Biodiversity and the ecosystem approach in agriculture, forestry and fisheries : satellite event on the occasion of the Ninth Regular Session of the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, Rome, 12-13 October 2002 : proceedings

Author / Creator

Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Regular Session (9th : 2002 : Rome, Italy)

Available as

Online

Summary

There are over 500 million farm management units in the world, overwhelmingly found in developing countries. FAO's ongoing field work in over 100,000 rural communities has found that all those farm...

There are over 500 million farm management units in the world, overwhelmingly found in developing countries. FAO's ongoing field work in over 100,000 rural communities has found that all those farm managers can understand their farms, fields, forest, rangelands and fisheries as ecosystems. Farmers, even in the poorest and most food-insecure regions of the world, manage genes by their decision on crop varieties, manage species by their decisions on farm animals and manage ecosystems by their decision on soil pollination.

Farmers, fisherfolk, and forest dwellers not only understand and can apply ecosystem approaches in their decision-making, but also understand the potential impact of large-scale environmental threats to their livelihoods. FAO's biodiversity programmes apply ecosystem approaches to stimulate community level education and experiential learning by rural people. The same approaches educate national policy makers wishing to fulfill commitments made to environmental treaties while still meeting agricultural production demands.

Show More