Overview
Agrodiversity and the MMSEA Network
Cultural and biological diversity underpin the resilience of human societies and their capacity to adapt and transform in the face of change. The resilience of many human societies, especially ethnic minority cultures in the isolated areas, derives from their social-ecological systems adapted to local environments in the relative absence of external impacts.
This resilience is now subject to the unprecedented challenges increasingly created by combination of globalization and global environmental changes with the increasing local and global interactions. It is imperative to not only preserve and promote lessons learnt and practices perfected in the past, but also propose new ways in meeting the new challenges arising from global changes.
The mountainous region of mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA)
This project aims to improve the understanding of the experience and the resilience of ethnic cultures in adapting to change in the past, and to identify the ways to enhance the resilience in dealing with global changes in the future. Co-adaptation between culture and environment in each locality will be studied from a regional perspective towards harmonious co-existence and exchange among different cultures as well as customization of global knowledge to local challenges.
Building on the PLEC experience focusing on managing agrodiversity, UNU has established a research network of country partners in the mountainous region of mainland Southeast Asia (MMSEA) and Japanese partners to address the challenge and knowledge gap lies between scientific and policy levels as well as global and local ones. The MMSEA region, home to diverse ethnic minority cultures, provides one of the best regions to study interactions between culture and environment in the context of global change. The project outputs will include documentation of best practices, training of young professionals/scientists and empowering of ethnic communities in adapting to global changes.
Second Phase Launch, UNU Lao Research Project
Supported by the Mitsui Environmental Fund
The UNU agrodiversity project has received support from the Mitsui Environmental Fund for the research project on sustainable land management in Laos, in cooperation with the National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute (NAFRI), Lao PDR. The second phase was launched on 1 August 2009. This is a two-year project promoting sustainable land management through seeking alternative land use and community-based resource management for sustainable livelihood.
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Page last modified 2009.08.13.
