United States Natures Tender

Human life depends on natural resources and ecosystem services. In view of the progressive degradation of natural capital the discussion about how to take nature into account in the economy is one issue on political agendas that has resulted in a variety of incentives and tools to address this. While the shift to sustainable farming practices considers the retention of ecosystem services to require additional effort it appears that restoring nature not only helps to make agriculture sustainable it also helps the producer to be more efficient in terms of the amount of labor needed. In an exclusive conversation with DevelopmentAid Bogdan Suliman a practitioner of peasant agroecology and subsistence farming shared how caring for birds and bats helps him to work less while allowing nature to work for him.Ecosystem services are natures services that are essential to life-support systems. They include flood regulation soil erosion protection pollination carbon storage pest regulation and cultural services to name just a few.It comes as no surprise that ecosystem services have been discussed in the context of economic tools and measures that adequately account for the benefits that people obtain from nature. Thus natural capital accounting has been receiving increasing attention in the European Union as it helps to integrate the value of ecosystem services into accounting and reporting systems at different political levels.Ecosystem services in agriculture the goal or the meanDiscussions and initiatives around ecosystem services often envision these as the goal that a producer in any given activity should work to achieve. For instance the Incentives for Ecosystem Services is being promoted by the Food and Agriculture Organization FAO of the United Nations which is a package of measures for producers and decision-makers that will help to accelerate the shift to sustainable farming practices and at the same time restore ecosystem services. These include policy-driven e.g. taxes offsets conservation concessions and voluntary investments e.g. rewards for ecosystem services.usually requires additional efforts or inputs such as up-front financing land and labor during their establishment or new seeds and technology and may also introduce risks such as poor early performance of the new approach or higher labor and maintenance costs.In practice however such concerns are not wholly valid. In fact enhancing ecosystem services can help producers to decrease the number of working hours and effort involved as well as reducing maintenance costs because nature is allowed to do the work for them.Bogdan Suliman I dont work in my garden I use the energy from the insects plants and animalsIn conversation with DevelopmentAid Bogdan Suliman a member of the coordinating committee of EcoRuralis a grassroots peasants association in Romania who is also a practitioner of peasant agroecology shared how ecosystem services help him to work smart and not hard. Agroecology is an advanced form of human technology. It is being increasingly recognized worldwide and therefore has fallen under the spotlight in a range of international projects such as Agroecology for Europe. EcoRuralis is one of the partners of this project as it is to several others. The association and Bogdan have been involved in a project supported by Erasmus which aims to design a common training referential based on peasant agroecology at both local and European level which will allow peasants from several European countries Romania Spain and Belgium to exchange knowledge and seeds thus developing knowledge of agroecology to bring about more efficiency in production.That is what we are focused on how to grow more with less energy than just growing and selling he stressed.Being de facto a subsistence farmer Bogdan has a modest surplus and he revealed that although it would be possible to increase production instead he invests in research and knowledge for instance through observation. Apart from the qualification in permaculture that he has obtained he is constantly learning using the knowledge available to him but he is aware that all that he does learn needs to be tested in the given context. Thus he has been using natures services to save energy.I dont work in my garden I use the energy from the insects plants and animals so that they can coexist with each other and make better productivity explains Bogdan.He offers several examples of how to make working in the garden more pleasant while at the same time regenerating biodiversity. There is an inner motivation to restore nature as it clearly brings benefits to the producer. Thus Bogdan refers to snakes of which there are almost none but which could help producers to control the mole population. He explains how important bats are for pest control and management by for instance eating moths and as they are active during the night bats eat these before they have time to lay eggs. Bogdan is planning to build a bat house so that he can make use of their excrement too for soil fertilization. He adds that modern construction is breaking down old buildings and they dont leave room for bats and indeed bat populations have undergone massive historic declines although some species have been showing positive trends in recovery on the European continent.