High time to stop deliberating and start implementing global conservation decisions

24 October 2012 | Permalink [1]

In Conversation with Toby Hodgkin

Toby Hodgkin at CBD. Photo: Bioversity/K. Brown

Toby Hodgkin, Honorary Research Fellow represented Bioversity International at a number of side events at the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD [2]) in Hyderabad, India including a COP 11 side event, hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP [3]) and UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO [4]). The event focused on Global Environment Facility (GEF [5]) projects working toward CBD Aichi Targets [6] on agricultural and genetic diversity.

Q: What is your area of expertise?

A: I specialise in genetic diversity and the use of plant genetic resources - the conservation and use of biodiversity. Though retired now, I still do consultancy work for Bioversity International. I am also the coordinator of the Platform for Agricultural Biodiversity (PAR [7]), hosted by Bioversity International. PAR is an online collaborative platform for sharing knowledge about agricultural biodiversity research and for facilitating partnerships.

Q: Can you give an example of sustainable use of agricultural biodiversity?

A: A classic example is the way that smallholder farmers use varietal diversity in crops to reduce the occurrence of pests and diseases and thus reduce the need to use pesticides.

Diversity in crops and wild species can also be used in what’s called the “push-pull” agricultural pest management system. In other words, a farmer plants something attractive to pests around the edge of his field and something that the pests don’t like in the middle of the field, so the pests all fly to the edge and stay away from the crops.

Crop diversity in a Malaysian home garden. Photo: Bioversity/B. Sthapit

Q: What was the most interesting side event you participated in at COP 11?

A: One of the most important events for Bioversity was the Interagency Task Force meeting, which involved over 27 major UN agencies, international conservation organizations (such as IUCN [8]and Conservation International [9]) and research organizations like Bioversity International.

The objective was to find ways of working together to achieve the Aichi Biodiversity Targets [6]. Bioversity International will make an explicit contribution to Aichi Targets 7 and 13, which focus on ensuring the conservation of biodiversity through agriculture, aquaculture and forestry, and the genetic diversity of cultivated plants, wild relatives and other culturally valuable species.

Q: What positive outcome and key messages are you taking away from COP 11?

A: One major achievement so far under the CBD is the increasing recognition of the importance of conservation within agricultural ecosystems. Even at this COP meeting, there has been a significant advance in explicit recognition of the importance of conserving crop wild relatives in protected areas.

The key message from COP 11 is supporting the implementation of conservation decisions, financially and in practice. CBD Executive Secretariat Braulio F. de Souza Dias emphasised “implementation, implementation, implementation” on the first day of this event.

Q: Can you describe the importance of biodiversity to the Aichi Targets and Nagoya Protocol?

A: Most land is managed in some way, either as part of agricultural land or as productive forest. You will not conserve biodiversity unless you take into account the business of securing biodiversity within agricultural production systems. And today, in the Task Force meeting he went further by saying that a major objective must be to concentrate on implementing those decisions that successive COP meetings have already agreed to. I think we might all agree with this approach.

Q: What would you like to see happen next?

A: I would like to see further development of the linkages between implementation of the CBD and the work of initiatives like the Commission on Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (CGRFA [10]). We have got a lot closer to this in the last few years, but I think that all CBD actors need to develop joint work plans to best achieve the goals of the CBD and related targets.

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For more Bioversity International reports from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, click here [11].

By guest blogger Kara Brown

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Links in this page

[1] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/index.php?id=6849
[2] http://www.cbd.int/
[3] http://www.unep.org/
[4] http://www.fao.org/
[5] http://www.thegef.org/gef/
[6] http://www.cbd.int/sp/targets/
[7] http://agrobiodiversityplatform.org/
[8] http://www.iucn.org/
[9] http://www.conservation.org/Pages/default.aspx
[10] http://www.fao.org/nr/cgrfa/en/
[11] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/campaigns/un_meeting_on_biodiversity_8_19_october_hyderabad_india.html
[12] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/announcements/on_farm_conservation_crucial_for_global_agricultural_biodiversity_targets.html
[13] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/announcements/cifor_forests_news_blog_featuring_bioversity_international_scientists.html
[14] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/announcements/small_scale_agriculture_is_the_key_to_meeting_cbd_goals.html
[15] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/announcements/community_based_management_a_recipe_for_enhancing_conservation.html
[16] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/announcements/archived/the_nagoya_protocol_for_the_rest_of_us.html
[17] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/browse_by/category/announcements
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[20] http://www.bioversityinternational.org/browse_by/tag/aichi targets
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