Programme > Keynote presentations

Oct 29, 16:00: Opening Session

Oct 30, 9:00: Session 1 - Environmental changes and food security: consequences and opportunities

Biodiversity and food security: learning from smallholder farmers
Doyle McKey; Centre d’Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive (CEFE), UMR 5175 CNRS, Université de Montpellier – Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier – Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Montpellier / Institut Universitaire de France

In the search for new pathways toward ecologically and socially sustainable agriculture, the ‘traditional’ agricultural systems conducted by smallholder farmers in many regions are a rich source of ideas for ways to reconcile food production, ecosystem services and the conservation of biodiversity in a changing world. Increasing research has uncovered a wealth of knowledge about these systems, but awareness of this knowledge, and thus its potential influence on policy, have lagged behind. This talk will focus on three themes. First, I will show how smallholder farmers create and maintain diversity in their crop plants and use this diversity to combat biotic and climatic risks. Secondly, drawing largely on recent work done by the CESAB-funded project NetSeed, I will show how farming communities diffuse biodiversity in social networks of seed exchange and how these networks help make agriculture resilient to many challenges, including natural and human-made disasters and climate change. Thirdly, I will illustrate novel ways by which smallholder farmers imitate nature in their design of agroecosystems.

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141030_McKey_Biodiv2014

 

Climate change, land degradation and food security in the Sahel – the relevance of migration as adaptive strategy
Diana Hummel; ISOE – Institute for Social-Ecological Research, Frankfurt/Main, Germany

Impacts of climate and environmental change on the livelihoods and mobility of the population in the West African Sahel have gained increasing academic and public interest in recent years. It is estimated that countries in the Sahel could lose over 30-50 percent of their agricultural capacity in the next decades. Since the majority of the population living in the West African Sahel depends on subsistence and small-scale farming, environmental changes such increasing temperatures and rainfall variability pose considerable risks to their livelihoods and food security. Migration can then constitute an important strategy to cope with changing conditions of the ecosystems. However, causes and motives for migration (as well as the decision not to migrate) overlap, and cannot be strictly divided into ‘ecological’ or ‘social’ categories. High mobility is characteristic for West Africa and deeply rooted in culture and history. Seasonal migration, for example, has been a long-lasting and continuing migration pattern for the diversification of livelihoods.
The presentation addresses interactions between climate change, food security and migratory processes, focusing on two regions in the West African Sahel, Bandiagara in Mali and Linguère in Senegal. Drawing on recent empirical data derived from a transdisciplinary research project, it will be examined how social differences and vulnerabilities shape migration patterns and decisions to migrate in the context of environmental changes. Rain-fed agriculture represents the most important economic activity in the study areas, and the majority of the population is engaged in arable farming and livestock breeding. It will be illustrated under which social-ecological conditions migration constitutes an adaptation strategy for individuals and households to cope with environmental stressors such as inadequate rainfall and land degradation and in which way food security is of relevance thereby. Against this background, implications for policies will be discussed.

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141030_Hummel_Biodiv2014 

 

Food and Nutrition Security and its interactions with Biodiversity and other aspects of Environmental Change
Dr John Ingram; Food Systems Programme Leader, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, UK

This presentation considers the two-way interactions between human activities related to food and nutrition security (FNS) (in the context of the ‘food system’), and environmental change (in the context of ‘planetary boundaries’) noting especially the impacts on biodiversity.
Following an initial discussion of the notion of FNS, the presentation first considers the impacts of the food system activities. These include (i) producing food; (ii) processing food; (iii) packaging and distributing food; and (iv) retailing and consuming food. While these activities lead to a number of food and nutrition security outcomes including access to, and utilisation of food, in addition to food availability, they also contribute substantially to crossing the planetary boundaries. Key issues include especially climate change, biodiversity, biogeochemical cycles and fresh water resources. In relation to climate change, GHG emissions from ‘agriculture’ are usually the focus of attention, but “post-farm gate” activities account for 40 and 60% of food-related emissions in US and UK, respectively. However, most of the food system impacts related to biodiversity stem from producing food. Key factors include land conversion, mono-cultures, capture fisheries and hunting. Other food system activities can also be locally important (e.g. invasives carried by food transport, runoff from food processing factories, food waste sites).
The presentation will also introduce some of the impacts of crossing the planetary boundaries for FNS. In addition to impacts of changes in climate, biodiversity, freshwater supplies and pollution on food production, extreme weather events disrupt food storage and distribution systems, and also affect food safety and other aspects of FNS. It will close by considering some examples of options to adapt our food systems to changes in environmental parameters, and to help mitigate further deleterious changes.

