Making food systems work for people and planet

With food hitting the headlines like never before, the International Institute for Environment and Development has launched a web-based publication that describes how to rethink food production and distribution for environmental and social gain. Towards Food Sovereignty is an online book with linked video and audio files, whose first three chapters are now freely available at IIED’s website.
Read the press release and link to the online publication

Rethinking agriculture research to meet people's needs
People in Africa, Latin America and South and West Asia will have their say about the future of food and farming under a major project by IIED that aims to make agricultural research better at serving people's needs. The new project will enable citizens to decide how to design food and agriculture research and policies that are accountable to wider society.

Read the press release

Climate fight must enlist biodiversity and communities

UN-led efforts to address climate change, conserve biodiversity and fight poverty must pay greater attention to the links between these global challenges, says IIED paper.  The paper shows that biodiversity has a key role to play in both adapting to the impacts ahead and cutting greenhouse gases but that to be effective policies must have greater input from local communities.

Read the report

Communities call for access to genetic diversity to combat poverty and climate change

Governments must agree international rules that would give indigenous communities access to genetic resources to help them fight poverty, preserve biodiversity and adapt to climate change, says a report released today by the International Institute for Environment and Development.  Read the press release

NEW! Protecting Community Rights over Traditional knowledge: Implications of Customary Laws & Practices - Research Partners’ Workshop in Panama, 19-23 November 2007

Towards Food Sovereignty is an online book with linked video and audio files.

by Michel Pimbert

NEW DESIGN!

Gatekeeper 134

Gatekeeper 135

Gatekeeper 136

Sharing Power - A global guide to collaborative management of natural resources (2nd Ed)

by Borrini-Feyeraband, Pimbert, Farvar, Kothari and Renard

Gatekeeper 131

Gatekeeper 132

Gatekeeper 133

DVD Senekelaw ka kuma - Paroles de paysans

IIED, DJA-Comm, AAPSI, BEDE

Hearing a different drummer: A new paradigm for the "keepers of the forest"

by John Studley

Opportunities for farm seed conservation, breeding and production

Growing consumers demand for locally produced food, the increasing awareness of endangered agro-biodiversity and the necessity to decrease the use of external inputs has increased the demand for seeds of land races, speciality and conservation varieties. View project page

Spanish Report - Workshop on Traditional Knowledge Protection and Customary Law

Research partners met to discuss policy challenges, concepts and research methods, and identified the need for a holistic approach to TK protection based on the concept of 'Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage'. The workshop was organised by IIED and Asociacion Andes (Cusco, 2005) View report in Spanish

Peasant seeds: the way forward for Africa's food sovereignty

West African farmers and other citizens involved in a major effort to radically change the way the world thinks about food and agriculture gathered in February at an international conference in Bamako, Mali. Read more

Conference on Endogenous Development and Bio-Cultural Diversity

Read papers presented at the conference by Michel Pimbert and Krystyna Swiderska

Citizens' Jury on GMOs and the future of farming in Mali.

The Citizens' Jury on GMOs took place in Sikasso between 25 and 29 January 2006. Read more

IIED at COP 8

IIED attended the eighth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 8), held in Curitiba, Brazil. During COP 8, IIED co-hosted two side events on "Protected Areas and Equity" with Care International and TILCEPA. These events marked the launch of the new Poverty and Conservation Learning Group website: www.povertyandconservation.info and BioSoc, the group's new monthly email bulletin.

We also held a side event on the protection of Collective Bio-Cultural Heritage with ANDES and FIELD. Link to reports