Even though some knowledge-gaps still exist in the area, a vast amount of useful information is already available on the current status of bio-diversity in agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Further, there is a general agreement on its direct and indirect importance for human well-being in general and adequate nutrition and food security in particular. In spite of this, it is beyond dispute that global bio-diversity continues to diminish.
My contribution to the present effort to incorporate ensuring an adequate and sustainable bio-diversity into agricultural pursuits, fishing and forestry will be to suggest a pragmatic action template to achieve our objective, into which the relevant and appropriate information, technologies and procedures could seamlessly fit. Such a framework would be holistic by definition, and it will consists of two logically inseparable parts.
The first might be called the overall mechanism designed to achieve our purpose. It contains the familiar pathways of action like policy design, deciding on strategies needed to implement it, and finally the tactical methods one may use to implement those strategies. At this point, let me emphasise that while policy and strategy may have certain elements in common among the members of some group of countries, their tactical implementation may often require methods appropriate for a limited geographic area.
Before we take up the second part of our framework, I would like to underline the importance of coordinated action in achieving our aim. Sometimes, praiseworthy enthusiasm may drive groups to undertake independent local projects whose success is expected to inspire and motivate similar action elsewhere. However, it is uncertain whether the enhanced bio-diversity of an area could remain sustainable when surrounded by places where it remains threatened. Let us call such differences in bio-diversity in contiguous areas their diversity deficits.
It will be agreed that enhanced and sustainable bio-diversity in our target areas implies that there would be minimal bio-diversity deficits among them and their contiguous surroundings. As far as I know, no research has been yet undertaken to ascertain the interaction between an area of adequate bio-diversity and its contiguous surroundings with a diversity deficit as far as its effect on the overall bio-diversity of the whole area. Indeed, this is a complex task, nevertheless, its importance ought not to be under-estimated.
Let us now look at what is necessary to design the first part of our framework, and make it appropriate and relevant. Stating the obvious, a comprehensive description of the bio-diversity depletion of an area, its causes, optimal means of its prevention and regeneration are essential technical information here. However, there are two entirely different considerations which alone imparts to the first part of our framework and this information their high value, viz., their necessity for sustainable food security and adequate nutrition.
After this value justification of the pressing need to undertake a significant restoration of bio-diversity in our three target areas, we are now ready to put together the second part of our framework. In its turn, it consists of three parts:
- Surveys to establish the qualitative (types of species) and the quantitative status of current bio-diversity in the target areas.
- Ascertaining to the best of our ability the previous status of bio-diversity in those areas. Even though it may not be possible to gather precise data here, at least an informed approximation is necessary to restore any loss bio-diversity and to prevent its further reduction. It is vital to understand that unless this data is available, we cannot justifiably evaluate our success in restoring bio-diversity, and it is not sufficient only to prevent its further loss. Here, a sound understanding of the local food culture would be indispensable. This may often serve as the only scientifically justifiable benchmark in restoring the biodiversity of our three target areas.
- Compilation of the known optimal methods of restoring bio-diversity and prevention of its reduction, and the design of more appropriate and relevant ways of achieving those objectives. It will be noticed that it is this aspect of our task that has received the greatest attention in the invitation to the present discussion. While these may be collected and/or developed in vitro so to speak, their successful use in the field depends on the appropriateness of the first part of our framework, for that depends on among other things, on a coordinated field work across the board.
Let me inject a sense of proportion to our discussion by underlining some often overlooked facts. Even in an area where volunteer or supported projects may have achieved a remarkable success in restoring biodiversity in all three areas, viz., crops, fisheries/animal husbandry and forestry, authorities may initiate there mining, factory construction, large-scale road building, or even re-introduction of a monoculture for export on the advice of some expert economist. Recent history of nearly all country teems with examples of this. Moreover, for economic reasons, authorities are still supporting activities we have long known to threaten biodiversity.
As sustainable food security and adequate nutrition depend on a sustained and adequate ecosystem services, the vital importance of biodiversity hardly needs justification, for the possibility of having such services entirely depends on the balance between its qualitative and quantitative dimensions. All too often, this qualitative aspect of biodiversity i.e., number of diverse species receives all the attention while the quantitative, i.e., size of each species population seems to remain neglected.
After these preliminaries, let us look at the requirements a potentially successful policy to achieve our objective ought to meet. As no policy at any level exists in isolation, no policy could succeed however appropriate it is for its purpose unless the other policies in its operating ambience are in harmony with it as far as its objective is concerned. An example of lacking this inter-policy harmony would be economic and development policies that advocate monoculture with a view to export. Perhaps, the greatest threat to biodiversity and the future quality of human life is our consistent failure to acknowledge the untenability of our population growth.
