Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems: A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles Patricia Howard1, Rajindra Puri2, LauraJane Smith3, and Miguel Altierri4 for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations 1Wageningen University (NL), 2University of Kent (UK), 3University of York (UK), 4University of California at Berkeley (USA) Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems: A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles © Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles for the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective (ISBN-XXXXXXXX) is an open access publication, subject to the terms of the Crea- tive Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/). Copyright is retained by the authors. A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles for the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective is freely available online: http://www.fao.org/sd/giahs/. Users may download, reuse, reprint, modify, distribute, and/or copy text, figures and graphs from A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles for the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective, so long as the original source is credited. The reproduction of photographic images from A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles for the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective is subject to the granting of permission from the rights holders. Permission may be obtained from XXXXXXXXXX The designations employed and the presentation of material in A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles for the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. Citation: Howard, P, Puri, R, Smith, L, Altierri, M. 2008. A Scientific Conceptual Framework and Strategic Principles for the Globally Im- portant Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme from a Social-ecological Systems Perspective. Rome: Food and Agriculture Or- ganization of the United Nations, XX + xxx pages For further information, please contact: Management Team of the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Programme Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations Via delle Termi di Caracalla 11011 Rome, Italy Phone: XXXXXXXXXX Fax: XXXXXXXXXX E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.fao.org/sd/giahs/ Page ii Table of Contents Foreword . vii Chapter 1 Introduction and Overview . 1 1.1 Change and Resilience: The Significance of GIAHS . 1 1.2 The GIAHS Programme . 3 1.3 Three Founding Principles. 4 Chapter 2 Key GIAHS Concepts . 7 2.1 Social-ecological Systems . 7 2.2 Social-ecological Systems and Culture . 12 2.3 Rural Subsistence Societies . 16 2.4 Resilience and Adaptive Co-management Principles . 20 Chapter 3 Culture, Biodiversity, and Resilience in Subsistence Social-ecological Systems . 23 3.1 Introduction . 23 3.2 Biodiversity and Ecosystem Resilience . 24 3.3 Conceptualising Agrobiodiversity and Agroecological Systems . 25 3.4 Agrobiodiversity, Livelihoods and Resilience . 29 3.5 How Cultural Institutions and Agrobiodiversity are Interrelated . 31 3.5.1 Cultural Identity and Agrobiodiversity . 32 3.5.2 Traditional Belief Systems and Ecological Knowledge in Agrobiodiversity Management . 33 3.5.3 Traditional Knowledge: Its Transmission, Distribution, and Erosion . 36 3.5.4 Language, Aesthetics and Agrobiodiversity . 40 3.5.5 Social Status, Social-ecological Systems, and Agrobiodiversity . 41 Page iii 3.5.6 Property Rights and Management of Agrobiodiversity . 44 3.6 Agrobiodiversity, Adaptation and Resilience Considering Change . 50 Chapter 4 The Economic Value of Agrobiodiversity, Markets, non-Market Mechanisms, and and Social-ecological System Resilience. 53 4.1 Introduction . 53 4.2 Economic Valuation Approaches and Their Applicability . 54 4.3 Markets and Agrobiodiversity. 56 4.4 Markets, Cultural Institutions and Equity. 59 4.5 Alternatives or Complements to Market-based Means to Increase Well-being and Enhance Subsistence SES Resilience . 63 Chapter 5 Drivers of Change in Subsistence Social-ecological Systems. 69 5.1 Defining and Understanding Drivers . 69 5.2 Climate Change as a Driver and as a Driver of Drivers . 71 5.2.1 Expected Impacts . 73 5.2.2 Expected Consequences . 75 5.2.3 Local Responses. 75 5.2.4 Local Interpretations . 76 5.3 Biodiversity Change . 77 5.3.1 Types, Magnitudes, and Drivers of Biodiversity Change . 