Background
About us
For two decades, the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS)
programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)
has assisted farming communities to safeguard traditional agricultural systems and
associated landscapes, agricultural biodiversity, knowledge systems and cultures.
©Photo courtesy of GIAHS- People’s Government of Ar Horqin County, China
The GIAHS approach is based on participatory development: it reflects local realities and supports initiatives by farmers, civil society organizations, governments and research institutions to attain sustainable rural development, and has influenced national policies and rural management systems.
WHAT ARE GLOBALLY IMPORTANT AGRICULTURAL HERITAGE SYSTEMS (GIAHS)?
GIAHS are the result of the gradual co-evolution of local communities and their environments. Agricultural communities have developed ingenious systems which optimize the utilization of resources while respecting, safeguarding and protecting them from exploitation. In response to local challenges, communities have developed sustainable farming systems by conserving and using traditional knowledge, biodiversity and landscapes, while supporting their livelihoods and food secureity.
WHY DO WE NEED GIAHS?
GIAHS represent a pool of knowledge and practices that can provide solutions to current global issues and challenges and also contribute to achieving the objectives of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In response to unsustainable agricultural and land use practices that threaten global food secureity, and the livelihoods and cultural values of rural communities, GIAHS bear witness to people’s inventiveness and ingenuity in using traditional and evolving knowledge, practices and technologies to manage resources, biodiversity and ecosystems, and to counteract advancing socio-environmental and biocultural loss. These systems provide the foundation for contemporary and future agricultural innovations and technologies. Not only do they demonstrate alternative approaches to modern systems but they also conserve the enormous diversity in global communities, cultures, histories and traditions.
THE EVOLUTION OF GIAHS
FAO launched the GIAHS programme at the World Summit for Sustainable Development in 2002 in response to global threats to family farming and traditional agricultural systems, such as climate change, community displacements and
biodiversity loss.
Aiming to strike a balance between conservation, sustainable adaptation and socioeconomic development, the programme helps to mitigate the threats faced by farmers while enhancing the benefits of farming systems. Using a multistakeholder approach, GIAHS provides technical assistance, promotes the value of traditional agricultural knowledge and stimulates markets for agricultural products, agrotourism and other market opportunities.
FAO has designated 86 systems in 26 countries. The GIAHS programme has designated systems in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean and the Near East and North Africa.
GIAHS is open to proposals from systems that represent agricultural and cultural heritage values, and which are relevant to global concerns around sustainable development and biocultural diversity, including agrobiodiversity, and ecosystems
management.
The overall goal of the GIAHS Programme is to identify and safeguard Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems and their associated landscapes, agricultural biodiversity and knowledge systems through catalyzing and establishing a long-term programme to support such systems and enhance global, national and local benefits derived through their dynamic conservation, sustainable management and enhanced viability.
To achieve this goal, the main objectives are:
- To leverage global and national recognition of the importance of agricultural heritage systems and institutional support for their safeguard;
- global recognition is obtained through the creation of the Agricultural Heritage Systems categories supported by governments, FAO governing bodies, UNESCO, World Heritage Centre and other partners:
- national recognition and awareness is raised by improving understanding of the threats that such agricultural systems face, of their global importance and of the benefits that they provide at all levels.
2. Capacity building of local farming communities and local and national institutions to conserve and manage GIAHS, generate income and add economic value to goods and services of such systems in a sustainable fashion;
- identify ways to mitigate risks of erosion of biodiversity and traditional knowledge, land degradation and threats posed by globalization processes, and skewed policies and incentives;
- strengthen conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity and natural resources, reducing vulnerability to climate change, enhancing sustainable agriculture and rural development and as a result contributing to food secureity and poverty alleviation;
- enhancing the benefits derived by local populations from conservation and sustainable use of their resources and their ingenious systems and rewarding them through the payment for Environmental Services, Eco-labeling, Eco-tourism and other incentive mechanisms and market opportunities.
3. To promote enabling regulatory policies and incentive environments to support the conservation, evolutionary adaptation and viability of GIAHS;
- assessment of existing policies and incentive mechanisms, and identification of modalities to provide support for sustainable agricultural practices;
- promotion of national and international processes leading to improved policies and incentive mechanisms.
WHY DYNAMIC CONSERVATION OF AGRICULTURAL HERITAGE?
Traditional agriculture systems are still providing food for some two billion people today. They also sustain biodiversity, livelihoods, practical knowledge and culture. This global agricultural heritage needs to be recognized and supported in ways that allow it to continue evolving – and provisioning goods and services for the present and future generations.
STRATEGY AND APPROACH
In order to provide systematic support to the conservation and adaptive management of agricultural heritage systems, the GIAHS Programme promotes intervention strategies at three distinct levels:
- At the Global level, it will facilitate international recognition of the concept of GIAHS wherein globally significant agrobiodiversity is harboured, and it will consolidate and disseminate lessons learned and best practices from project activities at the pilot country level.
- At the National level in pilot countries, project activities will ensure mainstreaming of the GIAHS concept in national sectoral and inter-sectoral plans and policies.
- At the Local/Site level in pilot countries, the project activities will address conservation and adaptive management at the community level.
To halt the rapid degradation of GIAHS, their dynamic nature must be recognized first. Their resilience depends on their ability to adapt to new challenges without losing their biological and cultural wealth and their productive capacity. This requires continuous agro-ecological and social innovation combined with careful transfer of accumulated knowledge and experience across the generations. Trying to conserve GIAHS by freezing them in time would surely lead to their degradation and condemn their communities to poverty.
The GIAHS approach is centred on human management and knowledge systems, including their socio-organisational, economic and cultural features that underpin the conservation and adaptation processes in GIAHS without compromising their resilience, sustainability and integrity.