05 Oct 09 Food for thought and culture in Yunan China
The Photo essay speaks to our mission of protecting cultural and spiritual values very strongly. It also emphasizes that that biodiversity needs protection wherever it is and that it extends into the cultural realm.
Thus the question is how can such positive agro-biodiversity-socio-cultural-economic systems be protected? (there are some models in the international agreement tool kit that could be looked at for support)
It also speaks of ecological integrity, wilderness and levels of management. These ancient agriculture systems may not be as biodiverse as the ecosystems that they replaced 2000+ years ago but clearly they do have strong biodiversity values as well as strong cultural values, given that they feed much of China with rice very strong economic values.
Thus measurements of ecological integrity need to be nuanced and not just refer to a hypothetical 'wilderness' free of people. The terms 'integrity' , as well as 'authenticity' might help with developing measures for looking at the integrity of agro-ecological systems.
It would also seem that Yunnan rice farming could represent very interesting case study in learning towards a whole earth economy, and it would be great to be able to bring these examples forward. In the case of carbon it would be interesting to see what the carbon footprint is of this agricultural system and how it compares with industrial agriculture, it has to be much lower, imagine the impacts of converting this system to high carbon agriculture.
This article was written in the context of opposition to genetically modified rice being allowed to be sold in the European Union. Will protecting the intangible heritage including the cultural and spiritual values of protected areas be considered as ethical points for corporations when they enter new markets?
The CSVPA Specialist Group, which has focused much effort in recent years on sacred natural sites, is considering an effort to look at the broader cultural issues of protected areas. Do you have any examples such as these that you would like to bring to our attention, please feel free to open discussion through the group.
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