Protected Areas
Protected areas cover about 10% of the earth. Since few toxic inputs are used in organic agriculture, introducing organic farms in protected areas is believed to be a viable strategy for sustainable conservation and food production as demand for resources increases. However, there is an acute need to find biodiversity-sensitive management strategies for protected areas.
There are numerous ways of approaching the conservation of biodiversity and no simple relationship between biodiversity and benefits for the farm. Organic farmers are seeking replicable models of effective conservation and organic production. In particular, they seek strategies for habitat preservation for crop pollinators and for crop pest predators, promotion of in situ conservation of wild crop relatives and wild plants for food production, and approaches for farm layouts that can be used in concert with management practices to increase biodiversity. In addition, research also needs to be done on maintaining and increasing biodiversity in other forms of agriculture such as wetland use strategies, forestry preservation, protocols to monitor potential transmission of wildlife diseases to livestock, and recommendations on equitable and ecologically sustainable limits.
Currently, most organic research focuses on biodiversity in a specific area of agriculture such as livestock or comparative studies. Research gaps remain in better understanding the large-scale benefits and disadvantages of organic farms in protected areas, as well as maintaining biodiversity on a systemwide scale.
More information
Institutions
- FAO.org/OrganicAG: Institutions that undertake research relevant to the topic of protected areas in the ORCA database on FAO's organic farming pages