Category: Pollinators

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The services of agricultural biodiversity

The latest (number 18) Biodiversity and Society Bulletin of the Poverty and Conservation Learning Group discusses a new UNEP-WCMC publication ((Ash, N. and Jenkins, M. (2007). Biodiversity and Poverty Reduction: The Importance of Ecosystem Services. United Nations Environment Programme-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge.)) entitled “Biodiversity and Poverty Reduction: The Importance of Ecosystem Services.”

It’s a very good assessment of the services provided by biodiversity, in particular to the poor. These services include:

  1. fresh water quality
  2. protection from natural hazards
  3. regulation of infectious diseases
  4. regulation of climate and air quality
  5. waste processing and detoxification
  6. nutrient cycling
  7. medicines
  8. timber, fibres and fuel
  9. cultural services

But food provision and food security are right up front, and that discussion doesn’t just deal with species diversity in farming systems (although this is somewhat underplayed, I think), landraces (though not, unfortunately, wild crop relatives, to any great extent) and wild foods. It also ranges over the wider agricultural biodiversity which supports food production. That means soil micro-organisms, pollinators and the natural enemies of pests:

Although some or all these functions can in theory be replaced by artificial, technologically-derived substitutes, these are often expensive and increase the dependency of poor people on industries and producers beyond their control.

The document ends with some implications for policy. I guess this is the bottom line:

The medium and long-term interests of the poor are likely to be best served by the maintenance of a diverse resource base at the landscape (i.e. accessible) scale, at the very least as a vital risk mitigation measure. This does not, of course, mean that all forms of intensification and adoption of new technologies should be avoided – far from it. Judicious application of new technologies and techniques, use of improved varieties (not necessarily excluding those developed with gene transfer technologies) in agriculture, and appropriate levels of inputs such as nitrogen and phosphate-based fertiliser, can increase productivity and help towards eliminating poverty. Increasing the efficiency of use of existing agricultural lands can actually reduce environmental degradation by reducing the incentive to convert marginal lands. The key is that such development should not be at the expense of the existing natural resource base and should be planned to ensure delivery of medium and long-term benefits, rather than maximising short-term gains.

Pity that the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture is not mentioned in the section on international obligations, though.

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Cacao and conservation

A whole issue of the journal Biodiversity and Conservation looks at how cocoa production landscapes can contribute to biodiversity conservation. There are several papers on specific case studies and also an overview. Most of the discussion is — predictably — about what cacao cultivation can do for biodiversity, but, what about the other way around? The overview does suggest that

it is important to understand trade-offs between productivity and conservation and the economic costs of conservation friendly practices to land users so that more effective policies can be designed… Quantifying the benefits (both short and long-term) of biodiversity within agroforestry landscapes to farm productivity, for example via pest and disease control … requires attention.

What are these biodiversity-friendly practices? Here’s a few ideas, again from the overview:

  • eco-friendly certification
  • research and extension to increase productivity while maintaining diverse tree canopies
  • development of markets for non-cocoa products
  • payment for environmental services

As far as certification is concerned, the Fair Tracing Project may suggest solutions:

The Fair Tracing project believes that attaching tracing technology to Fair Trade products sourced in developing countries will enhance the value of such goods to consumers in the developed world seeking to make ethical purchasing choices.

I’ve just come across this project, and I don’t know much about it. A piece on its web site — basically a blog — about the ICT being used to trace fair trade coffee in Haiti did point me to a rather interesting example of a corporation trying to bridge the digital divide.

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Bee shortage? What bee shortage?

An article in the New York Times this week suggests that the current scare over colony collapse disorder is nothing extraordinary. It has happened before and will probably happen again. What has been missing from the debate, some scientists say, is historical context. Records show that colonies were vanishing in the 19th century, when the cause was seen as lack of moral fibre. Bees that weren’t returning to their hives had “weak character”. And it happened in the late 1970s, when it was called “disappearing disease”. The disease too disappeared, and no cause was ever isolated.

One day we may know, and extra money for long-term monitoring (none has been forthcoming) may help. In the meantime, if the “crisis” has helped people appreciate the importance of bees as pollinators, and prompted deeper investigations, then that is surely A Good Thing. To prove the point, two deeply fascinating papers have been published in the past month showing that genetic diversity in honeybees and other social insects is also A Good Thing.

This is counterintuitive, because the reason social insects are social is that they are genetically uniform.

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