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141030_Ingram_Biodiv2014

 

Oct 30, 11:00: Session 2 - Green economy, food security, and biodiversity

Bioresource insects and biodiversity - opportunities and challenges.
Birgit Rumpold, Leibniz-Institut für Agrartechnik Potsdam-Bornim, Germany

Due to the growing world population there is an increasing demand in alternative protein sources whereas the available land for the production of plant and animal protein decreases owing to desertification and urbanization. Furthermore, the rapidly decreasing resources of fossil fuels necessitate a more sustainable land use. This includes the establishment of novel utilization pathways of hitherto not or not optimally used biomass. Here insects offer prospective alternatives. They are a vastly underutilized bioresource and can be utilized for the bioconversion and valorization also of hitherto not usable organic residues to food, feed, chemicals, enzymes, bioactive substances, and energy. In comparison to conventional livestock, insects have higher feed conversion efficiencies, lower water and land requirements, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Additionally, insects play an important role in food security because they deliver ecological services like plant pollination, bio waste degradation for example of dead plant material, and natural pest control, and because in some cases they serve as food and feed. Of the more than one million insect species described, approximately 1 900 are consumed as food worldwide. Consequently, there is still immense potential in insect biodiversity and the use of to date unexploited insect species. Edible insects are generally rich in protein and fat and can provide valuable minerals, vitamins and energy. Therefore they have a huge potential to contribute to food and feed as well as protein and nutrient security. Since up to today most insects consumed are collected in the wild, an increase in insect consumption based on gathering will lead to overexploitation and endangering of species in flora and fauna. Thus it is recommended to establish safe mass rearing of edible insects on an industrial scale. Before cultivation and application of foreign insect species, their potential hazard on the indigenous ecosystem has to be considered to prevent a negative impact on the ecosystem and the endangerment of indigenous species. In animal feed, insect protein has the potential to completely or partly replace soy bean and fish meal in conventional livestock production. This can prevent further erosion of forests for the cultivation of soy and overfishing for the production of fishmeal and thus contribute to forest as well as aquatic biodiversity.
There is still a large amount of research required regarding identification and application of known and to date unknown insect species appropriate for respective bioconversion processes in order to extensively exploit the potential of insects as a bioresource.

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Land sparing vs land sharing: where do we stand?
Jean-Michel Salles, CNRS, UMR5474 Lameta, Montpellier, France

Considering that the expected demand for food worldwide will double by 2050 (Tilman et al, 2002; Balmford et al 2005), what would be the best strategy for the development of agricultural production, taking into account biodiversity conservation issues? Waggoner (1996) was the first to use the term "land sparing" for nature conservation in agricultural production. More recently, Green et al. (2005) compared the level of biodiversity resulting from different modes of agriculture: conventional "land sparing" and green "land sharing". In the first model, agricultural areas are used intensively and have a high crop yield from a small plot of land, thus allowing more space for the permanent preservation areas, such as reserves of environment. In the second case, agricultural production would tend to be lower per unit area and a larger area of land is generally required to obtain the same crop yields than conventional farming, leaving less land for permanent conservation, but a higher level of biodiversity in the production area. When biodiversity is a linear function of yield, the two methods of agriculture lead to the same level of biodiversity for a given production target. If the relation between yield and biodiversity is convex – decreasing intensity of agricultural production improves biodiversity at deceasing rate - extensive farming leads to a biodiversity loss compared with intensive farming. The opposite result is obtained if the relation between biodiversity and yield is concave. According to Green et al., available empirical data from a range of cases in developing countries support a land sparing strategy. The main differences between land sparing and land sharing can be summarized by three points: (1) in land sparing, there is a stronger contrast between the land for agriculture and land for biodiversity than in land sharing, (2) in land sparing, agricultural lands are essentially homogeneous, while it is generally much more heterogeneous in agriculture land sharing, and (3) the variability of land cover and its value for biodiversity are at a finer spatial scale in land sharing than in land sparing. The scientific literature remains nevertheless heterogeneous in this domain and emphasizes various aspects of this issue related to productivity, topography, location, biodiversity structure and response, economic incentives, and prevailing development paradigms. Other considerations relate to farmers’ attitudes toward risk, social preferences toward biodiversity, food, or landscapes… Recent work stresses the potential role of markets (Desquilbet et al., 2013). The mechanism underlying the most interesting effect is the fact that the lower agricultural productivity associated with land sharing might result in higher prices that would impact negatively the demand for agricultural productions. The authors note that the larger part of the expected increasing demand for crop is related to animal feed which is explained by the growth in the human consumption of meat. In addition, the lower productivity of the "land sharing" model also has consequences to require more human labor, and therefore more agricultural employment. And it is widely admitted that a large part of the food insecurity is associated with low incomes, especially in rural areas. The “land sparing” vs “land sharing” debate is still widely open. Beyond the evidence that appropriate answers will remain geographically differentiated, a better understanding of the issues relates to the improvement of agronomic knowledge on the contents of the land sharing model.

