Classifying and valuing ecosystem services for urban planning

https://www.fs.fed.us/nrs/pubs/jrnl/2015/nrs_2015_elmqvist_001.pdf

Benefits of restoring ecosystem services in urban areas

Within-city green infrastructure can offer opportunities and new contexts for people to become stewards of ecosystem services. We analyze cities as social-ecological systems, synthesize the literat ...

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Reconnecting Cities to the Biosphere : Stewardship of Green Infrastructure and Urban Ecosystem Services

Many ecosystem services are in decline. Local ecological knowledge and associated practice are essential to sustain and enhance ecosystem services on the ground. Here, we focus on social or collect ...

Social-ecological memory in urban gardens-Retaining the capacity for management of ecosystem services

The year 2007 marked a critical event in the world history. For the first time, more than half of the world population now lives in cities. In many developing countries, the urbanization process goes along with increasing urban poverty and polluted environment, growing food insecurity and malnutrition, especially for children, pregnant and lactating women; and increasing unemployment. Urban agriculture represents an opportunity for improving food supply, health conditions, local economy, social integration, and environmental sustainability altogether. Urban agriculture is present throughout the world in a diversity of farming systems. Urban dwellers ranging 25–30 % are involved worldwide in the agro-food sector. Urban agriculture will gain in recognition for its benefits and services because urban population and rural–urban migration are increasing. The actual scarcity of knowledge on urban agriculture has somehow hindered the relevance of this activity. Here, we review the social, cultural, technical, economic, environmental, and political factors affecting urban agriculture with examples taken in East Asia, South America, or East Africa. We discuss the definition, benefits, and limitations of urban agriculture. Food security benefit of urban agriculture is evidenced by 100–200 million urban farmers worldwide providing the city markets with fresh horticultural goods. Urban agriculture favors social improvement since the poors spend up to 85 % of their income in food purchase and most urban farmers belong to poorest populations. Sociologically urban farming favors both social inclusion and reduction of gender inequalities, as 65 % of urban farmers are women. Urban agriculture has ecological benefits by reducing the city waste, improving urban biodiversity and air quality, and overall reducing the environmental impact related to both food transport and storage. The production of horticultural goods shows the main benefits of urban agriculture. Fruit and vegetable crops give high yields, up to 50 kg m−2 year−1, a more efficient use of agricultural inputs, high added value, and rapidly perishable products that can easily substitute the rural production in the local market. Urban horticulture is the most competitive branch of urban farming due to the high cost of urban land and with the need of high water- and fertilizer-use efficiency. Traditional urban horticulture systems are classified in four types: allotment and family gardens, simplified extensive systems, shifting cultivation, and intensive systems. We describe also innovative systems including organoponics and simplified soilless cultures.

/pdf/urban-agriculture-in-the-developing-world-a-review-njqlkugdzn.pdf

Urban agriculture in the developing world: a review

Agroecology provides the scientific and methodological basis for transition strategies toward new paradigms of rural development The cultural, social and productive basis for this new paradigm resides on the ethonecological rationale of pea snat agriculture, a source of an important legacy of indigenous knowledge, agrobiodiversity and food sovereignity strategies Organic agriculture comprises another alternative model that produces food with less environmental impact and energy use, but this agriculture needs to transition beyond input subsitution and should emphasize local and national markets in order to realize its food security potential, freeing itself from its dependence on international markets that make it susceptible to the control by multinationals that dominate the globalization circles The agroecological scaling-up examples from Cuba and the Philippines that emphasize farmer led participation and extension, demonstrate that the human resource and its innovation capacity are the keystone of all development strategies of rural people and especially for resource-por farmers

/pdf/modelos-ecologicos-y-resilientes-de-produccion-agricola-para-3100rhfgqs.pdf

Modelos ecológicos y resilientes de producción agrícola para el siglo XXI

This chapter provides a brief historical overview of biological control in Latin America and describes some current programs, as well as suggestions to scale up classical biological control in the region. Most of the early work on biological control was concentrated on homopteran citrus pests, mainly because citrus marked the beginning of biological control history in 1888. Chemical pesticide technology has spread more quickly in Latin America than the area's ability to ensure its effective and safe use. Pesticide use is rapidly increasing, and pesticide exporters from the industrialized nations are increasing their sales to Latin America. In 1948, Eretmocerus serius was introduced against the citrus blackfly. It became established and controlled the pest, mostly in humid areas. A search for parasites was made in semiarid regions of Asia and four additional parasites were found and established, three of which became dominant in humid and dry areas of Mexico. During 1954 and 1955, several parasites were introduced from Hawaii for the control of the Mexican fruit fly, Anastrepha ludens , in Mexico. In Latin American sugarcane-producing countries, populations of Diatraea saccharalis and D. flavipenella Box have been traditionally subjected to biological control through liberations of tachinid parasites mass-reared in private or in government insectaries.

CHAPTER 39 – Classical Biological Control in Latin America: Past, Present, and Future

Modern agroecosystems require systemic change, but new redesigned farming systems will not emerge from simply implementing a set of practices (rotations, composting, cover cropping, etc.), but rather from the application of already well defined agroecological principles. These principles can be applied by way of various practices and strategies, and each will have different effects on productivity, stability and resiliency within the farm system. By breaking the monoculture nature of farming systems, agroecological diversification mimic natural ecological processes leading to optimal recycling of nutrients and organic matter turnover, soil biological activation, closed energy flows, water and soil conservation and balanced pest-natural enemy populations, all key processes in maintaining the agroecosystem’s health, productivity and its self-sustaining capacity. By enhancing functional biodiversity, a major goal of the conversion process is achieved: strengthening the weak ecological functions in the agro-ecosystem, allowing farmers to gradually eliminate inputs altogether by relying instead on ecological processes and interactions.

/pdf/agroecologia-principios-para-la-conversion-y-el-rediseno-de-4lhuksw3i7.pdf

Agroecología: Principios para la conversión y el rediseño de sistemas agrícolas

Perspectives in Ecological Theory and Integrated Pest Management: Agroecology: contributions towards a renewed ecological foundation for pest management

Clara I. Nicholls

Papers

Modelos ecológicos y resilientes de producción agrícola para el siglo XXI

CHAPTER 39 – Classical Biological Control in Latin America: Past, Present, and Future

Agroecología: Principios para la conversión y el rediseño de sistemas agrícolas

Perspectives in Ecological Theory and Integrated Pest Management: Agroecology: contributions towards a renewed ecological foundation for pest management

Biodiversidad y manejo de plagas en agrosistemas