Biodiversity: a building block for a healthier future
CIAT - Carlo Angelico, Chiara Villani – May 18 2020
On the International Day for Biological Diversity, we discuss how biodiversity can be leveraged to embed resilience in our food systems and build a healthy future.
(90).png)
Figure: Biodiversity is the foundation of healthy ecosystems. The air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink rely on it.
The air we breathe, the food we eat and the water we drink rely on biodiversity, the foundation of healthy ecosystems. There is an intimate bond linking biological diversity, food and planetary health. The meal on our plate depends on fresh water availability and healthy soils that supply essential nutrients to plants, which in turn make up 80% of the food we eat and produce 98% of the oxygen we breathe. Without plants there would be no beneficial soil organisms that reduce the risk of pests. All these pieces interact in a fine equilibrium called an ecosystem, shaped by millions of years of evolution.
Now more than ever, while the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, it is evident that we are still completely dependent on our natural ecosystems, despite all our technological advances. This means that, to thrive in the future and to recover from the impacts of COVID-19 in the short-term, we need to ensure the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and its many linkages to societal needs, including the food we eat. And yet, our precious biodiversity is in decline, with 1 million animal and plant species threatened with extinction, more than ever before in human history.
The slogan of this year's International Day for Biological Diversity, "Our solutions are in nature," stresses the importance of working together at all levels to build a healthy and sustainable future, in harmony with nature.
Biodiversity is part of the solution
COVID-19 is exposing the flaws of our current food systems and is forcing us to reflect on the changes we need to make to achieve a food system that adequately nourishes people and sustains the planet.
In this context, 2020 can be a year of reflection and challenges turned into opportunities. The discussions around the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework offer the occasion for all of us to join forces toward sustainable and resilient food systems that benefit people and the planet, through increased use and conservation of biodiversity.
Measure
Agricultural biodiversity - the wealth of plants, animals and microorganisms used for food and agriculture - is often left out from dietary guidelines, agricultural and environmental policies, business strategies and global monitoring efforts. Improving access to sound data and knowledge about the state of agrobiodiversity across the world can trigger behavior change and help reintroduce agrobiodiversity in our food systems.
An important step towards enabling policy frameworks is represented by the Agrobiodiversity Index, the first tool that provides policymakers, companies and investors with a common standard to measure agrobiodiversity in diets, production and genetic resources, in order to design concrete strategies to use it sustainably.
Protect
To start bending the curve of biodiversity loss we need to improve efforts to safeguard crop genetic diversity. This means, for instance, making sure that enough funds are available to sustain genebanks around the world. The Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT manages genebanks in Colombia and Belgium, safeguarding plants from 150 nations to preserve agricultural and tree biodiversity for future generations. The genebanks are an important back-up in case of extreme natural events and emergency situations such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Alliance has also a decades-long experience in promoting on-farm conservation and conservation in the wild. Much of our food biodiversity is maintained by small-scale food producers, including indigenous communities, often through agroecological practices. The varieties that smallholders produce are well adapted to local climate and soil conditions. The Alliance adopts novel approaches such as citizen science to leverage this traditional knowledge and help communities rediscover the potential of local, neglected and underutilized crops.
Views: 405