Introduction to Ecoagriculture 205other factors are making it increasingly difficult to maintain, much less increase,
food production in many areas of the world.
What is more, the impressive gains for our species have often come at the expense
of other species with whom we share our planet. The main victim of our affluence
has been wild biodiversity – the non-domesticated portion of our planet’s wealth of
genes, species and ecosystems. Agricultural production has converted highly diverse
natural ecosystems into greatly oversimplified ecosystems, led to pollution of soils
and waterways, and hastened the spread of invasive alien species. According to Hey-
wood and Watson (1995), ‘over-whelming evidence leads to the conclusion that
modern commercial agriculture has had a direct negative impact on biodiversity at
all levels: ecosystem, species, and genetic; and on natural and domestic diversity’.
While major investments continue to improve agricultural productivity in
centres of surplus commercial production, the needs of the rural poor tend to be
ignored. As a result, the poor struggle to survive, managing their resources to meet
immediate needs rather than invest in a more secure future. Many of these poor
people live in areas remote from modern agricultural development but close to
habitats supporting the greatest wild biodiversity. Often they have little choice but
to exploit these habitats for survival.
Without urgent action to develop the right kind of agriculture, wild biodiver-
sity will be further threatened. The resulting destruction of natural habitats will
deprive both local people and the global community of important benefits such as
food, fodder, fuel, construction materials, medicines and genetic resources, as well
as services such as watershed protection, clean air and water, protection against
floods and storms, soil formation and even human inspiration.
These threats to biodiversity pose a major dilemma for modern society. On the
one hand, modern intensive agriculture has made it possible for the expanding
human population to eat more food. On the other hand, agriculture is now spread-
ing into the remotest parts of the world, often in destructive forms that further
reduce wild biodiversity and undermine the sustainability of the global food pro-
duction system. At the same time, reducing biodiversity and simplifying ecosys-
tems can undermine local livelihoods by destabilizing ecosystem services. Recent
mud slides in several Latin American countries, floods in Bangladesh and droughts
in southern Africa are all ‘natural’ phenomena made into a disaster for local people
due at least in part to loss of biodiversity.
This situation has led many in the environmental community and the general
public to promote the establishment of protected areas where human use – in
particular agricultural use – is supposed to be greatly restricted. While such man-
agement measures clearly are needed to preserve many types of wild biodiversity,
they face many challenges. Some centres of the greatest or most valued wild biodiver-
sity are being surrounded by areas of intensive agricultural production and high rural
population densities. In some areas, large human populations preclude the establish-
ment of extensive reserves, so the protected areas tend to be too small to support viable
populations of the species they are designed to protect. In these human-dominated
ecosystems, conservation action in isolated protected areas is doomed to fail, unless