This book is the first to set out a clear overview of CBM as a methodology for meeting socio-environmental changes.

Farmers have developed a range of agricultural practices to sustainably use and maintain a wide diversity of crop species in many parts of the world. This book documents good practices innovated by farmers and collects key reviews on good practices from global experts, not only from the case study countries but also from Brazil, China and other parts of Asia and Latin America. A good practice for diversity is defined as a system, organization or process that, over time and space, maintains, enhances and creates crop genetic diversity, and ensures its availability to and from farmers and other users. Drawing on experiences from a UNEP-GEF project on "Conservation and Sustainable Use of Wild and Cultivated Tropical Fruit Tree Diversity for Promoting Livelihoods, Food Security and Ecosystem Services", with case studies from India, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, the authors show how methods for identifying good practices are still evolving and challenges in scaling-up remain. They identify key principles effective as a strategy for mainstreaming good practice into development efforts. Few books draw principles and lessons learned from good practices. This book fills this gap by combining good practices from the research project on tropical fruit trees with chapters from external experts to broaden its scope and relevance.

Globally, local and indigenous approaches to conserving biodiversity, crop improvement, and managing precious natural resources are under threat. Many communities have to deal with 'biopiracy,' for example. As well, existing laws are usually unsuitable for protecting indigenous and traditional knowledge and for recognizing collective rights, such as in cases of participatory plant breeding, where farmers, researchers and others join forces to improve existing crop varieties or develop new ones, based on shared knowledge and resources. This book addresses these issues. It outlines the national and international policy processes that are currently underway to protect local genetic resources and related traditional knowledge and the challenges these initiatives have faced. In particular these themes are addressed within the context of the Convention of Biological Diversity and the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The authors broaden the policy and legal debates beyond the sphere of policy experts to include the knowledge-holders themselves. These are the 'custodians of biodiversity': farmers, herders and fishers in local communities. Their experience in sharing access and benefits to genetic resources is shown to be crucial for the development of effective national and international agreements. The book presents and analyzes this experience, including case studies from China, Cuba, Honduras, Jordan, Nepal, Peru and Syria. Copublished with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

Crop plant varieties developed by local farmers, commonly referred to as ‘farmers' varieties’, are problematic because there are no fixed taxonomic or legal definitions of them. As a result, policies to increase the share of benefits farmers receive from the use of such varieties struggle to have an effect. Aiming to clarifying these issues, this volume explores the nature of farmers’ varieties in the context of their biological, social and legal significance. The book addresses the complexities of defining what farmers’ varieties are and how they differ from one another and from generic varieties. It then charts the evolution of the concept of ‘farmers’ rights’, from the dawn of ‘genetic resources’ as a subject worthy of international attention, to the first legal recognition of the concept, through to current efforts to develop national level policies and laws. Further, the book examines outstanding policy-making challenges linked to the absence of fixed taxonomic or legal definitions of farmers’ varieties. Case studies are included from Africa, Asia, Europe and South America in which farmers, researchers and policy advocates have been confronted with the issues raised in this book. Various solutions are considered based on revised or new definitions of farmers’ varieties that reflect the biological and cultural realities in which they are produced, and the relative costs and benefits of attempting to implement each of the policies discussed.