Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations- FAO
Payments for Environmental Services (PES) from Agricultural Landscapes
In biodiversity conservation
Preserving biodiversity
Biodiversity is measured at the genetic, the species and the ecosystem level. Within any of these metrics, conservation of biodiversity involves maintaining the following dimensions: variety (reflecting the number of different types); quantity and quality (reflecting how much there is of any one type); distribution (reflecting where that attribute of biodiversity is located).
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment identified five main causes of biodiversity loss (habitat change, climate change, invasive alien species, overexploitation and pollution) and concluded that human activities have led to a more rapid loss of biodiversity over the past fifty years than ever before. The Assessment argued that the loss of the species and the progressive homogeneization of many ecosystems is one of the main threats to the survival of the natural systems(14).
Agricultural producers can contribute to biodiversity conservation reducing agricultural expansion into biodiversity-rich lands, enhancing on-farm biodiversity, and conserving agricultural biodiversity – see the next sections for more on this