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141030_Salles_Biodiv2014.pdf

 

Incorporating Bio-diversity in cropping systems: consequences on productivity, local nutrition and management in tropical countries
Eric Scopel (UR AÏDA), Eric Malézieux (UR HortSys), CIRAD, France

The science of agroecology, which is defined as the application of ecological concepts and principles to the design and management of sustainable agroecosystems has known these last years a tremendous renewal of interest among the community of agricultural scientists but also amongst policy makers. This is mainly due to the important ecological disservices and often failure to ensure food security provided by intensive modern agriculture and associated techniques based on the combined use of agrochemicals and high-yielding varieties in monocropped systems. The main principle of agroecology consists in assembling and increasing functional biodiversity in agroecosystems to enhance synergisms in order to provide various categories of ecological services such as the activation of soil biology, the recycling of nutrients, and the enhancement of beneficial arthropods and antagonists. Functional diversity may be enhanced through different practices and strategies which include crop rotations, cover crops, intercropping, crop/livestock mixtures, agroforestry mixtures, etc. One of the main challenges is to improve through ecological services the agroecosystem efficiency and to maintain crops productivity. There are several examples of success in stabilizing food production this way and besides, vegetal diversity may contribute to a more diversified alimentation impacting in health of rural communities. New strategies incorporating ecological knowledge gained from the observation of natural ecosystems and or traditional agroecosystems may be a credible alternative to design such innovative systems. Designing such novel agricultural systems calls for in-depth knowledge of biological regulations in ecosystems, but also for the integration of traditional agricultural knowledge held by local farmers. Integration of these two aspects is one of the challenges that agricultural science has to deal with today. In addition, although practices are applied at the plot and / or farm scale by farmers, their efficiency and associated services are expressed mainly at the landscape scale. This paper reviews some initiatives that lie behind these trends, analyzes the basic concepts underlying the design of such systems and their efficiency. It suggests new frameworks for action that include Nature observation, experimental and model-based designs and participatory approaches.

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141030_Scopel_Biodiv2014

 

Oct 30, 14:00: Session 3 - Sustainable use of biodiversity

Agroforestry systems: How to approach the potentialities and complexity of such integrated agricultural production systems.
Camille Béral; AGROOF, Anduze, France

Over the last decades, traditional mixed production systems involving crops, animals and trees were discouraged, facing the paradigm of productivity helped by technological innovations and petrochemical sector development. This model has led to a limited resilience to economic and climate changes, to environmental pollution, and to the alteration of the characteristics of landscapes. Facing these issues, the agriculture tends to evolved towards an agroecology model where land use practices have to ally sociological, economics and environmental benefits. Agroforestry is part of this new agroecological paradigm and tends to develop in industrialized countries. The aim of my presentation will be to provide elements of reflection on how agroforestry helps to build resilience into landscapes and how it contributes to insure food security. (i) The first part will be dedicated to give a quick overview of the diversity of temperate and mediterranean agroforestry systems from traditional to modern ones, and the main elements to approach their complexity. What inventory can we make of agroforestry systems in France? How does the introduction of trees modify the structure and functioning of the agroecosystem and how this contributes to the diversification of ecosystemic services? (ii) Then, facing territorial issues such as water quality, erosion…etc. we will approach what are the potentials of agroforestry systems in landscape scale using the examples of territorial projects Agroof is working on. (iii) Finally the talk will be concluded by a reflection on the complexity of R&D research and the interest of participatory approach in the understanding and developing of such systems. This conclusion will be illustrated be some of our initiatives.

