Agrobiodiversity has diverse ecological, economical and socio-cultural values. It is one of the most fundamental resources for future uses and its loss is irreversible. There is a special relationship between agrobiodiversity protection and its human use. The existing diversity was shaped significantly by human activities (agriculture) and can hardly be maintained without any further use. As the use of agrobiodiversity in agriculture is an essential condition for protection, protection and use have to go hand and hand.

However, the forms of farming have played an important role for agrobiodiversity loss during the last 50 years. Due to an intensification of agriculture through an orientation towards a competitive, industrialized system, aspects of protection and use of agrobiodiversity have been more and more separated. Often strategies only consider one side of the coin: either they foster a specific use or they aim at protection. The Common Agricultural policy (CAP) of the EU and its member states offers also support for rural development and provides new starting points to shape and develop nature along the principles of sustainable development which includes the integration of protection and use to a form of sustainable use.

In my presentation the results of a qualitative comparative study of the European and German strategies for rural development will be presented focusing on the prescribed integration of protection and use. An analysis of selected documents is currently being carried out regarding the following key questions: Which understandings of biodiversity are represented in the strategies? How do the strategies deal with agrobiodiversity protection and use? Are there any approaches for integration?

The study is conducted in the research project “PoNa – Shaping nature: Policy, Politics and Polity. Rural development and agricultural biotechnology between criticism and vision“ which is focusing on the question how nature and the various relationships between nature and society are shaped by politics.

gemeinsam mit Tanja Mölders