Agrobiodiversity: Towards inovating legal systems

Abstract

The innovative concept of 'agrobiodiversity' has emerged in the past 10-15 years at the intersection of biodiversity and agriculture, in an interdisciplinary context that involves various areas of knowledge (agronomy, anthropology, ecology, botany, genetics, conservation biology, etc.). It reflects the dynamic and complex relations among human societies, cultivated plants and domestic animals and the ecosystems in which they interact. Agrobiodiversity is directly associated with food security, health, social equity, hunger alleviation, environmental sustainability and rural sustainable development. In the same way as wild biodiversity, agrobiodiversity has been considered in danger and in great need to be safeguarded through new legal instruments, at the international and national levels. After describing the rationales behind agrobiodiversity, this chapter highlights the various new legal tools applying to agrobiodiversity, which tend to adopt a more systemic view of the agroecosystem as whole, instead of focusing only on specific objects. These new legal instruments consider, for the first time, farmers&aposrights, agricultural systems as part of cultural heritage and the role of protected areas in promoting agrobiodiversity. The safeguarding of Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems is also discussed. There is a rich innovation process going on amongst lawmakers over the last two decades which aims to protect and valorise local and traditional agricultural systems and the rich agrobiodiversity that they encompass.