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141030_Beral_Biodiv2014

 

Biodiversity and Food Security - linkages in South-East Asian rice landscapes
Josef Settele & the LEGATO consortium ;Department of Community Ecology, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ Halle, Germany

In order to advance long-term sustainable development of intensive land use systems, against risks arising from multiple aspects of global change, quantifications of the dependence of ecosystem functions (ESF) and the services (ESS) they generate are needed. Thus, within the BMBF-funded research project LEGATO research focusses on local as well as regional land use intensity (including the socio-cultural and economic background) and biodiversity, and the potential impacts of global change. LEGATO stands for: “Land-use intensity and Ecological EnGineering – Assessment Tools for risks and Opportunities in irrigated rice based production systems.”

LEGATO deal with selected characteristic elements of the 3 service strands defined by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA): a) Provisioning: nutrient cycling & crop production; b) Regulating: biocontrol & pollination; c) Cultural Services: cultural identity & aesthetics. Research is conducted in The Philippines and in Vietnam, in landscapes along a gradient reflecting changing geo-climatic and land use intensity, as well as cultural conditions. The focus is on landscapes shaped by irrigated rice. In particular we investigate the interactions between the rice crops and the surrounding landscapes in the light of ecological engineering (as an emerging discipline, concerned with design, monitoring, and construction of ecosystems). The overall objective is the elaboration and testing of generally applicable principles within the frame of ecological engineering.

In the present contribution focus will be on the direct linkages of biodiversity and rice production and how to disseminate resulting insights for practical implementation.

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LEGATOproject

 

Tree agrodiversity, local knowledge and food systems across landscapes and through time in the Mediterranean region: examples from the Rif, northern Morocco.
Yildiz Aumeeruddy-Thomas; Centre d'Ecologie Fonctionelle et Evolutive,Montpellier, France

Mediterranean agroecological landscapes have been characterized since the domestication of crops by agrosylvopastoral activities and the shaping of extensive agroecosystems combining trees, cereals and pulses cultivation as well as pastoral activities that were fully integrated and linked to a great variety of diets throughout the region. Many of these such as the holm-oak truffle domestic forests, the chestnut agroecosystem, the cork-oak Montades (Portugal) or the mixed olive/ almond/ figs and cereal orchards in Maghreb, are fully recognized for their importance in hosting high levels of biodiversity. In my presentation, I shall present the socio-political and evolutionary contexts of three trees that structure traditional agroecosystems in the Rif in Northern Morocco, known as a hotspot for biodiversity in the Mediterranean region. These are: Olive (Olea europaea), the Mediterranean fig (Ficus carica) and almonds (Prunus dulcis). My aim is to show biocultural factors that shape tree agrodiversity over time and throughout landscapes and the intricate linkages with food systems. I shall give a general picture of the state of the art regarding the domestication of these three species at the Mediterranean level and their evolution in the westernmost part of the region in northern Morocco. I shall then discuss the types of agroecosystems where these trees fit into stressing upon sociopolitical contexts, including relationships with different exogenous projects over time that have shaped varietal agrodiversity. Finally I shall discuss the importance of these three species in food systems and how local knowledge attached to management of these species including reproduction techniques as well as post-harvesting (conservation and transformation) contribute to define diversity, quality for home consumption as well as commercial products for sale.

