International Project 'Growing Diversity'
Summary of the project on the Maghreb Region in North Africa
Bob Brac de la Perrière, BEDE
January 2002
Introduction
The Arab Maghreb region in north-west Africa includes five countries which border the Atlantic Ocean (Mauritania, Morocco) and the Mediterranean Sea (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya). If one takes into consideration local management of the agricultural biodiversity, four main types of environment can be identified: the temperate coastal region, the mountain zones, the steppe covering the high plains and the oases of the Sahara Desert. These environments provide a habitat for a rich flora of more than 4000 vascular species of which 20% are endemic, a very typical characteristic of biodiversity particularly where mechanisms for adapting to aridity are concerned. The region is part of the original Mediterranean centre defined by Vavilov for agricultural biodiversity and continues to be the source of new characteristics, in particular, resistance to drought and salinity, which are sought after to improve the world-wide agricultural production of a large number of important crops such as legumes (alfalfa), cereals (oats, wheat, barley), olives, vines, fruit trees (palm trees, date trees, fig trees etc).
1. The temperate & urban coastal region
Small-scale fishing is still taking place on the coast, which is rich in fish, but there is strong competition from industrial fishing, particularly from neighbouring European countries. People who are attracted mainly by urban life, are concentrated on the coastal plains where the climate is more temperate. Agricultural activity is split between large-scale semi-industrial farming and family farming. Cultivation of fruit crops (citrus) and market garden produce (potato, dried vegetables) are generally irrigated and are rotated with cereals, mainly wheat and barley. The landscape has been profoundly transformed and the agrosystems copy the agricultural practices of the north Mediterranean industrialised countries (monocultures and little genetic diversity). In the Maghreb, a large population (nearly 70 million people), a demographic rise of 2.2% and the prospect of food shortages require the intensification of the production of basic crops where the land can be worked and limited water resources are present. Traditional agricultural crops, rich in genetic diversity, still survive in the arid area, outside of the coastal fringe, which covers more than 80% of the region.
2. The mountain refuges
The mountain chain that runs from Morocco to Tunisia form a physical barrier against the influences of the Sahara desert and is a refuge for natural vegetation. The mountains peak in Morocco at nearly 4000m; there one sees the Mediterranean forest with cork oaks and Aleppo pines, the dry cultivation of vines, olive and fruit trees (fig, almond etc) and the rearing of goats. The Atlas Mountains have been a refuge for the native Berber population for a thousand years but nowadays traditional agriculture is marked by men leaving the region while a large active population of women remains.
3. The arid steppe plains in a fragile equilibrium
The large steppes that stretch out from the foothills of the Atlas Mountains to the Sahara are covered by an increasingly degraded tree vegetation. This is sheep rearing territory. The quality of the pasture and the few agricultural products are mainly dependent on the rainfall (200-400mm/year). The northern fringe of the Sahara includes basic components of the biodiversity of areas on the edges of deserts. Stretching out over a large area, 200 km wide and nearly 3000 km long, this geographic region is characteristic of the transition zone between the Saharan and Mediterranean environments. A combination of irrigation agriculture and extensive animal rearing are practised in fragile equilibrium in these scattered lands. These are put under increasing pressure from human activity. The expansion of agriculture has meant the occupation de facto of common land. The domestic and industrial use of Esparto grass or ‘Alfa’ (Stipa tenassissima) the availability of grants and credit for purchasing agricultural material (tractors), for seeds and for the construction of sheepfolds have contributed to making stockbreeders more sedentary and to the cultivation of the land. Many transhumant pastoralists have settled and modernised, using lorries and tankers to transport and bring water to their herds in the best areas of pasture, contributing to an increasing desertification of the land. The preservation of local cultivars in old farming areas and of endemic pastoral species depends on the maintenance of the whole agrarian system. An example of a traditional farming system is the Tunisian 'jessour', a terrace farming system. The aridity of the environment hinders the sustainable management of ecosystems threatened by the degradation of the soil and desertification.
