The biodiversity advantage: Global benefits from smallholder actions
This report (PDF) by IFAD shows how IFAD-supported projects are working with smallholder farmers to protect biodiversity in five countries. Poor rural people depend on natural resources for their livelihoods, relying on a range of natural assets from their ecosystems and biodiversity for food, fuel and much else. Productive and sustainable agricultural systems need clean water, healthy soil, and a variety of genetic resources and ecological processes. Biodiversity is also important for enhancing the resilience of poor farmers and indigenous peoples to climate change, pests, diseases and other threats. With a review of the projects in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Iran, Mexico and Sao Tome The the report shows how IFAD has been tackling the challenges of protecting and enhancing ecosystems while increasing their benefits to smallholders and globally. The case studies are from various contexts, but they have a number of common features. These include:
- Reducing direct pressures on biodiversity through sustainable smallholder
agriculture. - A participatory approach that builds the existing capacities of rural people
and empowers them. - Promoting biodiversity, including agricultural biodiversity, as a strategy to
increase smallholder’s resilience to climate change. - Actively seeking out benefits for women and indigenous peoples.