Agroecology and the Struggle for Food Sovereignty ... - Yale University

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agroecology and the struggle for food sovereignty
The work of CEDICAM, a non-governmental agricultural
extension agency based in Oaxaca, Mexico of which
conference participant Jesus Leon Santos is head,
compellingly demonstrates how agriculture can ideed
provided environmental services. Here Leon stands next
to one of a series of erosion control canals he and his
fellow farmers have constructed and maintained. These
canals have contributed meaningfully to soil
conservation. Without their efforts the environmental
quality of the region would be worse. Photographer:
Phil Dahl-Bredine.
This incorporation of agriculture and resource use – in the name of sustainability
– is particularly evident in so-called developing countries; a general estimate is that
an area more than twice the size of Mexico is designated for agricultural and resource
use in the conservation and protected areas of these countries. The interface of
conservation areas with people involved in agriculture and resource use is also
disproportionately significant in developing countries due to sizeable rural
populations whose livelihoods depend on farming, livestock-raising, and other forms
of resource extraction (Solbrig 2001). Many of these rural people are economically
poor (e.g., agricultural smallholders, peasant farmers, and livestock herders) and
socially disadvantaged (e.g., ethnic minorities, indigenous peoples). Counterintuitively,
there is evidence that these groups may wield a significant amount of
power in shaping protected areas of the future.
Conservation corridors are one of the most well-known and increasingly popular
designs for incorporating sustainability initiatives. Yet the experience of conservation
corridors thus far has demonstrated some of the overly simplistic initial plans for
combining strict preservation and land use sustainability. Conservation corridors are
premised on the joining of existing protected areas, proposed new protected areas,
and new and existing corridors that connect these areas. Numerous conservation corridor
projects currently underway are traceable to proposals launched in the 1980s
and owed their designs to the ecological
principle that biodiversity will be
conserved best by biological corridors.
Nevertheless, even with their roots in
1980s preservation-oriented conservation
biology, conservation corridors
are heavily supported and funded by
today’s sustainability-oriented sector
of environmental organizations and
agencies. As a result, the experience of
conservation corridors offers a useful
example of the general challenges and
tensions between the sustainability
agenda and strict preservation goals.
An agrobiodiverse landscape in the Brazilian
Amazon. Photographer: Robin Sears.
yale school of forestry & environmental studies