Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research

The International Foundation for Science (IFS) is a non-governmental organisation with the mandate to contribute to the strengthening of capacity in developing countries. IFS is now recruiting a new Director to lead the organisation based in Stockholm, Sweden.

Currently IFS has a secretariat of 20 staff located in Stockholm, Sweden, and a regional office in Kampala, Uganda. The secretariat is led by the Director who reports to the Board of Trustees. The Director has overall responsibility for implementing the strategic goals of the organisation, managing the secretariat and overseeing day-to-day operations.

Applications are due by 12 April 2010.

More information

START and the Institute of Resource Assessment, University of Dar es Salaam, with support from the MacArthur Foundation, are organizing the Second Phase of their Education and Training Program in Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation in the Albertine Rift Region at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania from July 19 – September 3, 2010.

Applications are due by March 12, 2010.

More information

Authors : Krishnamurthy, P.K. and Krishnamurthy, L

 The article examines the livelihood benefits associated with agrobiodiversity in Veracruz, Mexico. Citrus-based agriculture is the principal economic activity in the agricultural sector of the state of Veracruz. It is practiced in mono-crop plantations by the majority of farmers, who are rendered vulnerable to price depreciation resulting from simultaneous harvest and over-supply of a single commodity…Read more

For more details contact Krishnamurthy, L on email hidden; JavaScript is required

Author : Frederik van Oudenhoven

 A traditional house in the Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan and Tajikistan has five pillars, one for each of the five members of Ali’s family. The most important pillar, the one representing the prophet Mohamed, is made from the wood of the mulberry or apricot tree. These two fruits are so important in the life of Pamiri people and to their survival in times of need that they are often referred to as fruits from paradise!

Bioversity International  has worked in the Pamirs since 2006 on a project entitled ‘Reviving biocultural heritage’, funded by The Christensen Fund. In 2008, Slow Food International became involved in the work, helping to bring the extraordinary diversity of local fruit trees and culinary traditions to the attention of the wider public. Find out more

For more information, contact  Frederick van Oudenhoven on email hidden; JavaScript is required or visit the project website

Authors : Mark Redman and Tomasz Pezold

A project about  promoting the development of agri-environment support schemes for the conservation of High Nature Value (HNV) farming in Serbia has entered its second and final phase of implementation. The two-year project is funded under the Dutch BBI-MATRA programme and implemented jointly by IUCN Programme Office for South Eastern Europe and Natura Balkanika with support from the Dutch NGO Avalon and the Institute for European Environmental Policy in London

 The HNV farming concept is highly relevant to biodiversity conservation in Serbia, both inside and outside of protected areas. The project aims to raise awareness amongst policy-makers and other key stakeholders of the importance of maintaining HNV farming systems, including the grazing of semi-natural vegetation with locally-adapted livestock breeds. Local experts are taking the first steps towards identifying the characteristics of these farming systems, as well as their likely distribution in Serbia. More detailed studies were undertaken in the Stara Planina Nature Park and contrasting Deliblato Sands with the aim of developing pilot agri-environment measures, which encourage those farming practices that are beneficial for biodiversity. These pilot agri-environment measures are potential “preparatory actions” that could be eligible for funding under IPARD (the EU’s current pre-accession programme for rural development). The project, therefore, lays a foundation for future actions under IPARD, as well as complementing existing rural development programmes and projects. 

For further information contact Mark Redman on email hidden; JavaScript is required  or  Tomasz Pezold on email hidden; JavaScript is required

Author : Dr. Dario Novellino 

D.Novellino

 Between July and September 2009, a mission organized by the Centre for Biocultural Diversity (CBCD), University of Kent, England and the Philippines-based Ancestral Land/Domain Watch (ALDAW), through the support of The Christensen Fund, traveled to Southern Palawan in the Philippines. The mission was led by Dr. Dario Novellino (CBCD researcher), who has spent over 20 years on the island. Palawan is part of the UNESCO “Man and Biosphere Reserve” program and hosts 49 animals and 56 botanical species found in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

 The mission’s actual ‘matching’ of collected GPS data to photographs shows that the concession areas of two mining firms overlap with precious watersheds in the Gantong range, which provide potable water to the local indigenous communities and lowland farmers. At an altitude of about 500m the mission reached indigenous settlements inhabited by very traditional Palawan having limited contacts with the outside. Their sustenance totally depends on the available forest resources and consists of a heterogeneous economy wherein swidden cultivation is integrated with foraging and the collection of non-timber forest products (NTFPs). These indigenous people are the custodians of a remarkable agrobiodiversity, they name and recognize at least 20 varieties of Colocasia esculenta, 20 of Ipomoea batatas, 16 of Dioscorea alata, 15 of Manihot esculenta, five of Zea mays, and more than 60 varieties of upland rice (Oryza sativa). They believe ‘rice’ has a ‘human-like personality’ and, according to the local mythology, it originates from a human sacrifice. Currently, ALDAW and Survival International are campaigning for the cancellation of mining concessions in Palawan biocultural diversity hotspots.

 Copies of the geo-tagged reports are available on the following link:

• www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/palawan

For more information contact Dario Novellino on email hidden; JavaScript is required

Authors : Sue Stolton and Nigel Dudley

 According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if average temperature increase exceeds 1-3^o C, our potential for food production is likely to decrease. Although there is still uncertainty about the impacts, they are likely to include a reduction in global food security. Agriculture will need to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and perhaps to increased plant diseases; impacts will be determined in part by crop adaptability.Some of the genetic material used in crop breeding comes from crop wild relatives (CWR). However, modeling suggests that 97% of some CWR groups could experience a reduction in range size and 16-22% might be threatened by extinction under climate change. In situ conservation and management protecting natural CWR habitats is thus greatly needed

 CWR are not spread evenly across the world, but are concentrated in small regions; the ‘centres of crop diversity’. As a proxy for the assessment of their global conservation status, WWF and TNC compared levels of habitat protection and habitat loss in these areas against global averages for terrestrial ecoregions. In total, 29 (82%) of the 34 ecoregions that contain habitats important for agrobiodiversity have protection levels of under 10%, and six areas (18%) have protection levels of 1% or less. Furthermore, centres of crop diversity have experienced proportionately greater habitat loss. That the world’s centers of crop diversity have relatively little habitat protection and considerable habitat loss should be a clarion call for protected area strategies to maximize in situ conservation of priority and threatened CWR.

