ABSTRACT
We open this book with a heading that closely matches a recent statement (February 18, 2008) by James G. Butler, Deputy Director of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, at the opening session of the thirteenth meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice of the Convention on Biological Diversity. Butler asserted that ‘biodiversity is vital for human survival’. His pronouncement epitomizes the policy challenge of agricultural development in the twentyfirst century – to secure food for all peoples while protecting the agricultural biodiversity on which both we and future generations largely depend. The challenge is Sisyphean. Paradoxically, some of the world’s poorest people are custodians of some of the world’s greatest agrobiodiversity assets. Butler’s statement also reflects a mounting policy concern for the irreversible loss of biodiversity that occurs with species extinction, long viewed as a pressing problem by conservation biologists and natural resource economists. In the past few decades, much progress has been achieved in understanding the economic causes and implications of mismanaging wildlife and biodiversity in general. This book explores more closely the linkages between agrobiodiversity and economic development.
