Safeguarding Biodiversity and Quality Foods

Slow Food is an international non-profit, member-supported association that originated in Italy in 1989. It aims to combine good eating with sustainable food production. According to the organization, Slow Food was founded "to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interest in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes and how our food choices affect the rest of the world."

Currently, Slow Food has over 100,000 members in 153 countries and 1,300 local chapters, and a network of 2,000 food communities that practise small-scale and sustainable production of quality foods.

The association's vision is: "a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it and good for the planet." Its mission is: "promoting good, clean and fair food for all."

Indeed, Slow Food's "approach to agriculture, food production and gastronomy is based on a concept of food quality defined by three interconnected principles: Good - Clean - Fair

GOOD a fresh and flavorsome seasonal diet that satisfies the senses and is part of our local culture;
CLEAN food production and consumption that does not harm the environment, animal welfare or our health;

FAIR accessible prices for consumers and fair conditions and pay for small-scale producers."

"Slow Food unites the pleasure of food with responsibility, sustainability and harmony with nature."
Carlo Petrini, Slow Food Founder and President

Helping to Protect the Amazon

No one will argue hard against preserving the Amazon. The region is acknowledged as comprising the largest collection of living plants and animal species in the world. Yet deforestation and environmental damage are extensive, due to farming practices, livestock pasture clearing and settlements. Many efforts have been put into place to save the Amazon rainforest, but much remains to be done.

Martin von Hildebrand and his Gaia Amazonas Foundation are steadily working to establish protected areas, managed by indigenous communities. Hildebrand recognizes the ability and value of indigenous populations to preserve their own environment.

Hildebrand first moved to the Amazon of Colombia in the 1970s to do research for his PhD in ethnology. There he witnessed the effects of environmental devastation from rubber extraction, gold mining and the processing of cocoa. In the 1980s he worked to obtain land rights for indigenous groups, and in 1994 he established Gaia Amazonas to help "these communities gain control of their territories, livelihoods and development based on their traditional knowledge and cultural values," according to the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurhip. Since then Gaia Amazonas has secured 24 million hectares of Colombian Amazon for the 60,000 indigenous people who live there. It has also "set up 16 local indigenous organizations, with legal status and exercising local governance; 84 indigenous community schools; 9 indigenous health programs based on traditional medicine; and official spaces for negotiatons between indigenous organizations and goverment, which has led to the decentralization of state programmes and joint policy decisions."

Get involved in the Gaia Foundation and help preserve our global ecosystem. Click here to find out how.

TEMA Foundation: Attentive to Turkey's Biodiversity

Founded in 1992 by Nihat Gokyigit, "TEMA has pioneered a multistakeholder approach to tackling the problem of soil erosion in Turkey." According to the Foundation's website, TEMA's "mission is to raise public awareness of environmental problems, specifically soil erosion, deforestation, biodiversity loss and climate change."

"Nihat Gokyigit was a successful business entrepreneur, presiding over one of Turkey's largest conglomerates (Tekfen Holdings) when he decided to start TEMA with renowned environmentalist Hayrettin Karaca. Having grown up in Artvin, a secluded and pristine part of Turkey, he wanted to identify livelihoods through which Turkey's people could preserve their nation's rich biodiversity rather than destroy it. His private foundation operates Turkey's most prominent botanical garden, which complements TEMA's work through botanic education and research."

Excerpt from Outstanding Social Entrepreneurs 2010, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship

2010 Is the International Year of Biodiversity: This Is Good News for the Planet

The United Nations declared 2010 to be the International Year of Biodiversity, a celebration of life on Earth and of the value of biodiversity for our lives. This is good news for the planet, highlighting steps that have already been taken and those that can yet be taken to safeguard the variety of life on earth: biodiversity.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme, “restoring lost and damaged ecosystems - from forests and freshwaters to mangroves and wetlands - can trigger multi-million dollar returns, generate jobs and combat poverty.” It maintains that “far from being a tax on growth and development, many environmental investments in degraded, nature-based assets can generate substantial and multiple returns.” These include restoring water flows to rivers and lakes, improved soil stability and fertility vital for agriculture and combating climate change by sequestrating and storing carbon from the atmosphere.

And governments worldwide are already taking action. For instance, initial studies compiled by The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity indicate that restoration of grasslands, woodlands and forests offer some of the highest rates of returns. Examples include:

• The Turkish city of Istanbul has increased the number of people served with wastewater treatment over 20 years from a few hundred thousand to over nine million ‑ 95% of the population ‑ by rehabilitating and cleaning river banks, relocating polluting industries, installing water treatment works and re-establishing river-side vegetation.


• In Vietnam, planting and protecting nearly 12,000 hectares of mangroves has cost just over $1 million but saved annual expenditure on dyke maintenance of well over $7 million.


• In Rwanda, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda, strict law enforcement has helped restore the critically endangered mountain gorilla population back to a slight increase in the Virungas National Park ‑ and is generating large revenues from tourism.


• Restoration of over 500 hectares of mangroves in India's Andhra Pradesh region has increased the population of edible crabs and fodder for livestock thereby boosting local incomes while increasing biodiversity such as otter and birds, at a cost of only $3 million over seven years.


• Coastal ecosystems in Biscayne Bay, Florida have been restored for annual benefit worth $1.7 million.


• Banning unsustainable fishing methods, reintroductions of native fish species and re-planting of native aquatic grasses have transformed the once highly polluted and degraded Lake Hong in China. Since 2003, water quality has improved dramatically, rare birds like the Oriental White Stork have returned after 20 years and fisher folk have seen incomes triple.

Beyond governments, businesses are also lending a helping hand. Cimpor’s Conservancy in South Africa has eradicated some 65% of invasive plants. In addition, a large portion of this successful clearing exercise has seen the reintroduction of indigenous grasses that serve as a major food source for certain birds. In Brazil, the company’s quarry in Atlantic Forest area, one of the most endangered tropical biomes in the world, and considered as one of the largest biodiversity repositories globally, is being carefully rehabilitated. CEMEX is also doing conservation and restoration in Costa Rica, Mexico and France, among other places, to keep its quarries and surrounding areas healthy. Mondi has a sustainable wetlands program in South Africa, and Syngenta has one in Spain. Lafarge protects onsite wildlife and biodiversity.

And the list goes on. All of these drops in the bucket eventually overflow and the result is a healthier world with greater biodiversity benefitting all inhabitants.

According to Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director: "The ecological infrastructure of the planet is generating services to humanity worth by some estimates over $70 trillion a year, perhaps substantially more.” Due to the impact of biodiversity on all our lives, 2010 is thus THE year to undertake biodiversity efforts and highlight what has already been done.