Our next obstacle to success at the highest level is the internal lack of harmony in food and agriculture policy with respect to our goal. Unfortunately, examples of this lack of intra-policy harmony are legion. A non-exhaustive list of these disruptors of internal harmony are given below:
- Strategies to increase food production based on introduction of ‘enhanced’ non-endemic crops cannot be sustained by locally available ecosystem services, hence call for intensive supplementation of them. This supplementation may include intensive use of fertilisers, biocides and irrigation whose adverse effects on bio-diversity are well-established.
- Allowing extensive monoculture in agricultutre and animal husbandry either for economic gain by export, or for manufacture of industrial food by commercial food monopolies.
- Permitting the use of compounds now known to be endocrine disruptors and the introduction of genetically modified species the effect of whose interaction with the environment are unknown.
I have already implied that intra-policy disharmony with its own objectives results from the use of unsuitable strategies to implement it. Obviously, such usage becomes the norm when policy and strategy decisions are made on a reductive basis while professing to promote a holistic approach. In the example used here, all it would have required is to define as the goal of food and agriculture policy as increased production of diverse, appropriate food stuffs in a way that entail no environmental degradation.
This brings us back to the issue of coordination I have mentioned earlier. Inter-policy harmony for our purpose calls for inter-departmental coordination which seems to be easier said than done. However, we have no choice but to keep on trying even though this may sometimes seem hopeless to some of us. This requirement applies with even greater force when it comes to achieving intra policy harmony.
For instance, where one is trained and in what, combined with eagerness to embrace the latest technology have driven many designers of policy implementation strategies which are not only inappropriate for practical reasons, but are also in conflict with an area’s own food culture. The latter is often enough to guarantee an inevitable loss of local biodiversity while in extreme cases, it would lead to irredeemable eco-disasters like that in Aral Sea basin.
Therefore, it is crucial that strategy planners receive some suitable training to acquire a sense of proportion vis a vis the local reality as a whole by talking to the local people involved in our target areas, and by a thorough visual inspection of them. This cannot be achieved by any other means however high-sounding or colourful they might be. I cannot envisage any other effective way to encourage any open-minded strategist to adapt his approach to real life as it obtains in fields, fisheries, animal husbandry and in forests.
Once we have achieved a real willingness and ability to coordinate their efforts among the policy makers and strategy planners, we will be in a good position to undertake the next step, i.e., the second part of the action package as it were. It is concerned with defining the range and scope of actions required to prevent any further loss of biodiversity from our target areas, and to restore them as much as possible.
I have already refered to the importance of local food culture as the key benchmark in crops, animal husbandry and fisheries. Local folklore is often useful to ascertain the composition of flora and fauna in forests. Many older people still remember a larger number of local species and their approximate density while unhappily, younger local people are not as familiar with those as their elders. This is especially true in areas where there is large forest degtradation. No botanist or a zoologist however qualified can possess this locally valid empirical knowledge.
I do not suggest that policy and strategy formulation should wait until we have established locality-specific benchmarks of biodiversity restoration. The design of requisite policies and strategies can begin on the basis of what we already know of lost biodiversity by aiming to prevent its aggravation and restoration. However, part of its strategy should include simultaneous surveys to ascertain the following in order to revise those policies and strategies and to expand unified research on its prevention and restoration methods.
- Expanded surveys to establish relevant local benchmarks.
- Research into locally relevant prevention and restoration methods that would result in least possible deficits in biodiversity in contiguous areas. For instance, introduction of non-endemic species to re-forest a locale often reduces the real local biodiversity and may indeed adversely affect the flora and fauna (eg. pollinators) of contiguous areas.
Now, the results of the above two undertakings should be the basis of local actions to prevent the loss of local biodiversity and its restoration. In other words, how the strategies to implement the policy involved are implemented locally. Thus, a continued dialogue between policy and strategy planners and the local authorities and the people is a necessary condition for our success.
Here, one may complain that I have not even touched upon how to secure the finances needed for such an endeavor, nor yet the legal instruments needed to enforce preventive measures. Being a realist, I can only make an oblique reply; there is an increasing tendency to seek funds for efforts like this from trade and industry motivated by gain. But ensuring gain entails reduction of costs, which inevitably requires mechanized food production, monoculture to increase yield …. I cannot see how entities embodying gain as their principal motive could really promote biodiversity regardless of their green guise.
As for the legal tools, it is not the lack of them that cripples us, rather the problem of their impartial and efficient enforcement. A carpenter may have world’s ‘cutting edge’ tools and finest seasoned wood. But if the man does not have the skill to use them well, or is not willing to do so, his mere possession of such splendid tools does not result in Chesterfield furniture.
With best wishes!
Lal Manavado.
Mr. Lal Manavado