4. Irrigation agriculture in the Sahara
The Sahara is a very hot and arid desert: temperatures reach 50°C in summer and the rainfall is usually less than 100mm per year, often much less. The oasis agrosystems are scattered in the Sahara and the pre-desert regions and cover more than 200,000 ha in the Maghreb. They are limited by the water reserves that can be drawn from the fossil water tables or from the dams. On the periphery of the oases, camels and goats are reared particularly on the Wadi beds and in the mountain ranges of central Sahara (Hoggar, Tassili etc). The main cultivar in oases is the date palm which helps to ward off the aridity of the environment. It is also a source of food for people and their herds, and a cash crop. Oases consist mainly of small private gardens set in family food-producing plots; they provide an important diversity of original cultivars: palm, olive, almond, fig, apricot, grenadine, vines, fodder plants (alfalfa) and cereals (tender wheat, oats). The urbanisation of the oases has noticeably changed the cultivation system. In the last two decades there has been a move away from subsistence farming towards the production of food for sale at market. Dates provide the primary source of income from agriculture from oases. They represent the principal source of revenue from agricultural exports for Algeria and the second most important source for Tunisia. The primary disease in the oases is the ‘bayoud’, the fatal illness of the date. This illness has existed for more than a century. It occurs in the palm groves of the west of the Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria) and is the cause of the withering of several millions of trees. The occurrence of this illness has a direct effect on the economy of small producers. The best varieties of date, such as Deglet Nour and Mejhoul, are susceptible to the illness. Farmers on the oases have conducted a programme of selection which has allowed them to obtain several dozen cultivars tolerant to the illness.
The overexploitation of these marginal, fragile spaces brings to the whole region a real threat of social crisis brought about by the abandonment of farming and of rural areas. In order to adapt to shrinking resources, populations increase the pressure on their physical environment by intensifying farming systems and causing deforestation. The increase in areas of ploughed land results in litigation over rights to communal land. A number of programmes and projects intended to restore and rehabilitate agro-ecological systems have been initiated by the authorities. In those areas that have least deteriorated, sensible management programmes using local perennial species, are increasingly replacing large scale reforestation projects which created plantations of single species (Green Barrier) with questionable results.
The need for on farm agrobiodiversity management
The countries of the Maghreb have agreed to implement policies aimed at protecting their environment, particularly in the spheres of conservation and the use of the genetic material from plants. These countries have adopted the FAO Global Plan of Action for the conservation and better use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture. For each country the priority has been to secure food production and until now conservation programmes have essentially involved the ex situ management of genetic resources that are considered useful to selection programmes for improving the major crops.
In situ conservation in the Maghreb began with the promulgation of forestry law. In situ conservation programmes and activities have generally been carried out within a framework of Forestry Plans, Plans to Fight Desertification, and Development and Improvement of Pasture Programmes. Since then, 20 national parks have been created in the various countries of the Maghreb. The various countries have developed a policy of environmental conservation through the creation of protected parks and areas which sometimes cover vast regions. Thus, the Tassili Park in Algeria covers the surface area of several European countries and encompasses numerous rural communities. The protected areas only constitute a tiny part of the land and cannot on their own guarantee the permanent conservation of resources. In arid regions, resources are often dispersed over vast areas, making it technically and administratively impossible to protect them. In addition, the exclusion of people from protected areas causes conflicts with traditional users. Participative management of traditional pastoral units must take into account the impact of different systems of land ownership – co-operative, state-owned or private – on the way in which resources can be accessed and must often be associated with major modifications to production systems: the reorganisation of stock breeders into co-operatives, the creation of water supplies, the opening of trails.
Examples of projects in the region, relating to farm based conservation of the landraces and traditional cultivars, are rare and tend to be recent. Nevertheless, a dynamic management of local varieties is always carried out by farmers using their traditional farming methods. By using a mixture of local varieties with seed from commercial varieties, and thanks to their know how, farmers have contributed to the selection of very diverse material adapted to different environmental conditions (resistant to drought, parasites etc) For example, more than a thousand varieties of date palm selected from the palm groves of the Maghreb have been recorded. Yet, under demographic pressure and as a result of the intensification of agriculture using a limited number of improved and uniform varieties, traditional systems based on diversification are disappearing. In arid areas landraces are currently preserved in situ only in mountain areas and in the oases.