 

 

Oct 30, 16:00: Session 4 - Conceptual pitfalls in the food-biodiversity nexus

The ecological economics perspective is not a simple juxtaposition of economic ans ecological elements.
Lauriane Mouysset; CNRS, France

Whereas the reform of the Common Agricultural Policy is still not satisfying for ecologists, the socio-economic aspects, such as the food security, the agricultural incomes or the employment, remain the major criteria for public decision makers. This observation highlights two topics :
    - The antagonism between green and sustainable objectives. Is there any distinction between green and sustainable policies ? Understanding this difference could enlighten the current debates between ecologists and stakeholders  
    - The hierarchy between criteria. Classically, an optimal approach is used to study the conciliation of ecological and economic performances. On the opposite, the concept of “safe minimum standard” is crucial in ecology. What about when all criteria (economic, social and environmental) are evaluated in this perspective? The viability approach enables some flexibility, particularly interesting for such an inter-disciplinary question.

 

Potential and limitations for a sustainable use and maintenance of crop diversity in the fields.
Isabelle Goldringer; INRA, UMR de Génétique Végétale, France

Over the past 50 years, homogenization has been the dominant agricultural paradigm of industrialized countries, involving genetically homogeneous crops in the fields with intensive use of inputs and replacing human labor by fossil fuels. To reduce the environmental and social impact of these practices, while regulating the agricultural production despite the greater environmental stochasticity induced by global change, a different model of agriculture is required. This new model is now emerging, in which biodiversity and the mechanisms underlying its dynamics are considered as assets for a sustainable agriculture that would rely on a better use of ecological functions in agroecosystems. Crop genetic diversity should play a vital role in this model, as a key element contributing to the adaptability and resilience of the agroecosystems confronted to stresses and changing environments. However, the redeployment of genetic diversity within agroecosystems faces conceptual, organizational and regulatory challenges that could be solved if the new dynamics received more scientific attention and if new collaborative approaches between scientists and stakeholders were developed.
Indeed, the multiplicity and heterogeneity of environments and practices encountered in more ecological agricultural systems and the diversifying demands in terms of quality of products, generate new, plural and specific needs in terms of variety development (including heterogeneous populations), which cannot be addressed by the standard varietal innovation model. Limitations lie first in the conventional view of plant breeding where selection is centralized in a few experimental stations with close to optimum conditions that represent “average high-inputs agriculture” in the perspective of detecting the “best” (for all) variety. The second limitation is the regulatory system in many countries, particularly in the European Union, that restricts the varieties available to farmers to those registered in an official catalogue. Registered varieties have to meet evaluation criteria including “distinctiveness, uniformity and stability” (DUS) and depending on the country, “value for cultivation and use” standards that measure agronomic performance and technical end-use quality in conventional high-inputs systems. This leaves no room for variety of local or specific interest, or for heterogeneous evolutionary populations.
An alternative model for the development of multiple crop varieties (or populations) specifically adapted to local conditions and genetically heterogeneous to be more adaptable to changing environment, is to decentralize selection on farm in a participatory approach. Participatory plant breeding associates producers, citizens and researchers in a process of decentralized selection on farms combining scientific methods with the practionners’ knowledge of land, crop and their local market.
Finally, to go beyond the compartmentalized vision of cultivated diversity, where crop genetic diversity should be stored in seed banks as a source of genes, but not deployed in the field, a real interdisciplinary research is required. It would allow (i) to assess the multi-dimensional ecosystemic services (including their trade-offs) associated with within-field crop diversity, (ii) to design plant population that maximize instant services as well as their middle term evolution, (iii) to move towards a more integrative view of the agroecosystem more in line with the farmer view of his/her system.

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141030_Goldringer_Biodiv2014s.jpg 

 

Models that are simple, elegant and wrong: conceptual framing of the biodiversity food security nexus.
David Abson; Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany

The nexus between biodiversity and food security requires meaningful frameworks for managing systems to achieve the different goals associated with managing these two phenomena - namely ensuring human well-being and biological conservation. Such normative, 'integrating conceptual frameworks' add another layer of complexity to what are already multi-dimensional and contested
concepts.
Using two prominent examples of such biodiversity-food security 'integrating conceptual frameworks' ('land sparing versus land sharing' and ?sustainable intensification') I seek to highlight the conceptual pitfalls of:
a) Seeking simple, generalizable models to explain complex and context dependent phenomena.
b) Problem definitions that are shaped to fit pre-existing, or politically expedient, 'solutions'.
The statistician George Box famously stated «[e]ffectively, all models are wrong, but some are useful». In a food-biodiversity context, one might add the that the perceived usefulness of models relates not only to the scientific insights they give us for managing complex real world problems, but also to the extent to which they provide legitimization of particular political narratives or discourses. However, the difference between the scientific versus political usefulness of integrating conceptual frameworks addressing the biodiversity-food security nexus is currently blurred, in part due to a lack of well-defined terms, a failure to clearly delineate system boundaries and poor articulation of normative goals. For example, the current sustainable intensification discourse focuses almost exclusively on increased aggregate agricultural production, while
minimizing environmental damage. Yet, the food insecurity is not primarily caused by a global lack of food supply. Hence, the current framing of sustainable intensification becomes at best a solution to a problem that does not exist, and at worst an excuse for damaging business as usual under the false flag of sustainability.

