Agricultural reforms are a big part of the solution. It is estimated that we waste a third of the food that we produce. That’s about 1.3 billion tons a year. In addition, a third of our agricultural land is used for animal feed. As the world gets more ‘modernized’ the land devoted to animal feed is expected to rise to cater to the growing demand of the dairy and meat industry.

The answers to resolve this complex issue are not straightforward and require a combination of public policy, awareness, capital, human behaviour change, etc. However, one of the important aspects for the policy makers to consider is our legislative reforms and furthering environmentally friendly agricultural practices such as agroforestry. Agroforestry is the intentional integration of trees and shrubs into crop and animal farming systems to create environmental, economic, and social benefits. There is a lot of work happening all over the world in advancing agroforestry-based solutions.

1. Alley Cropping
Alley cropping involves planting crops between rows of trees. The system can be designed to produce fruits, vegetables, grains, flowers, herbs, bioenergy feedstocks, and more.

2. Multi-story Cropping
The practice of multi-story cropping is based on creating a complimentary ecosystem of trees and shrubs under a forest canopy at different heights to grow food, herbal, botanical, or decorative crops. By providing ideal shade levels to the botanicals, a flourishing biodiverse economically viable forest system can be created.

3. Silvo Pasture
Silvo pasture combines trees with livestock and forage on one piece of land. The trees provide timber, fruit, fodder, or nuts as well as shade and shelter for livestock and their forages, reducing stress on the animals from the hot summer sun, cold winter winds, or a downpour.

4. Riparian Forest Buffers
Riparian forest buffers are natural or re-established areas along rivers and streams made up of trees, shrubs, and grasses. These buffers can help filter farm runoff while the roots stabilize the banks of streams, rivers, lakes and ponds to prevent erosion. These areas can also support wildlife and provide another source of income.

5. Windbreaks
Windbreaks shelter crops, animals, buildings, and soil from wind, snow, dust, and odours. These areas can also support wildlife and provide another source of income. They are also called shelterbelts, hedgerows, vegetated environmental buffers, or living snow fences.

So, if you are wondering how can you influence this change towards more widespread agroforestry practices, here are a few suggestions:

1. Become a lot more aware and conscious of your consumption choices. Start reading food labels of the products that you buy and make a deliberate shift towards products that are more upfront about their production and sources of origin.

2. Start asking your elected representatives about how agroforestry in your region is being encouraged. Often change begins when you ask for it!

3. If you happen to be directly involved in agriculture and food production start developing and implementing agroforestry practices and set an example!

The post 5 ways How Traditional Agroforestry Systems Help in Nature Conservation appeared first on The Sacred Groves.

As a child, 18-year-old British-Bangladeshi Mya-Rose Craig was as in love with nature as she was struck by the fact that the British countryside was preserved for people that didn’t look like her. “It seemed to be a space of whiteness and privilege,” she says.

When it comes to nature conservation, these raced roots run deep. Darwin and Wallace trotted the globe to find ‘animals unknown to man’, forgetting the indigenous people who had coexisted peacefully with them for centuries. US President Teddy Roosevelt famously said that Native Americans were the cause of such environmental and animal population decline, that the state needed to requisition their ancestral lands as national parks. This history, Craig says, has forged a narrative in which young people from visible ethnic minorities “simply think nature is not for them”.

The child of keen bird-watchers, Craig spent her early childhood trailing around the country in search of rare birds such as the cattle egret with her British father Chris and her Bengali mother Helena. At the age of seven, Craig featured in a BBC documentary Twitchers: A Very British Obsession on BBC TV. But it was her realisation that Britain lacked the opportunities and infrastructure for young people to get up close to nature, especially children from ethnic minorities, that motivated the teenager to act.

“In the US they have camps for nature lovers of all kinds, including camps run by world-famous birders and I was dying to do these,” Craid says. “But in the UK there was nothing, especially for city kids.” Frustrated, at the tender age of 14 Craig decided to organise her own nature camp and, not content with the roster of white teenage boys who signed up, Craig reached out to community leaders in inner city areas of the city of Bristol, to advertise the camp to children and teens from a range of ethnic backgrounds. The first camp, in 2015, was a roaring success, with campers documenting moth and bird populations, sleeping under the stars and enjoying a life-changing experience in the process.

“You get these kids who’ve never engaged with nature and they come and have a really good time and that makes me happy,” Craig says, adding that it’s often the boys who are full of bravado who are most squeamish about handling a wriggling bird, or dipping a pond to chart the biodiversity in its murky depths. “I love it when the girls chase them around with a bird in their hands,” she laughs.

In the last census (2011) 13 percent of the UK population, around 8.1 million people, identified themselves as black, Asian or minority ethnic (BAME). Yet a 2017 study by Natural England found that just 26.2 percent of black people spent time in the British countryside, compared with 44.2 percent of white people. Meanwhile, only one percent of visitors to UK national parks come from BAME backgrounds.

“Teens from visible minorities tell me they fear the countryside is very white and elitist,” Craig says, “and sadly their fears are confirmed when they experience racism and disapproval on campsites and at nature reserves.”

Black2Nature is now in its seventh year of camps and Craig also campaigns, through the organisation, to increase diversity on the boards of British conservation charities. Undeterred by the pandemic, in 2020 Black2Nature staged nature camps in Craig’s local Chew Valley, where families from socially deprived backgrounds got together in Covid-friendly bubbles to enjoy conservation activities such as bird-ringing and bird-spotting walks. Craig is heading to Warwick University in September 2021 to study politics, but, she says, that’s no excuse to relax her efforts to make the British countryside a welcoming place for everyone. In spring and summer 2021, Black2Nature is planning eight camps for five to 10-year-olds and city teenagers from London and Bristol and the first all-girl Black2Nature camp. In 2020 Craig was awarded an honorary doctorate in science (D.Sc.h.c) from the University of Bristol for her work with Black2Nature.

“There’s a lot to do,” Craig admits. “But the natural world and social justice, won’t wait.”

Author: The India Story Agency for Sacred Groves
Images Credit: Mya-Rose Craig – Helena Craig

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