Constraints and possibilities
Technical agents of the centralised state give only a small role to the people in the field when deciding what their objectives are and how programmes designed to protect biodiversity will function. The involvement of local organised communities is still marginal. Governments have on the other hand supported the collection of genetic resources from plants and are trying to conserve them in seed banks or live collections held by national institutions or international research teams, without having discussed or clearly established the rights of local communities with regard to these resources. Yet the financial and technical difficulties that these ex situ collections create for the conservation of genetic resources, mentioned in the national report prepared within the framework of the FAO process (Leipzig, 1996), indicate that countries encounter serious obstacles when trying to implement the resolutions of the Convention on biological diversity in this way. Governments are thus encouraged to develop conservation policies of agrarian systems in their arid areas which will give protection against the spread of desertification. In these areas, in situ conservation calls for large tracts of land which are administratively and technically difficult to protect efficiently without the real participation of organised communities. These systems can only produce lasting results if the local rural community are allowed to develop conservation activities that enhance the diversity of the ecosystems, species and genetic resources they are looking after.
The international programme ‘Growing Diversity’ is an exceptional opportunity for communities to express their views on the local management of agricultural biodiversity. In preparation we looked to identify significant experiences, contacted organisations and discussed the issues with local participants. This identification work ran into certain difficulties, for several reasons:
2. Interest/pressure groups and international NGO projects are a recent phenomenon. National laws and regulations allowing the existence of non-governmental organisations independent of the state have only been in place for about ten years. Until the beginning of the 1990s most local initiatives were blocked and it was not possible to develop them in the absence of a legal status and financial autonomy. Although the state remains cautious about the activities of international NGOs, it has cleared the way in a very significant manner for local organisations to take action. However, these organisations are generally very young and impoverished. Their ability to formulate projects in line with international norms remains weak.
3. Deficient communication methods are a limiting factor. The countries of the Maghreb have been slow in starting to use the internet compared to countries in Asia and Latin America. A network has only been developed since 1998. Access to the internet remains expensive and rare: usually through internet cafes. State control of the internet is practised under the guise of the prevention of fundamentalist terrorism. It is therefore still unusual to have internet contact with someone who works in an NGO or an institution. Sometimes the telecommunications network is defective and the checking of messages becomes intermittent. The local associations' financial situation often means that they cannot afford access to e-mail. Faxes are more accessible but expensive. Despite the cost, the telephone is often the best communication tool. This is, in spite of everything, an oral culture. In the mountain regions and certain oases, the languages used are Arab and Berber. There are many forms of the various regional dialects. French is used, especially amongst technicians.
What is at stake?
The challenges that local Maghreban communities face to ensure a sustainable management of the diversity of their agriculture involve three aspects. The first concerns the physical support for biodiversity, the water and soils which are threatened in arid areas and without which all development is at risk. The second is economic. The following question needs to be answered: how can the market value the low return from marginal land and ensure that the inhabitants have enough revenue to continue conserving their land? The third aspect concerns the legislation and the organisation needed to support rural communities in arid regions who have often been marginalised in the past. These populations live far from the centre and are the last to be provided with services and infrastructures such as electricity, telecommunications, roads, schools and health. How can they therefore enforce their rights over the use of biological resources?
Physical stakes. Limited water and soil/earth
· The effect of climate change: increasing aridity in arid areas
It is difficult for Maghreb's rural communities to discuss biodiversity without first debating the limited water supply and soil erosion. In arid environments climate change has been experienced in its full force over the last few years. Communities report periods of worsening drought interrupted by brief periods of heavy rainfall. Drought, experienced now for several years in the Maghreb, provokes a decrease in agricultural production, including local rustic varieties, and the desertification of land brought about by the deterioration of the vegetation cover and the soils. There is also wind and rain erosion of sandy ground with a thin vegetation cover. The loss of soil linked to this type of erosion is estimated to equal many tens of thousands of hectares a year: 20 to 30% of land used in agriculture and husbandry is threatened in this way. This desertification of the land has disastrous consequences on animal rearing which is in a state of decline and causes the young to leave rural areas.
· Bad management of hydro-agricultural developments
The limited water reserves constitute a more general threat to the sustainable development of oases and other irrigated cultivation in arid areas. If there is less than 200 mm of rain a year, nothing can be done without water management techniques (dam, wells, drilling) and a fair and just distribution of water. The palm groves of the oasis, the only land that is inhabited on a permanent basis in desert areas, are maintained using complex water management systems. Access to water and the laws that govern its distribution are of central importance for agrarian societies. The absence of drainage systems often worsens soil erosion and flooding. Drilling deep into the ground for water can be a bad way to manage water resources. This type of drilling often quickly exhausts the non-renewable fossil layer and in certain urban centres like El-Oued causes too great a spillage into the ground water thus suffocating the palms and increasing the salinity of the soil. Furthermore, the irrigation of new areas is carried out to the detriment of old palm groves which are richer in native genetic resources. On the outskirts of towns, new types of activity (industry, construction, tourism) are increasingly competing with agriculture.