For more information contact Sue Stolton on email hidden; JavaScript is required or  Nigel Dudley on email hidden; JavaScript is required or visit  the website .

Author: Paul Quinlan

Prolific natural regeneration of one of New Zealand’s important indigenous tree species, totara (Podocarpus totara), provides a unique opportunity to enhance farmland in Northland, New Zealand. Based on landowners’ observations of its weed-like attributes and research by Dr David Bergin of the Crown Research Institute Scion, the Northland Totara Working Group (NTWG) was formed in 2005 to explore the timber production potential of this emerging resource. Compatibility with livestock grazing and its ability to naturally regenerate on marginal hill country are key attributes of this interesting project.

 Promoting the sustainable management of totara for commercial wood use is seen as an effective incentive to develop this resource on private farmland that will also lead to many environmental and landscape benefits. From a landscape architectural perspective, this would have practical application at a scale with significant regional impact and consequence.

 The group, co-ordinated by Helen Moodie, NZ Landcare Trust, involves a wide-range of stakeholders. Several initiatives have been completed including a regional resource assessment and extensive silvicultural trials. Numerous field days and seminars have been held and articles, conference papers and newsletters produced.Convinced of the potential value and role of this resource in the landscape, the focus of the NTWG is presently on scoping market-research studies, supply-chain issues, and the steps required to develop a viable regional-based industry.

 For more information, please contact Helen Moodie, Northland Regional Co-ordinator on email hidden; JavaScript is required or visit the website  

Authors: Shawn Banack and Glen Hvenegaard

 The reasons why rural landowners engage in biodiversity-friendly practices are not well known. In a recently completed study, we wanted to determine what motivates landowners to take part in biodiversity conservation practices, using a case study from the Central Parkland Region of Alberta, Canada. Based on semi-structured interviews with farming landowners (13-35 minutes each) in March 2009, we found that they took part in fifteen different practices. The most common farming practices were direct seeding, rotational grazing, nesting projects, reduced use of pesticides and fertilizers and crop rotation. All landowners wanted to engage in more biodiversity-friendly practices on their properties.

 The interviews revealed that the landowners were motivated by moral obligation, future generations, self-fulfillment, recognition, wildlife, religion and, rarely, economics. By comparison outside of Canada landowners are more often motivated by economics. However, landowners faced several barriers in practicing biodiversity-friendly farming, such as social ridicule, lack of money and time and lack of knowledge. To overcome such barriers, landowners gained confidence through positive reinforcement, learned more through specific courses while ignoring societal judgments.

 If governments and societies want to protect more biodiversity in the Central Parkland Region, then they should address these motivations and barriers in current and future programs that target landowners. While economic gain is not a central motivator for landowners, time and money are key barriers. Thus, economic incentives, combined with education programs for landowners and the public alike would help landowners overcome knowledge barriers and to allow the public to see the benefits that arise from such practices.

 The authors have presented their results at the 9^th Prairie Conservation and Endangered Species Conference in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada . The results are forthcoming in the 2010 edition of Human Dimensions of Wildlife: An International Journal .

For more information contact Glen Hvenegaard on email hidden; JavaScript is required

D.Novellino.

  Author : Dr. Dario Novellino

 Through a grant from The Christensen Fund “Linking Networks on Pastoralism and Mobile production systems”, the Centre for Biocultural Diversity (CBCD) of the University of Kent, England is facilitated the establishment of solidarity links between communities of pastoralists and mobile swidden cultivators inhabiting rich agrobiodiversity regions. Such exchanges promotes the sharing of experiences as a way of fostering reflection and joint actions through the establishment of strategic alliances and addressing common problems and experiences regarding indigenous knowledge of animal breeds and landraces, with a particular focus on traditional rights over ancestral homelands and cultural landscapes.

The envisaged goal is to enable the production of jointly produced video materials that could be used to exert pressure at a national and international policy levels.  The project has facilitated linkages between the indigenous communities of Palawan (Philippines) and those of Madre de Dios (Peru). This solidarity link is being consolidated through the collaboration of the Philippines’s based Ancestral Land/Domain Watch (ALDAW) and Peoples and Plants International (PPI). In July 2009, Julio Cusurichi, representing the indigenous organization COINBAMAD  traveled from Peru to Palawan accompanied by Dr. Novellino (CBCD’s anthropologist) and the ALDAW staff.

During his stay with Palawan communities, Julio shared his experience regarding the impacts of mining and other forms of commercial extractivism on Peruvian biocultural diversity. Participatory videos from Peru were shown to Palawan communities and PVs from Palawan have now been taken back to Peru. In the coming months, the project will facilitate similar audiovisual exchanges on the role of mobility in breeds’ selection, culturally specific perspectives of livestock diversity, pastureland management, etc, between Italian shepherds and pastoralist from Kyrgyzstan.

It is expected that this exchange will enable and better equip traditional stewards to support both legal and ecological arguments for their own communities.

 To learn more about the project, please contact Dr Dario Novellino on email hidden; JavaScript is required. For more information about the Center for Biocultural Diversity (CBCD) visit the website.