstrated to be effective in doing so:
>> Support the development and adoption of ecoagriculture. Investment to increase crop, livestock, forest and fisheries productivity is essential in many low-income rural regions. But new “ecoagriculture” approaches can be used that at the same time conserve or enhance natural biodiversity. Ecoagriculture strategies include using the spaces in and around productive areas for habitat networks, while also improving the habitat quality of productive areas themselves by reducing agrochemical pollution, modifying water, soil and vegetation management, or by modifying farming systems to mimic natural ecosystems. To develop, promote and support ecoagriculture innovations will require increased research, the re-building of technical assistance services that support producers in managing both agricultural and natural resources, and in some cases policy changes.
Food insecurity threatens incomes and biodiversity.A new book, "Ecoagriculture: Strategies to Feed the World and Save Wild Biodiversity" (McNeely and Scherr 2003), describes a very broad range of strategies and practices to improve food security while conserving biodiversity, and the market, institutional and policy support their widespread adoption requires. "Community Based Ecoagriculture Initiatives: Findings from the 2002 UNDP Equator Prize Nominations" (Isely and Scherr 2003), further explores successful and innovative ecoagriculture applications by low-income communities in the tropics. Ecoagriculture Partners is an international partnership founded in 2002 that seeks to promote ecoagriculture innovation and adoption, document ecoagriculture systems and practices, identify and address research gaps, facilitate communication and broker knowledge among innovators, promote partnerships for the scaling up of ecoagriculture practices, and raise the awareness of the public and policymakers concerning the potentials of ecoagriculture and the actions needed to support its further development.
>> Develop biodiversity reserves as community “safety-nets.” Communities can establish, enrich or conserve special biodiversity reserves. These can be designed and managed to protect wild species that serve as “safety-nets” for the poor in times of food scarcity, as well as ecosystem services of local importance. For example, in the drylands of southern Zimbabwe, wild foods, fuels, housing inputs, fertilizer and other products from common woodlands and rangelands provided 24 per cent of average total income for the poorest fifth of households (Cavendish 1999).
>> Strengthen local communities’ ownership and use rights of forests and other natural resources. Devolution of state forest land to local communities, as private individual or group holdings, has already doubled in the past 15 years and is continuing. An estimated 22 per cent of all forests in developing countries are owned or administered on behalf of indigenous and other rural communities. This trend is expected to continue, as governments simply do not have the resources necessary to manage and protect these lands (White and Martin 2002). Priority areas for reform can be those indigenous and other local managed lands that are already being well-managed for biodiversity conservation, and where communities have organized to defend their resources from outside encroachment.
>> Pay rural communities for the ecosystem services they provide. New approaches are being developed to provide financial incentives for farmers and other land owners to manage their resources in ways that enhance ecosystem services and biodiversity. These include special tax incentive and direct payments to farmers and communities for keeping land out of production or for practicing ecoagriculture. Several hundred systems are already underway around the world for upland watershed management, biodiversity conservation, carbon emission offsets, and landscape beauty (Landell-Mills and Porras 2002; Pagiola, Bishop and Landell-Mills 2002). Low-income rural communities that own or manage high-value or high-impact natural resources can benefit from such payments, where their rights are respected, the rules are established fairly, and organizations are present that can help to reduce transaction costs (Smith and Scherr 2002).
>> Reform governance systems for local resource management. To protect and restore habitats and watersheds will require coordination and planning at landscape scale. Devolution of significant real authority and budget for land use planning to the local level is essential, with adequate access to specialized expertise. Participatory planning processes can facilitate negotiations among farmers, conservationists, agribusiness, local residents and other groups that include food security, biodiversity conservation and economic development objectives (Buck, et al. 2001; Chung 1999). The highly inefficient, generally ineffective and sometimes oppressive regulatory systems presently in place for forests and protected area systems in many countries need to be changed. Alternatives may include promotion of “best management practices,” establishment of minimum environmental standards, use of third-party certification systems, “social contracts” guaranteeing biodiversity conservation in exchange for tenure rights or development investments, and regulatory systems set and enforced by local organizations (Kaimowitz 2003; Molnar, et al. 2003).
>> Promote partnerships among key stakeholders in rural landscapes. Partnerships can be developed that actively link farmers, conservationists, policymakers and natural resource managers from different parts of the world to share information, successful strategies and expertise. Examples include the Equator Initiative, which links together rural communities around the tropical world who are successfully reducing poverty while increasing biodiversity, and Ecoagriculture Partners, an international partnership of farmers, conservationists, public agencies and researchers to develop and promote ecoagriculture systems that was established at the Johannesburg Summit.
>> Integrate biodiversity conservation and rural development in international conventions, investments and donor assistance. Concrete steps can be taken to integrate biodiversity, food security and poverty reduction initiatives in international conventions and programmes to help reach the Millennium Development Goals:
>> International and national rules for the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocols, as well as voluntary initiatives, should fully embrace forestry and agroforestry carbon emission offset projects, and ensure that most, if not all, such projects contribute significantly to poverty reduction, food security and/or biodiversity, as well as meeting rigorous climate change mitigation criteria (Smith and Scherr 2002; Forest Climate Alliance 2003).
>> The Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) should support investment in natural capital and in the conservation and restoration of biodiversity, as well as promoting sustainable dryland food production systems.
>> The Global Environment Facility (GEF) should pursue its new lines of investment to combat land degradation and enhance agricultural biodiversity, in ways that also reduce poverty and protect threatened wild biodiversity.
>> The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) should develop more active strategies for biodiversity conservation in working landscapes (complementary to that of protected area systems) and strategies for conservation by low-income rural communities that also meet their livelihood needs.
>> The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) should increase investment in research to increase agricultural productivity while enhancing ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation at landscape scale, especially for production systems in regions where poverty, food insecurity and biodiversity threats are most acute.
References
Further information:
Agricultural Biodiversity and Farm-Based Food Security (pdf) [Rural Advancement Foundation InternationaI]
Biodiversity Brief 6: Biodiversity and Food Security (pdf) [IUCN / DFID / EC]
Reconciling Agriculture and Biodiversity: Policy and Research Challenges of 'Ecoagriculture' [UNDP]
Online resources:
Ecoagriculture partners homepage
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Top photo by Galen R Frysinger (www.galenfrysinger.com)
