Why should we invest more in ecological infrastructure?

According to the latest UN report, “the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900. 

Three-quarters of the land-based environment has been significantly altered by human actions. More than a third of the world’s land surface and nearly 75% of freshwater resources are now devoted to crop or livestock production. Nevertheless, land degradation has reduced the productivity of 23% of the global land surface, and up to US$577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss.

So if we want to change the status quo, stop biodiversity loss, extreme weather events and ecosystem degradation we need to reduce GHG emissions, restore our soils and landscapes, preserve biodiversity and produce healthier food in a more sustainable way. There are currently many concepts out there such as integrated landscape approach, regenerative agriculture, but the one that has been around for a while and which we have discussed in a podcast is on ecological infrastructure.

Ecological infrastructure, was first introduced in the 1980ies by UNESCO, as one of the five principles of ecological city planning. The original concept then was described as using “natural landscape and natural areas as the framework for spatially organizing the city”

As the negative effects of agriculture have been drastically increasing, ecologists and biologists have now defined the concept to solve the problems of natural landscape fragmentation and habitat loss.

The Creating Shared Value (CSV) pillar of the Sustainable Sourcing Program encourages primary processors to support their supplier farms to go beyond compliance, restore biodiversity and reduce the impact of their operations on the environment. The CSV pillar supports the planting of hedgerows and flowers trips, that contribute to the improvement of ecological infrastructure around the producers’ farms. 

Listen to the SAN podcast on ‘Why should we invest more in ecological infrastructure?’

Jordi Domingo, who is the lead project technician in sustainable agriculture at the Global Nature Foundation, a SAN member in Spain.

Listen to the episode by clicking on the link below:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/5g5FGHB0t27uLOsOhTfv3t?si=kJSl9W8sRAmedkXPEvKGWQ