Simon Attwood

Bioversity International · Productive and Resilient Farms, Forests and Landscapes

The ubiquitous presence of microplastics in the food web has been established. However, the mass of micro-plastics exposure to humans is not defined, impeding the human health risk assessment. Our objectives were to extract the data from the available evidence on the number and mass of microplastics from various sources, to determine the uncertaint...

India has the largest area of rainfed dryland agriculture globally, with a variety of distinct types of farming systems producing most of its coarse cereals, food legumes, minor millets, and large amounts of livestock. All these are vital for national and regional food and nutritional security. Yet, the rainfed drylands have been relatively neglect...

Non-technical summary Until the past half-century, all agriculture and land management was framed by local institutions strong in social capital. But neoliberal forms of development came to undermine existing structures, thus reducing sustainability and equity. The past 20 years, though, have seen the deliberate establishment of more than 8 million...

Efforts by conservation scientists to draw public attention to the biodiversity crisis are increasingly met with denialist rhetoric. We summarize some of the methods used by denialists to undermine scientific evidence on biodiversity loss, and outline pathways forward for the scientific community to counter misinformation.

Multiple lines of evidence call for the use of locally-relevant strategies to guide and support sustainable agricultural intensification while improving development and conservation outcomes. The goal of this study was to identify the ecosystem services from natural and agricultural systems to achieve this aim in the Barotse Floodplain of Zambia. O...

Global targets, such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and private sector commitments, such as deforestation free supply chains, are stimulating growing demand for sustainable investment opportunities in the food and agriculture sector. Yet, the supply of such opportunities has been slow to materialize despite a proliferation of impact funds...

Biodiversity is crucial for environmentally- and nutritionally-sustainable food supply. Yet often its roles have been under-recognised, with rich local resources of biodiversity that could support more sustainable future food production being lost. Published meta-analyses and systematic reviews however also reveal that biodiversity's beneficial rol...

Biodiversity supports sustainable food production, although recognition of its roles has been relatively neglected in the sustainable intensification literature. In the current study, the roles of biodiversity in sustainable food production are considered, assessing how these roles can be measured, the current state of knowledge and opportunities f...

The relationship between human nutrition and the use of available resources to feed the planet's growing population demands greater attention from decision makers at all levels of governance. Indicators with dual environmental sustainability and food and nutrition security goals can encourage and measure progress towards a more sustainable food sys...

Citation: This paper should be referenced as follows: Syngenta, Arcadis, and Bioversity International, (April 2018), ‘Multifunctional Field Margins’ Assessing the benefits for nature, society and business; a position paper.

We consider how wild biodiversity (WBD), such as birds, insects and spiders, has been valued over time through both utilitarian and intrinsic lenses, and the implications this has had on conservation policy and practice. In doing this we reflect on the evolution in biological conservation theory in respect to valuing WBD and highlight how the recen...

3 KEY MESSAGES: > Managing farming systems sustainably means that agriculture needs to be about much more than yields of commodity crops in highly simplified and specialized landscapes. > Agricultural biodiversity provides variety and variability within and among species, fields, farms and landscapes. This diversity helps drive critical ecological...

KEY MESSAGES: > Food systems need to be reformed so that they nourish people while nurturing the environment. > Agricultural biodiversity is a source of nutritious foods which are culturally acceptable and often adapted to local and low-input agricultural systems. It is also a source of important traits for breeding resilient, nutritious crops and...

CHAPTER 6-Towards an Agrobiodiversity Index for sustainable food systems 6 KEY MESSAGES: > Agricultural biodiversity is measured in many ways: in healthy diets, sustainable land use, agriculture, climate change adaptation, resilience and biodiversity conservation. > Bioversity International proposes the development of an Agrobiodiversity Index that...

CHAPTER 3-Using biodiversity to provide multiple services in sustainable farming systems 3 KEY MESSAGES: > 1. Managing farming systems sustainably means that agriculture needs to be about much more than yields of commodity crops in highly simplified and specialized landscapes. 2. Agricultural biodiversity provides variety and variability within...

This short report explains how companies and governments can reduce operational and reputational risks and seize opportunities, by estimating and monitoring the agrobiodiversity impact of supply chain investments. The Agrobiodiversity Index can also help investors to screen their portfolios for companies and governments that promote agrobiodiversit...

There have been repeated calls for a ‘new professionalism’ for carrying out agricultural research for development since the 1990s. At the centre of these calls is a recognition that for agricultural research to support the capacities required to face global patterns of change and their implications on rural livelihoods, requires a more systemic, le...

Conservation biologists should seek to work with those involved in sustainable agriculture and rural development in expanded integrated approaches to reduce pesticide harm to humans, biodiversity and environmental services. Despite new evidence, conservation organisations have tended not to fully recognize the impacts of pesticides on biodiversity,...

Failure to stem trends of ecological disruption and associated loss of ecosystem services worldwide is partly due to the inadequate integration of the human dimension into environmental decision-making. Decision-makers need knowledge of the human dimension of resource systems and of the social consequences of decision-making if environmental manage...

For agriculture to play a role in climate change mitigation strategies to reduce emissions from inorganic nitrogen (N) fertilizer through a more balanced and efficient use are necessary. Such strategies should align with the overarching principle of sustainable intensification and will need to consider the economic, environmental and social trade-o...

Sustainably intensifying food production will require engaging countries on how to increase and diversify practices and policies in a more sustainable and equitable manner. This is particularly important in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, where around 80% of farmland is still managed by smallholders and more than 90% of fishers operate in small scale...

