Read at :
http://www.egfar.org/content/ecosystem-services-and-small-farmers
Ecosystem services and small farmers
Written by Jeffrey Sayer[1] and Duncan Pollard[2]
Farmers everywhere impact on the environment. In many situations their activities influence the ecosystem services upon which broader society depends. In rich countries billions of dollars are spent every year to provide farmers with incentives to manage their land in ways that are consistent with the broader public good. Farmers in Europe and N. America are paid to conserve biodiversity and the aesthetic values of the landscapes where they farm.
The hundreds of millions of small farmers in the developing world have major impacts on global ecosystem values. They have the capacity to sequester or emit major quantities of greenhouse gases; a great deal of the world’s forest biodiversity survives in the agro-forests that they nurture. Smallholders manage the upper watersheds of many of the world’s tropical rivers. Smallholders in the tropics may contribute to climate change but they are also, without question, amongst those most likely to suffer its consequences. But systems for rewarding them for their contribution to the global environment have been elusive.
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