Abstract
Recent land-use and climatic shifts are expected to alter species distributions, the provisioning of ecosystem services, and livelihoods of biodiversity-dependent societies living in multifunctional landscapes. However, to date, few studies have integrated social and ecological evidence to understand how humans perceive change, and adapt agro-ecological practices at the landscape scale. Mixed method fieldwork compared observed changes in plant species distribution across a climatic gradient to farmers’ perceptions in biodiversity and climate change in rice-cultivated farms. In contrast to the global context, farmers in the Terai Plains of Nepal are acutely aware of high levels of change observed in the last 10 years, and incrementally adapt as new invasive species emerge (93%), the incidence and severity of pest/diseases increase (66%), genetic diversity of indigenous varieties erodes (65%), forest habitats diminish (98%), irrigation water declines (60%), and wildlife ranges shift. Twenty-five changes in climate were reported by 97.5% of farmers to reduce provisioning services and food self-sufficiency, and increase exposure to waterborne pathogens, heat stress, and human or livestock mortality. The study illustrates the need for financial and institutional supports at all levels to strengthen agro-ecological practices, upscale Information Communication Technology for extension services, clarify tenure agreements, and safeguard natural ecosystems to slow biodiversity loss. Existing incentives to conserve, restore, or sustainably manage ecosystems offer lessons for other societies undergoing rapid change.
Highlights
Recent shifts in the distribution and composition of species are occurring in parallel with changes in temperature, precipitation, and ecosystem services provisioning across landscapes (IPCC 2018)
Across the Central and Western Terai farming systems are highly susceptible to biodiversity and climate-driven changes that affect their agricultural systems (Table 1)
While the extent to which human adaptations have resulted in actual change, or reversed detrimental impacts of biodiversity change, goes beyond the scope of this paper, the study indicates that communities hold substantial knowledge of unprecedented changes in biodiversity and climate
Summary
Recent shifts in the distribution and composition of species are occurring in parallel with changes in temperature, precipitation, and ecosystem services provisioning across landscapes (IPCC 2018). Many rural farming populations are unique, in that they have stewarded and directly depended on some of the Earth’s most unique biodiversity for thousands of years (Guneratne 2002) Their vulnerability differs to other systems where services are more likely to be substitutable, and they often adapt in ways that are unaided by external agencies, nor necessarily reflected in formal policies. What is needed is a better understanding of impacts of compounding risks, localized adaptive responses, and factors influencing farmers’ choices to sustainably manage agrobiodiverse landscapes.
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