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Delivering food sovereignty in a world of interacting scales: Insights from governance research.
Julia Leventon; Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany
If food sovereignty is to be a path to food security, it must be understood within the broader political economy of the global food system. The food sovereignty movement recognises that global trade policies disempower ‘peasant' farmers, leading to poverty traps, unsustainable agricultural practices and food insecurity. Proponents of food sovereignty argue that changing such policies, and facilitating bottom-up, agro-ecological approaches to food production can improve food security and address a range of environmental challenges, including climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation. However, all of these challenges play out over scales that extend beyond the local, and are addressed by an increasingly global governance system (for example, the UNCBD). I therefore argue that by isolating and privileging the ‘local' in food sovereignty, we create two key pitfalls:
  • We do not consider the compatibility of different realisations of ‘food sovereignty' between space and time. The impacts (intended or not) of one realisation may extend over scales such that another is hindered.
  • We do not facilitate management of global environmental challenges at environmentally relevant scales.
I discuss these pitfalls within a framework of multi-level governance. The multilevel governance framework encompasses politics, policy and the actors and powers engaged in both. It considers the relationships between state and society across and between levels of jurisdiction, from global down to local. By embedding food sovereignty within a multi-level governance framework, we can understand these pitfalls as intersections between rights and interests across scales; we can identify the mechanisms that favour powerful interests; and we can identify opportunities within global, national and local governance to reconcile interests across and between scales.
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 http://biodiv2014.sciencesconf.org/conference/biodiv2014/LeventonMLGFoodSovereignty.pdf

 

Trade-offs and synergies between biodiversity and ecosystem services
Kristoffer Hylander, Dept. of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences, Stockholm University, Sweeden

It is becoming increasingly clear that human well-being including food production depend on services provided by managed and unmanaged species and ecosystems. Two conceptual pitfalls that might cause misunderstandings and potentially misguide future research if not considered are:
a)      The local landowner’s perception of experiencing not only ecosystem services but also disservices
b)      The huge number of infrequent species that might not have an impact on either ecosystem services or disservices but still might be important to preserve
When working together with local farmers it is obvious that they manage their land both to maintain services and to avoid disservices that directly are related to biodiversity. In SW Ethiopia this is nicely illustrated by the management for trees to shade coffee and provide nectar to bees in the same time as managing the area to avoid mammal pests that hide in the woods. If only the aspects of local biodiversity that is positive for the farmers is studied a much skewed picture will emerge.
Recently a hypothesis has been proposed that synergies between ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation might be rare. The theoretical justification of this hypothesis is that many species have low abundance and are habitat specialists or rare in some other respect. Such rare species are not likely to play a substantial role in regulatory or supporting ecosystem services not alone in provisioning services such as food and timber. Neither should they be a risk from an ecosystem disservice point of view. Ecosystem services and disservices across landscapes are instead likely to be provided by fewer widespread and abundant species, which could be assumed to be less dependent on the protection of specific high quality habitats.
These two pitfalls are urgent to investigate and bear in mind when addressing the challenges of increasing food security and preserving our planets biodiversity.

