November 21, 2014
A Story of Coffee, Conservation and Livelihoods in the Pico Duarte Region of the Dominican Republic
Lee Gross
EcoAgriculture Partners
The Pico Duarte Coffee Region and surrounding Madres de Las Aguas (Mother of Waters) Conservation Area are areas of critical ecological, economic, and social importance to the people of the Dominican Republic. During the 2000s, much attention was paid to the establishment of protected areas in this Caribbean island nation for the conservation of biodiversity […] ...
Read the Whole Story
November 17, 2014
Sacred Forests as Bioreserves: Conserving Natural Resources & Protecting Livelihoods
Elise Ursin
EcoAgriculture Partners
Jes Walton
The Siliserh Chhind Landscape encompasses 30 villages in Rajasthan, India and is characterized by Siliserh Lake and the flat-topped Aravalli hills, one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world. Water scarcity and low rain falls (with the exception of monsoon season) leave much of this area somewhat infertile, and therefore, growing crops is not […] ...
Read the Whole Story
November 14, 2014
Developing Resilient Farming Systems: A Case From Chitikhola, Nepal
Sandesh Timilsina
Karnali Technical School
Basu Raj Kadariya, a progressive farmer from the Chitikhola village in the Tanahun district of Nepal, has faced many ups and downs in farming. Kadariya and other farmers once cultivated their lands to produce a handful of grains, limited to feeding their families for a few months out of the year. However, limited irrigation, poor […] ...
Read the Whole Story
November 10, 2014
Climate-Smart Agricultural Landscapes: A Closer Look at Shinyanga, Tanzania
Sarina Katz
EcoAgriculture Partners
The United Nations’ 2014 Climate Summit engaged nations and leaders from government, finance, business and civil society in meaningful discussions around the imminent threat of climate change and possibilities for mitigating and adapting to its devastating effects. Because it is estimated that farmers will need to feed 9 billion people by 2050, food security and agricultur ...
Read the Whole Story
November 7, 2014
Preserving Evolutionary History Alongside Tropical Agriculture
Daniel Karp
University of California, Berkeley
The Nature Conservancy
Luke Owen Frishkoff
How to feed an ever-growing human population while simultaneously preserving Earth’s biodiversity is a major global challenge. Accomplishing both of these goals requires that we understand the potential for agricultural landscapes to harbor biodiversity. In tropical Costa Rica, where we do the majority of our fieldwork, landscapes are extremely heterogeneous. Agriculture can ...
Read the Whole Story
October 24, 2014
Yarsagumba Over-Harvesting and the Resource Curse in Nepal
Anju Air
Norwegian University of Science and Technology
The tragedy of the (fungal) commons Commons are always being overexploited to maximize individual benefit, which also leads to local extinctions of species in some areas. The yarsagumba (or “summer plant, winter insect” Ophiocordyceps sinensis), an endemic species to the Himalayas and Tibetan plateau, faces this very fate. This unusual and much sought after species starts ...
Read the Whole Story
October 22, 2014
The Demise of Bio-Cultural Landscapes in Guinea-Bissau
Marina Temudo
African Studies Centre (Oxford University)
Tropical Research Institute (IICT)
Shifting cultivation has been considered a major cause of deforestation and forest degradation many times over by both by scholars and conservation agents. Thus, the adoption of permanent agriculture is advocated as an environmentally friendly alternative, allegedly because it will allow the intensification of land use and the set-aside and protection of forest reserves. The [& ...
Read the Whole Story
October 20, 2014
Systematic Planning for Wastewater Reuse in Agriculture
Priyanie Amerasinghe
International Water Management Institute
Priyanka Nanayakkara
Across villages and cities in India (and around the globe), water plays an undeniably vital role in human survival and resilience. In today’s world, wastewater could possibly be playing an even bigger role, particularly in agriculture development, although this is not well documented due to its informal nature. Urban return flow, or wastewater, constitutes 70-80% […] ...
Read the Whole Story
October 16, 2014
Growing Food and Biodiversity
Sam Quinn
The Farm at Sunnyside
Food production and biological conservation may often appear to be at odds, but both share poignant similarities. Farming today faces its own diversity crisis—mirroring precipitous declines in biological diversity, fewer and fewer crops account for an ever-growing proportion of our diet. Thanks to this growing understanding of the inseparable link between wild species and far ...
Read the Whole Story
October 13, 2014
Tanzanian Villagers Take Land Use Planning Into Their Own Hands
Margie Miller
EcoAgriculture Partners
Tenure security and food security in Tanzania At this week’s 41st meeting of the Food and Agriculture Organization Committee on World Food Security, land tenure is sure to be an important topic. Villagers in Southern Tanzania also have this topic on their mind, as their communities are eyed with interest by the Southern Agricultural Growth […] ...
Read the Whole Story