78 5.3.2 Threats: Ecological Insights from Invasive Alien Species . 82 5.3.3 Human Adaptation: Insights from Invasive Alien Species . 84 5.3.4 Conclusions for GIAHS and In Situ Conservation . 89 5.4 Changes in Oil Supplies and Prices and the Food Question . 89 5.4.1 Vulnerability of the Modern Oil Economy . 90 5.4.2 Macroeconomic Effects . 91 5.4.3 Household and Poverty Effects . 93 5.4.4 Implications of Peak Oil for GIAHS. 93 5.5 Cultural Change . 94 5.6 Some Indirect Drivers of Social-ecological System Resilience. 97 5.7 Synergies and Adaptive Capacity. 98 Chapter 6 Defining and Understanding Globally Important Heritage for GIAHS 101 6.1 Introduction . 101 6.2 Dominant Western Perceptions of ‘Heritage’ . 102 6.3 Conflicts Over Heritage . 104 6.4 Lessons from Joint Management of Heritage Programmes . 105 6.5 Heritage as Experience . 105 Chapter 7 GIAHS Principles Derived from the Conceptual Framework. 107 8.1 The Definition and Use of Principles . 108 8.2 GIAHS Strategic Principles . 108 References. 111 Appendix Culture, Food, and Agro-biodiversity in Social-ecological Systems . A.1 1. Agrobiodiversity, Nutrition, and Food Security in Social-ecological Systems. A.2 2. Wild and Indigenous Cultivated Food . A.2 3. Traditional Food Processing, Preservation and Storage . A.4 4. Culinary Traditions, Post-harvest Technologies, and Crop Diversity . A.5 Page iv 5. Food Exchange and Social Organisation . A.7 6. Food Culture and Agrobiodiversity Loss . A.8 References. A.8 Box A.1 The Importance of Wild Food Species in Traditional Diets . A.3 Box A.2 Wild Plant Detoxification in Nepal . A.5 Box A.3 Food Taboos and Ese Eja Crop Diversity . A.7 Tables 3.1 The composition and levels of agrobiodiversity. 28 3.2 Some of the recognised ethnosciences with societies, journals, books, and other tesources on the World Wide Web . 32 3.3 Pathways by which TEK may have been accrued using examples from North American indigenous people. 38 3.4 Design principles from studies of long-enduring institutions for governing sustainable resources. 45 4.1 Potential benefits of commercial consumptive use for biodiversity . 59 4.2 Potential impacts of environmental service markets for the poor in Latin and Meso-American cases . 62 5.1 Estimated costs of invasive alien species, selected cases . 85 5.2 Impacts on rural communities of invasive species. 87 5.3 Data on energy, oil and GDP for GIAHS pilot and other selected countries. 92 Figures 2.1 Schematic illustration of different scales and levels that are critical in understanding and responding to human-environment relations. 10 2.2 Social-ecological system . 15 2.3 The complete systems-hierarchical model of human adaptive systems, with ten principle variables and fifty-one sub-variables . 16 3.1 Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and ecosystem services . 25 3.2 A process-oriented sustainable livelihoods approach. 29 3.3 Cuna crop classification as a system of rights to plants . 48 5.1 Main direct drivers of change in biodiversity and ecosystems . 79 5.2 An interaction chain effect: mussel invasion in the Mediterranean . 84 5.3 A conceptual framework to interpret impacts of IAS in rural livelihoods . 87 5.4 Relation between oil demand and GDP growth. 90 5.5 Hubbert Peak Oil Projection . 91 6.1 UNESCO World Heritage Cultural Landscape Sites by Region . 103 Boxes 1.1 Systemic selection criteria for GIAHS . 5 2.1 A description of a pervasive social-ecological system in coastal regions of South China . 17 3.1 ‘Natural’ Amazonian ecosystems or co-evolved agroecosystems?. 27 3.2 Agrobiodiversity: surpassed suppositions . 28 3.3 The cultural significance of bark cloth among the Baganda clan in Uganda . 33 3.4 Twenty tenets of rice cultures. 35 Page v 3.5 North-western North American aboriginal women’s base of knowledge and practical skills . 37 3.6 The language and aesthetics of cultivar diversity in the Peruvian Andes. 41 3.7 Social-ecological dynamics and the generation of poor and destitute female headed households in the Highlands of Ethiopia. 43 3.8 Customary Rights to Plants . 50 4.1 The Natural Capital Project . 56 4.2 Effects of marketing Non-timber Forest Products on rural subsistence households: A review of 61 cases . 60 4.3 Building on local resources for drought recovery in Kenya. 65 4.4 Enhancing ecosystem services and welfare . .66 4.5 Adapting to climate change with the NGO Practical Action . .67 5.1 A hypothetical example of the complexity of, and perspectives on, change drivers