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Oct 31, 14:00: Session 5 - Science-based opportunities to reconcile food security, biodiversity conservation and sustainable development

Approaches for synthesizing information on global patterns of land use and biodiversity.
Tomáš Václavík; Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Germany

Changing patterns and intensity of land use exert pressure on ecosystems and biodiversity globally. As the demand for food and other commodities continues to grow, understanding the relationship between land use and biodiversity is of prime importance. This presentation will discuss several examples from the GLUES project (Global Assessment of Land Use Dynamics and Ecosystem Services) to show possible approaches for synthesizing global data on land-use intensity and biodiversity. One approach to study the drivers and impacts of agricultural intensification is the identification of archetypical patterns of global land systems. A new representation of land systems was recently developed by synthesizing a range of spatial datasets on land-use intensity, environmental conditions and socioeconomic factors. Mapping these archetypes reveals generic patterns of major land pressures across the globe but also shows the need for regionalized solutions to sustainable land management. Looking further into the implications of land use, global data can help examine how and where agricultural land-use intensity threatens biodiversity. This can be done by quantifying the spatial association among an array of agricultural intensity metrics and endemism richness. The analysis shows that regions where high land-use intensity and high biodiversity coincide are located in the tropics, but often not within currently recognized biodiversity hotspots. On the other hand, many areas of currently low land-use intensity occur in highly biodiverse regions, where threats from intensification may emerge in the near future. These findings are supported by a meta-analysis of almost 400 studies that examined the relationship between the type of land use and plant diversity. It is apparent that the complex effects of land use can lead both to decreases and increases in species richness and that additional factors associated with land-use types (e.g. edge effect, habitat age) are important. However, the strong geographical bias in conducted studies highlights the need for a globally representative sample of local land-use observations. These examples illustrate how different science-based approaches can help synthesize information needed to identify sustainable development paths for interrelated socio-ecological systems.

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Conservation in the kitchen: domesticity and agrobiodiversity management.
Patricia Howard, Wageningen University and the University of Kent’s Centre for Biocultural Diversity

The origin of the term ‘domestication’ is not arbitrary. Agrobiodiversity has been intimately linked with the domestic realm throughout human history, and this link remains just as strong today. Yet the kitchen is the most under-valued site of agrobiodiversity conservation: researchers and conservationists generally overlook women, culinary traditions, post-harvest processes, homegardens, and the domestic realm more generally. Yet most crop varieties are maintained to satisfy local food preferences and fulfill requirements of local food chains. When traditional culinary habits change or when food processing, preparation and stor­age knowledge is lost or becomes unusable, this can lead to a sharp de­cline in agrobiodiversity. Empirical evidence is reviewed showing that women, in their roles as housewives performing domestic tasks, sustain an intimate and important relationship with agrobiodiversity management and conservation. Culinary preferences, as well as the post-harvest processes that are required to provide edible and culturally acceptable food, have a marked influence on knowledge, selection, use, and con­ser­vation of agrobiodiversity. The knowledge and skills required in the post-harvest food chain are complex and dynamic, and studies show that women’s domes­tic knowledge about physical and chemical properties of plants in food processing and storage often correlates with formal scientific knowledge. Food storage and preservation skills that depend upon ethnobotanical and Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) are vital to ensuring household food security and to ensuring that plants are useful to people and therefore subject to management and conservation. Some reasons for continuity of traditions and change in traditional food consumption and chains are there­fore addressed.

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Can we save agrobiodiversity by paying farmers? Insights from a field experiment in the Andes.
Unai Pascual, Basque Center for Climate Change, Bilbao, Spain

Agricultural biodiversity is a key public good asset for food security and for adaptation to climate change. Continuing efforts are being paid to conserve germplasm in ex-situ facilities, but on-farm conservation of traditional crop varieties is equally important given the co-evolutionary characteristics of plant genetic diversity. Given rampant market and policy failures, on farm biodiversity is continuously being lost around the world. This paper treats this problem as a social dilemma and as a collective action one and addresses the differential impacts on decisions towards collective conservation of agrobiodiversity in the context of payments for ecosystem services (PES). A field game experiment is conducted with Andean farmers in the Peruvian Andes, around the lake Titikaka, framed around their decisions to conserve quinoa landraces. Results indicate that PES can be effective in motivating collective action, although individual rewards are likely to be superior to collective ones when the level of trust among farmers is low. We also find that collective rewards may have a stronger positive impact in contexts where communication and deliberation about collective action is robust. We also suggests that we ought to pay due attention to the potential indirect impacts of PES-like instruments on social preferences for agrobiodiversity conservation, including intrinsic motivations.

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141031_Pascual_Biodiv2014

 

Oct 31, 15:30: Closing Session

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