2. Economic Stakes. The difficult economic development of produce.
· The increasing scarcity of local varieties.
- The change in eating habits of today's consumers is a cause of the abandonment of the consumption of local varieties.
- The high costs and the low value of local varieties have made these products uncompetitive in the marketplace. This is illustrated by the case of naturally produced honey made in the Middle Atlas which has much higher production costs compared to honey produced by bees fed on sugar.
- Pollution resulting from industrial developments near agricultural areas: in certain regions the industrial emissions have seriously damaged cultivation which used to be productive.
- Farmers in non-irrigated dry areas are more greatly affected by drought; which results in a withdrawal from an agriculture with little reward in spite of the ability of local varieties to adapt. Farmers' income has decreased to such an extent that buyers could not be found for farms. The traditional knowledge as well as the local varieties are thus in the process of disappearing.
· The depreciation in the value of products of biodiversity:
There has been a general depreciation in the value of rural produce which is considered to be old fashioned compared with new processed products which are often imported and available in the shops. Institutions are not involved in an effective way in addressing questions regarding the development of traditional products. Despite all the expertise in these countries relating to knowledge of agronomy there are no research projects exploring ways of adding value to these local varieties so that they are more readily traded. It must be remembered that the quality of local varieties of dates is described as 'mediocre' in comparison with other varieties such as the Deglet Nour which is described as 'noble' and remains a beacon product on the market. With respect to local craft industries linked to local cultivated varieties, the revenue they produce seems insufficient given the rising cost of living.
3. Political stakes. The poor level of organisation amongst communities.
The difficulties faced by the practitioners in the field who are carrying out projects of conservation of agricultural biodiversity are often a result of organisational problems or a lack of a legislative framework to support their work. Yet the law in each country of the Maghreb allows people to organise freely into recognised local groups: associations, co-operatives or rural councils. The co-operative system remains weak in this area. Conservation farmers are poorly structured. These types of farmers receive very little support and are poorly structured at an institutional level. In some countries the tax system of the voluntary sector reduces the ability of non-governmental organisations to participate in conservation projects.
The sustainable use of resources in contrast with predatory or high return activities is not well developed economically. It is difficult to put into place more sustainable agricultural policies because of an absence of a suitable legislative framework. National institutions, like those at the regional level, are poorly equipped and scattered; this prevents the establishment of coherent and concerted regional policies on the conservation of biodiversity. The isolation of farmers is accentuated by the fact that those in power are not sensitive to the need to legislate on the conservation of phytogenic resources and their usage. In addition there is a lack of coherence between the policies of different government departments which favour activities that are contrary to the sustainable management of biodiversity (for example the development of tourism and industry without studying the impact on agrarian systems). Where laws exist the means to enforce them are so weak that in practice their effect on communities remains invisible.
In terms of innovation, there is little co-ordination between scientific research and selection produced by the local community. The protection of local communities’ innovation and genetic resources is not considered by the legislation.
Proposals
· The establishment of in situ conservation programmes outside of protected areas and the conservation of genetic resources on the farm, cover three vital functions for arid regions:
Ø management of genetic diversity in spite of heavy human impact
Ø ensuring that local communities have better control over their food supply
Ø stabilising the agro-ecological systems of arid regions to combat the progression of desertification towards coastal areas
Ø provision of an alternative and a complement to the limited capacity of gene banks to provide long term storage
· If public aid allows the pursuit and the improvement of in situ conservation by integration with the dominant agrarian system this can meet another objective: to allow farmers to maintain the viability of agrarian systems, sometimes the only solution to avoid rural depopulation. The economic development of resources enables the integration of a conservation policy with existing systems and local practices. The use of the financial resources should be sustained by a flexible legislation allowing for multiple forms of conservation to take place in situ; these can be elaborated by participants according to the diverse social and economic situations rather than according to fixed criteria, imposed by rules.
