The Satellite Event held during the weekend of 12-13 October 2002 and reported in these Proceedings examined agriculture, fisheries and forestry using ecosystems approaches. The event was organized by FAO’s Inter-Departmental Working Group on Biological Diversity for Food and Agriculture.

FAO’s Biodiversity Programme turns a common argument on its head. It is often claimed that agriculture is the world’s greatest threat to biodiversity. But at the same time over 40 percent of the land surface of the world is covered by agriculture (including pastures, rangelands, inland fisheries and managed forests). Ecological studies of agro-ecosystems reveal the same functional groups of species and essential ecosystem processes found in natural ecosystems. Agriculture depends on ecosystem services delivered through agro-biodiversity and simultaneously delivers ecosystem services (mostly through non-market channels) to wider environments. Careless management or bad policy incentives can threaten biodiversity and those services, but agriculture nonetheless represents the world’s largest opportunity for ecological learning by the practical managers of ecosystems.