Community biodiversity management: Defined and contextualized

Plant genetic resources (PGR) can be defined as all plant materials that have an actual or potential value (IBPGR, 1991, p. 74). The reference to resources suggests an economic and political connotation. Agrobiodiversity is often approached as an ecological service rather than as a resource, owing to its broader and ecological association, and to its delineation within the three levels of biodiversity (i.e. system, species and genetic diversity). Based on Professor Harold Brookfield’s definition of agrodiversity (Brookfield, 2001), De Boef and Thijssen (Chapter 1.8) describe agrobiodiversity as ‘a dynamic and constantly changing patchwork of relations between people, plants, animals, other organisms and the environment, always coping with new problems, always finding new ways’. This description has major implications for defining the relationship between CBM and the on-farm management of agrobiodiversity as a conservation strategy.