Side Event
Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS): A heritage for the future
Organizer
FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (FAO)
Date and Time
12 May 2010 13:15 - 14:45
Worldwide, specific agricultural systems and landscapes have been created, shaped and maintained by generations of farmers and herders based on diverse natural resources, using locally adapted management practices. These traditional and unique agricultural systems have resulted in well-balanced agro-ecological systems in marginal or extreme ecologies, which could not otherwise have sustainably supported human life and agricultural biodiversity at its present level. An integrated approach to conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity and associated biodiversity under specific agro-ecological conditions cannot be achieved outside dynamic farming systems and local human cultures in which these form of life were developed. However, still today, there is insufficient awareness and understanding of and support for the key role that indigenous peoples and traditional farming/ herding/ fishing communities have played for millennia and continue to play in maintaining and creating healthy ecosystems, biodiversity and landscapes, while providing the ecosystem services that peoples livelihoods and well-being depend on. This implies also a serious neglect in the global biodiversity agenda of a range of ecosystems that jointly cover a significant part of the earth surface. By the same token, mainstream agricultural development strategies have for many decades overlooked the importance of biodiversity, ecosystem functioning and sustainability and resilience by applying a short term narrow definition of human economic growth. Following years of international consultations and studies, with a view to protecting some of the most relevant agricultural systems that conserve agricultural biodiversity of global significance, including some that are particularly at risk, FAO launched in 2002 a partnership initiative on conservation and adaptive management of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS). The Initiative seeks to promote the international recognition, dynamic conservation of these systems—including where necessary their revitalisation—and the outstanding role these systems in the maintenance and in-situ conservation of agricultural biodiversity of global significance. GIAHS has a high value added to achieve the main objectives of the CBD Article 8j and 10c. Within this context, FAO-GIAHS Initiative will host a Side Event at the SBSTTA 14, to highlight the role of GIAHS in the maintenance and in-situ conservation and sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity for food and livelihood security. For more information, please visit: www.fao.org/nr/giahs