Community Biodiversity Registers

Community Biodiversity Registers

The community knowledge on biodiversity especially Agro-Biodiversity has been registered gathering the community people including the elders, women, children and farmers through conducting PRA exercises at each village of the LEISA Network. The information registered are from the nature of soil till harvesting and marketing. This event of collecting information has been then and there cross checked and documented and kept in the villages and a copy of the register in the NGO who work in that village.

The reason for starting the community biodiversity registers was to collect local knowledge that has not previously been documented about the crops, trees and plants available in one particular area or village. We use a participatory approach in rural communities where we ask various questions that are focused on the present conditions and knowledge on biodiversity. Kudumbam is implementing a holistic approach for understanding the agricultural situation which include: seeds, planting, cultivation, nutritional value for specific crops, and getting it to the markets etc. Incorporated in the community biodiversity initiative is diversifying crops and to introduce mixed cropping for farmers also. The overall goal for this initiative is to revive the biodiversity within local communities. A comprehensive study has previously been conducted by Kudumbam that in detail documented the knowledge on biodiversity in several local communities within Tamil Nadu. In the future we strive to conduct community biodiversity registers in additional villages. We also aspire to expand the scoop by including school children who would then learn more about the importance of biodiversity and local food diversity. Biodiversity can act as a safety net towards the impact of climate change, as well as securing greater yields and dietary diversity.