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Draft Declaration: Bridging Agriculture and Conservation 12 July 2013, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil   One year ago at Rio+20, heads of states and governments reaffirmed the importance of sustainable agriculture in the outcome document “The Future We Want.”   They committed to taking concrete actions to eradicate poverty, change patterns of consumption and production, and protect and manage the natural resource base of economic and social development. Since Rio+20, the global community has been engaged in discussion of new Sustainable Development Goals to deliver on this vision. Yet, these discussions have hardly touched on the important role that agriculture and biodiversity use and conservation can and must play in the achievement of these goals.    To fill this gap, a group of global agricultural and conservation leadersi came together in Rio in July 2013 to take concrete action to launch a new initiative, Bridging Agriculture and Conservation, declaring:   We agree that how we will feed our growing population in the future is one of the great, unanswered questions of our time;   We agree that the current dominant paradigm of agricultural development which focuses primarily on increased productivity is insufficient to address society’s current and future needs for more sustainable, socially-equitable, resilient, nutritious and adaptable, as well as productive, food and farming systems;   We agree that focusing biodiversity conservation efforts primarily in designated protected areas leaves out important parts of biodiversity and should be expanded to include conservation in agricultural landscapes as well as in the fisheries and forestry sectors;  We recognize that food security and agriculture depends on agricultural and wild biodiversity and ecosystem services;   We agree it is not possible, desirable nor sustainable to seek to intensify production systems without respecting the ability of the landscape to regenerate and provide multiple goods and services and the need to reduce the ecological footprint of agriculture;  We agree that agricultural landscapes serve many functions  and that there are agricultural practices and policies that can achieve multiple goals, including biodiversity conservation, through an integrated landscapes approach;   We recognize farmers and their communities as the managers of landscapes and the natural resources within agricultural landscapes and that they must be supported by appropriate public policies and incentives to implement sustainable agriculture practices and to promote on farm biodiversity conservation.   We believe that to achieve “The Future We Want”, and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, to be adopted by 2015, we need a new approach to agricultural development that reconnects with biodiversity at the genetic, species and ecosystem levels to improve food and nutrition security, to eradicate poverty, to improve productivity and livelihoods and to enhance resilience, while providing a range of ecosystem services and conserving biodiversity.     But this approach cannot be built on beliefs; it must be built on science and sound economics and on evidence of practical, synergistic approaches that work at all levels. The Bridging Agriculture and Conservation initiative will leverage existing science and identify best practices that can form the basis for this new paradigm. The initiative will also identify research, information and knowledge gaps that need to be filled.  Because building and implementing a new approach to agriculture will require multi-sectoral collaboration, we are committing to work together in this critical endeavor.  We also commit to raising awareness among decision makers, including farmers, policy makers, the private sector and funders of agriculture and conservation, of the need for a new approach to agriculture and conservation that can achieve multiple goals.    We agree that this new approach, integrating sustainable agriculture and biodiversity conservation, must be included in national and local action as well as in critical global dialogues including the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 Development Agenda, the Food and Agriculture Organization and its bodies, the Convention on Biological Diversity and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification and United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and that investments in this new approach must be commensurate with the needs.   We are therefore launching this new initiative to provide measurable change by expanding the dialogue, building the scientific evidence base and charting a clear path for collaboration between agriculture and conservation in reaching the post-2015 development goals.                                                             i Participants (attended) Izabella Teixeira, Brazilian Minister of Environment Braulio Dias, Executive Secretary, CBD Poul Engberg-Pedersen, Deputy Director General & Managing Director, IUCN Emile Frison, Director General, Bioversity International Marion Guillou, President, Agreenium and Board Member, CGIAR Consortium Patrick Holden, Founding Director & CEO, Sustainable Food Trust Israel Klabin, President, FBDS Mauricio Lopes, President, EMBRAPA Thomas E. Lovejoy, Biodiversity Chair, H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and Environment Cristián Samper, President & CEO, Wildlife Conservation Society and Board Vice Chair, Bioversity International Lindiwe Sibanda, CEO, FANRPAN  Achim Steiner, Executive Director, UNEP Martus Tavares, Vice President, Government Affairs, Communication and Sustainability, Bunge Brazil M. Ann Tutwiler, DG Designate, Bioversity International Abdul Hamid Zakri, Chair, IPBES Paul Zuckerman, Board Chair, Bioversity International  Invited Participants (who could not attend) Howard Shapiro, Chief Agricultural Officer, Mars, Inc. Ken Wilson, CEO & Executive Director, The Christensen Fund Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of IUCN Kanayo F. Nwanze, President of IFAD Jose Graziano da Silva, FAO DG 

Declaration: Bridging Agriculture and Conservation

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Declaration: Bridging Agriculture and Conservation

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