· To communities, drought appears to be a consequence of global warming. The responsibility for this rests with the governments of industrialised countries who favour a model of development and energy consumption. In dry environments an increasing drought leads irremediably to desertification. This means that governments must be called to account so that they fight against global warming at the international level and apply the Kyoto agreements. On a practical level, it is necessary to invest in renewable energy sources (solar, wind etc) and to develop mechanisms to keep reserves of water (tanks, rain collection systems etc).
· Local communities must also have the means to become involved in the management of their natural and agricultural environment and in the fight against the erosion of soils: purification and recycling of used water, maintenance of hydro-agricultural facilities, mechanisms for water collection and reforestation, sustainable management of the most used areas.
· It would be useful to rethink the question of industrial development in an arid environment mainly dedicated to agriculture. Because of the competition for water between industrial and urban activities and agriculture, studies of impact on agrarian systems are necessary. In many cases industrial and urban used water could be recycled and re-used in agriculture.
· Support by public institutions for farmers to conserve local varieties, has been called for in order to obtain an increase in yields; this should take place through the research of techniques for better production and through training. This support for research should facilitate the commercialisation of products. The development of specialised networks giving value to local varieties has to take into account the good management of the supply (identifying the potential local volume, favouring production co-operatives in order to manage the sale price, managing the distribution network). There should also be support to help young farmers establish themselves, in order to keep them on the land: for example support for small scale projects by means of low interest credits and diversifying farm activities to ensure better incomes.
· In general terms, it seems most important that Maghreb should build on local groups’ ability to organise themselves: by the elimination of illiteracy, by increasing awareness of questions of the local management of biodiversity, in Arabic and in Berber, and by equipping them with negotiation skills to influence environmental and development policies. Furthermore, the support of local groups involved in the management of biodiversity should be given by providing financial help, such as tax relief.
· Communities will then be able to argue for a national coherent in situ conservation policy linking local conservation practitioners with all levels of decision making. An example of its application would be the elaboration of the terms of reference defining the conditions for a rational and long-term management of resources and the setting of rules on gathering and farming. On the other hand all innovation concerning natural resources or agricultural genetic diversity (especially genetically modified plants) should be the subject of an impact study in which local groups are obliged to participate.
· The refocusing of scientific research on the objectives of the local management of biodiversity and a guarantee that local innovations will be protected by a law inspired by the model legislation from the United African Organisation, are important. Recognition of local innovations must be brought about by concrete help from the authorities to allow the innovations to be popularised.
Questions to be discussed during the international workshop
1. International monitoring of climate change by a network of local communities
Observations in the field of the effects of climate change on varieties and their ecosystems could be shared between local groups, in particular those from other arid areas of the world. This information should allow one to reinforce the arguments in favour of the conservation of biodiversity and the immediate reduction of gases contributing to the greenhouse effect.
2. Details of in situ / ex situ conservation activities
It should be noted that the conservation of biodiversity outside protected areas in an undisturbed socio-economic environment is still considered by political powers to be an innovative project. The level of information available on the challenges offered by global biodiversity is sometimes poor and participants must be trained to face these challenges. An active social network should be constituted to address conservation questions as well as the relationship between in situ activities and ex situ programmes. The establishment of mechanisms of sustainable development in agricultural policies should be a more efficient way of conserving the biodiversity of arid areas. The impact of genetically modified plants on these mechanisms should be widely discussed by farming communities.
The privatisation of development research, dominated by competition between a few major firms, is socially undesirable. It is necessary to reinforce the ability to produce R&D which is for the public good. A different course of action: the funding and the recognition of innovation can be brought about by organising citizens so that they participate in the definition of research aims or by Parliament annually checking the aims of research. These innovations whether popular or scientific narrowly address human and environmental needs.
As far as seeds are concerned, the problem is in the co-ordination of a complex legal system capable of highlighting the diversity while respecting the specificity of the characteristics of seed. That is to say: seed / innovation presented in the form of a product; seed / equivalent of a production process; seed / raw material; seed / technology representing a certain stage of the technique, seed/ resource for the future; seed / product of nature; seed / evidence of human activity; seed / cultural witness. A seed court could help to enhance the sum of these characteristics and especially to protect the ongoing experimentation on cultivated varieties by rural communities.
For everything that affects the living and the conservation of biodiversity, alternative systems to patent should be found. These systems should be centred around the collective rights of communities, the place of origin and the labels guaranteeing the origin of a produce or around the protection of plants and animals and the access to biological resources.