Biodiversity Conservation and Sustainable Use Component

This component emphasizes the participatory testing of strategies for conservation, restoration and sustainable use of degraded agro-ecosystems with farmers, rural communities, NGOs and decision markers.

It is identifying, documenting, evaluating and testing existing best practices; piloting selected technologies that enhance conservation, restoration and sustainable use of biodiversity; and disseminating, promoting and facilitating the adoption and implementation of best practices and proven technologies.

It is fostering improved and integrated soil, water, nutrient, vegetation and livestock management to achieve greater productivity of crops, trees and animals, enhancing food security and ecosystem resilience in the desert margins.

These activities are leading to:

1. Livestock management practices that preserve biodiversity and resilience of natural vegetation in the arid zone and minimize land degradation and biodiversity loss in the semi-arid zone;

2. Improved methods for restoring and sustaining long-term fertility in dryland areas to effectively reduce biodiversity loss;

3. Improved soil and water management techniques for increasing plant water-use efficiency;

4. Sustainable crop production techniques that conserve the environment and are socially and economically acceptable, and meet the food and fodder needs of local populations in the dryland areas; and

5. Strategies that enhance ecosystem resilience by optimizing biodiversity.

Major recent events associated with this Component include a Biodiversity Day organized by CIRAD in Senegal in January, 2005; and a workshop on plant genetic resources co-organized by IPGRI and DMP in Ibadan, Nigeria in May, 2004.