Introduction

If it cannot be sustained, is it worth doing? Sometimes the answer to this question is a roaring yes. Single bouts of action resulting in saved lives or preventing one-time catastrophes are clearly worthwhile. Other times the answer is no; we are only interested in projects, policies or programmes if they can be sustained and as long as they do no harm to our planet and to us who live here. Global warming is occurring at an unprecedented rate. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called the 2021 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2021) a ‘code red for humanity’ ¹ . Threats to biodiversity mean that a majority of land surface is altered with ‘ecosystems and biodiversity showing rapid decline’, ‘more species with global extinction now than ever before’ (IPBES, 2019, p. xv) and ‘globally, local varieties and breeds of domesticated plants and animals are disappearing. This loss of diversity, including genetic diversity, poses a serious risk to global food security by undermining the resilience of many agricultural systems to threats such as pests, pathogens and climate change’(IPBES, 2019, p. xvi).