Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition

Introduction

Biodiversity is essential for food security and nutrition and offers key options for sustainable livelihoods. Environmental integrity is critical for maintaining and building positive options for human well-being. Existing knowledge warrants immediate action to promote the sustainable use of biodiversity in food security and nutrition programmes, as a contribution to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.
                     -- from ‘Main conclusions of the consultation on the CBD cross-cutting initiative on biodiversity for food and nutrition’

Since agriculture began some 12,000 years ago, approximately 7000 plant species and several thousand animal species have been used for human food. Today, certain traditional and indigenous communities continue to use 200 or more species in their diets but the general global trend has been towards diet simplification, with consequent negative impacts on human food security, nutritional balance and health.

Biodiversity is fundamental to food security, nutrition and human well-being. It underpins crop and livestock production, forestry, fisheries and aquaculture, encompassing both wild and domesticated species. The diversity of species, genetic resources and ecosystems used and managed for food supports diverse and healthy diets, sustains livelihoods and contributes to resilient agrifood systems and ecosystems.

For plants alone, more than 26 000 species are documented as having been eaten by people worldwide, including at least 7 000 that have been cultivated. This diversity reflects long standing relationships between people, species and places, including the knowledge, practices and cultural traditions associated with cultivating, gathering, preparing and consuming diverse foods. Food biodiversity contributes not only to the diversity of foods available for healthy diets, but also to livelihoods, cultural identity, knowledge and the resilience and adaptive capacity of agrifood systems.

Yet food biodiversity and associated knowledge and practices are under pressure. Increasing homogeneity in what and how people eat, together with the loss and marginalization of locally adapted crops, varieties and wild food resources, can affect the diversity and resilience of agrifood systems. At the same time, food production and consumption patterns influence biodiversity and ecosystems. Understanding and addressing these relationships in both directions is therefore important for advancing healthy diets, resilient agrifood systems and the conservation and sustainable use of food biodiversity.

The International Initiative on Biodiversity for Food and Nutrition provides a framework for strengthening these links. Established by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2006, the Initiative brings together action across four mutually reinforcing elements: developing and documenting knowledge; integrating biodiversity, food and nutrition into research and policy instruments; conserving and promoting the wider use of biodiversity for food and nutrition; and raising public awareness.

The Initiative contributes to the implementation of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, with particular relevance to Targets 9, 10, 14, 16 and 18, while also contributing towards Targets 4, 21, 22 and 23. It provides entry points for connecting biodiversity action with healthy diets, sustainable consumption, resilient agrifood systems, sustainable livelihoods and broader food security, nutrition, climate and development objectives.