Sustainable Development Goals offer an opportunity to improve human well-being while conserving natural resources. Ecosystem services highlight human well-being benefits ecosystems, including agricultural ecosystems, provides. Whereas agricultural systems produce the majority of our food, they drive significant environmental degradation. This tensi...

A central claim of community-based adaptation (CBA) is that it increases resilience. Yet, the concept of resilience is treated inconsistently in CBA, obscuring discussion of the limitations and benefits of resilience thinking and undermining evaluation of resilience outcomes in target communities. This paper examines different participatory assessm...

Introduction. Calls to increase food production to meet a growing human population and changing consumption patterns are increasingly prevalent. Increasing agricultural yields generally relies on conventional approaches to agricultural intensification, including agro-chemical use and farm specialisation. Whilst agricultural intensification has oft...

Both wild biodiversity and agrobiodiversity provide multiple ecosystem services that support food production, underpin food security and human well-being. We consider that biodiversity conservation efforts in agricultural contexts should better integrate wild and agrobiodiversity approaches.

Sustainably intensifying food production requires sustainable and equitable agricultural and NRM practices and policies. This is particularly important in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, where ≈80% of farmland is managed by smallholders and >90% of fishers operate in small scale and subsistence sectors. Aquatic and terrestrial production activities in...

A recent project in Malaysia shows how looking beyond the quarry boundary can enable extractive operations to have an overall positive impact on nature.

Counting the costs and benefits of rice farming. A trade-off analysis among different types of agricultural management. FAO, unpublished project report for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) global initiative for Agriculture and Food. 3 ABSTRACT Rice farming today is faced with several agronomic and environmental challenges related...

A key challenge for Australian farmers is the production of a sustainable, stable and sufficient quantity and quality of food. This must be done against a backdrop of numerous unprecedented changes in climatic, environmental, economic and social conditions. We consider the role that research and development (R&D) can play in facilitating effective...

Increasing yield has emerged as the most prominent element in strategies to deal with growing global demand for food and fibre. It is usually acknowledged that this needs to be done while minimising harm to the environment, but historically land-use intensification has been a major driver of biodiversity loss. The risk is now great that a singular...

English version- Series of 12 posters developed as part of research conducted by WorldFish under the project: ‘Responding to Climate Change using an Adaptation Pathways and Decision-making approach’. This lies within the ADB/GEF funded initiative: R-CDTA 7753 - Strengthening Coastal and Marine Resources Management in the Coral Triangle of the Pacif...

Tetum version- Series of 12 posters developed as part of research conducted by WorldFish under the project: ‘Responding to Climate Change using an Adaptation Pathways and Decision-making approach’. This lies within the ADB/GEF funded initiative: R-CDTA 7753 - Strengthening Coastal and Marine Resources Management in the Coral Triangle of the Pacific...

Assessing options for adapting to climate change is an important part of building resilient fishing and farming communities. This brochure is part of a series that collectively detail how a community-based assessment of climate change was used in partnership with coastal communities and provincial and national-level stakeholders in Timor-Leste and...

Assessing options for adapting to climate change is an important part of building resilient fishing and farming communities. This brochure is part of a series that collectively detail how a community-based assessment of climate change was used in partnership with coastal communities and provincial and national-level stakeholders in Timor-Leste and...

In this brochure we provide details of an activity relating to the ‘Identifying options’ step of the assessment, namely a two-day impact and adaptation assessment workshop. This activity was conducted with fishers and farmers to consider the importance of climate change to their livelihoods. More specifically, the following questions were posed: •...

In this brochure we provide details of an activity relating to the ‘Evaluation of options’ step of the assessment, research conducted with farmers and fishers to assess the economic implications of adopting different adaptation actions. More specifically, the following questions were posed: • What are key decisions and design steps needed in develo...

In this brochure we provide details of an activity relating to the ‘Evaluation of options’ step of the assessment, namely Landscape Function Analysis (LFA). This activity was conducted with community members to measure the ecological function of different types of home garden production systems. More specifically, the following questions were posed...

In this brochure we provide details of an activity relating to the ‘Evaluation of options’ step of the assessment. This activity involves working with provincial and national-level stakeholders to produce an annotated map of the natural resources that provide essential ecological services needed to underpin fishing and farming livelihoods. Ecosyste...

In this brochure we provide details of an activity relating to the ‘Planning implementation’ step of the assessment, namely a workshop held with community members to evaluate the usefulness of the material produced to date on climate change adaptation and how to begin planning the implementation of selected adaptation actions. More specifically, th...

We report on the design and implementation of ecological monitoring for an Australian biodiversity conservation incentive scheme - the Environmental Stewardship Program. The Program uses competitive auctions to contract individual land managers for up to 15 years to conserve matters of National Environmental Significance (with an initial priority o...

Explanation of the direct monitoring costs. (DOCX)

Variables measured and desired Program outcomes. (DOC)

Grazing management experiment details. (DOCX)

Conservation tenders are structured markets in which land managers are invited to submit bids offering specified management and their required payment (bid price) for undertaking the activities. These tenders specify a particular set of conservation outcomes and require a credible ecological framework for calibrating them and a metric which can des...

Agricultural eco-efficiency is promoted as a means of increasing agricultural production and improving the security of food systems in response to climate change. The rationale is that economic and environmental resources will be used more efficiently, enabling increased amounts of food to be produced from the same amount or fewer inputs. We used (...

Temperate Australia’s wheat/sheep zone and much of Western Europe have both experienced dramatic declines in native bird populations associated with agricultural landscapes. We compare recent conservation strategies on private land in the context of each region’s historical agricultural development and the ecology of its bird fauna. Specifically, w...