The 9th meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to review the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in May 2008 presented a unique opportunity to bring attention to the importance of integrating agricultural issues more fully into the CBD, as well as more broadly within the biodiversity conservation discourse.
Group of experts discuss strategies to implement Ecosystem Approach
In 2007 and 2008, Ecoagriculture Partners engaged collaborators to convene an informal working group to raise the profile of, and support for, strategies to implement the CBD’s Ecosystem Approach within an agricultural context. This group included Sara Scherr, Seth Shames, Claire Rhodes and Jenny Nelson of Ecoagriculture Partners; Toby Hodgkin of Bioversity International; Jeff McNeely of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN); Elspeth Halverson of the United Nations Development Program’s (UNDP) Equator Initiative; Nora Ourabah Haddad of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP); Delia Catacutan of Landcare International; Victor Archaga of The Nature Conservancy; Mohamed Bakarr of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) (now at Conservation International); Marieta Sakhalan of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP); Anelissa Grigg of Fauna and Flora International; Benson Venegas of Asociación ANAI, Costa Rica; David Kuria of the Kijabe Environment Volunteers (KENVO), Kenya; Donato Bumacas of the Kalinga Mission, Philippines (KAMICYDI); and Arturo Massol-Deya of Casa Pueblo, Puerto Rico.
Significant demand for clear policies to implement EA
One of the outputs of this process was a policy brief called Applying the Ecosystem Approach to Biodiversity Conservation in Agricultural Landscapes. The goal of this brief was to provide clear guidelines and real-world examples to aid Parties in their attempts to implement the program of work on agricultural biodiversity. Elements of this brief have been incorporated into section 4. Our participation in the writing of this brief and in the discussions it sparked among CBD stakeholders made clear to us that there is a significant demand within CBD policy circles to explore these policy guidelines in greater depth and place them within a broader political and conceptual context. This paper is an attempt to do that.
