Tourism to preserve agrobiodiversity and attractive agricultural landscapes
context: abandoned highland rice terraces can lead to reduced interest within the community to preserve the forests and their biodiversity. For-ests are source of continuous water supply
problem: traditional highland rice terraces are abandoned because they are economically not viable and involve high workload. Migration of youth to nearby cities to work in tourism. Loss of agrobiodiversity solution: income from ecotourism re-invested into terrace maintenance and reaches farmers, re-introduction of and marketing strategy for local rice varieties which attract higher prices (quality instead of quantity,
‘branding’ or ‘source-labelling’); indirect incentives for forest protection (production system relying on natural system)
message: ecotourism, or ‘agro-ecotourism’ is a novel idea to attract investment into historical terracing to ensure its upkeep. This can be asso-ciated with branding of products
Figure 4.12: Dry spiny forest towards the coast of the Mahafaly area in Mada-gascar. (Johanna Götter)
Figure 4.13: Traditional irrigated rice terraces: rice transplanting in Batad, Philip-pines (Martin Wiemers)
Abandonment of rice terraces in the highlands of the Philippines threatens an ancient sustainable land use system (Figure 4.13). It is not only a mix of a natural and cultural heritage but - because of its close dependence on well-managed water resources from the rainforests - it helps to conserve rainforests with high biodiversity in the mountains above the terrace systems. When rice terraces are abandoned, the interests of the community in continuous water supply from those forests is reduced and there is the risk of loss of interest in preserving the forests.
Maintaining and planting a range of local rice varieties (or ‘lan-draces’) in traditional terrace systems of Vietnam and the Philip-pines would contribute to protecting agrobiodiversity within the overall rice system (Figure 4.14). Marketing of those more flavour-some and ‘special’ local rice varieties, which command higher price at local markets – for tourists in particular – can be improved by branding, that is developing a special label for them. Such a strat-egy can increase the production value of and the interest in main-taining the terraces systems.
In combination with special varieties, agroecotourism in irrigated rice terraces and paddy fields with local/ indigenous rice varieties could render rice cultivation in mountain areas once again more attractive and viable to land users (Figure 4.15). It is one of the most promising options to support the continuation of a cultural heritage site, but simultaneously as a valuable production system enhanced by income generation from tourism. But income gen-erated from ecotourism does not necessarily reach the local rice farmers. The management of the sites needs to ensure that the income generated is re-invested into maintaining the terraces. For example, at one of the most attractive sites, the Batad rice terraces in the Philippines, visitors are asked for an entrance fee, which is distributed among the farmers.
Conclusions
Lessons learnt for protecting biodiversity and ecosystems
Biodiversity loss takes place when forests and semi-natural sys-tems are converted to any type of agricultural land, such as con-version from:
• forest or wetlands to grassland;
• grassland / wetland to cropland;
• diverse cropland to monocultures (intensification);
• small-scale (multiple patterns within the landscape) to large-scale single pattern without differentiation within the land-scape.
Research shows that in general biodiversity gets poorer, as the more specialized and intensified agricultural use becomes.
Not only conversion of land, but also overuse and fragmentation of natural and semi-natural ecosystems/ habitats such as forests, woodlands, and steppes lead to an impoverishment of biodiversity.
However, biodiversity can again build up ‘naturally’. Abandon-ment of semi-natural and previously agricultural land, for exam-ple, while managing invasive species, can lead to an enrichment of previously poor biodiversity.
Very often the importance and ‘state’ of biodiversity in a region is not known to a community or the local government. If there is no awareness about the problem and the benefits of solving it, then it is hard to find appropriate solutions, particularly if the main con-cerns are related to productivity and production. There is a trade-off between preserving ecosystems and biodiversity and ensuring livelihoods or maximizing profits.
Awareness-raising and education about the values and benefits of sustainable management of natural and semi-natural land use sys-tems on biodiversity is badly needed: “we protect what we know”
drawing attention to so far unrecognized biodiversity. Involving different land users and the public in monitoring of the benefits of protection is needed.
How much can, and will, be done in one direction or the other will depend on the benefits and incentives offered to spare land for biodiversity purposes, or the direct benefits from integrating biodiversity into the productive system itself. This could include hedges as biodiversity corridors, mosaic landscape with extensi-fied patches, biological pest management, landraces and local varieties as cultural heritage, etc.
Mix of different and complimentary strategies to preserve and protect ecosystems and their biodiversity
• Strengthening the protection of natural and semi-natural sys-tems:
– through the creation of protected areas, and monitoring and reinforcement of rules and regulations;
– by avoiding fragmentation and creation of diverse habitats and ensuring connectivity by corridors and mosaic landscapes;
– through payment for ecosystem services and providing incen-tive structures for continued management of natural and semi-natural systems;
– via climate change mitigation incentives/ payments as an addi-tional benefit for the protection or re-naturalizing of inten-sively used land.
• Sustainable land use and management (inherent in most of the other practices presented in Chapters 1-3) will protect or improve agrobiodiversity
– as an integral part of the production systems (e.g. conserva-tion agriculture, agroforestry);
– as part of sustaining livelihoods (e.g. diversification in produc-tion for home consumpproduc-tion and to reduce risk of producproduc-tion failure);
– as a synergy or by-product of a practice focussing on other
‘goals’ such as climate change adaptation/ mitigation (e.g.
good soil cover, good soil structure, high biomass production).
• Sustainable intensification in agriculture and settlement is a via-ble strategy to spare land/ natural vegetation for biodiversity protection.
• Increase agro-biodiversity through diversification within an agri-cultural system and combine with diversification of agriagri-cultural systems within the landscape.
• Involvement of land users and the public in monitoring biodiversity and its benefits in order to get people’s support and involvement.
Figure 4.15: Ecotourism – Walking the Banaue rice terraces, Philippines.
(Martin Wiemers) Figure 4.14: Marketing of local rice varieties, Vietnam. (Stefan Hotes)
Chapter 4 Protecting biodiversity and ecosystems 101