Farming, protecting land go together
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Columnist
Is there a way to have agriculture and protect the wilderness at the same time?
Probably not, but we can get a lot closer to a better balance, according to the World Conservation Union and a nonprofit group called Future Harvest.
The organizations are promoting something they call eco-agriculture.
Advocates of eco-agriculture concede that humans need agriculture if they are to survive and that farms cannot cut back on production. But that does not mean all is lost.
"Productive farming and effective conservation can occur on the same land," says the preface to a report, "Common Ground, Common Future: How Eco-Agriculture Can Help Feed the World and Save Wild Biodiversity."
Read the report on the Web.
It says in part that the standard procedure of protecting species in isolated preserves isn't working. An example: The Singapore Botanic Garden has lost half of its plant species in a century of supposed protection.
It's a familiar story in Hawai'i, where endangered species continue to decline even within a preserve.
"Isolated protected areas do not contain large enough populations to maintain the species. Protected areas can become islands of dying biodiversity," the report says.
The solution, it suggests, is to think about both conservation and agricultural production when managing land.
There are many ways to accomplish this. One is to view wildlands as a matrix whose parts need to be in touch with one another.
They can be connected by windbreaks and unfarmed border areas.
Some Indonesian farmers have taken to mimicking natural forests with "agroforests" comprising high-canopy trees with shrubs and food crops below.
In tropical areas, some farmers are growing shade coffee — low coffee plants as a crop under taller trees, still allowing a habitat for wild animals and plants.
Farmers in some areas are finding ways to avoid pesticides by using pest-resistant crops and growing plants that repel pests or draw them away from the valued crop.
Land managers are finding that they can cut erosion by leaving buffer strips of vegetation along waterways.
There is still a long way to go before the world's farmers embrace eco-agriculture. Most haven't even heard of it. But the Future Harvest people are hopeful.
"As scientific understanding deepens, researchers will find more general principles to aid in the design of new land management systems that produce more food while protecting biodiversity," they write.
Jan TenBruggencate is The Advertiser's science and environment writer and Kaua'i Bureau chief. Reach him at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com or (808) 245-3074.
