We, the participants attending the International Ecoagriculture Conference and Practitioners’ Fair in Nairobi, Kenya, came from 46 countries, comprised of grassroots communities, pastoralist communities, civil society groups, environmental and nature conservation organizations, public and private sector institutions. From this diverse background, we found considerable common ground on the need for a framework that seeks to simultaneously achieve improved livelihoods, conservation of biodiversity (genetic resources, ecosystem services and wild flora and fauna), and sustainable production at a landscape scale. This is the essence of ecoagriculture.
We therefore declare:
1. That ecoagriculture embraces diverse systems and practices linking production and biodiversity across landscapes
2. That grassroots communities and farmers all around the world have practised ecoagriculture principles for millennia, with the potential for maintaining ecosystems and transforming vast areas of degraded lands into productive and ecologically functional systems;
3. That ecoagriculture is globally important wherever the demands for food, ecosystem services and rural livelihoods converge, including rural farming communities living in or around protected areas and other habitats of high biodiversity value or endangered species;
4. That ecoagriculture is also highly important in critical catchments such as mountain ecosystems serving human and wildlife populations; and in biologically degraded landscapes where ecosystem services are essential for sustainable food production and local livelihoods need urgent rehabilitation.
The Conference calls on policy makers at the local, national, regional and global levels; planners, researchers and practitioners in the fields of human health and nutrition, agriculture, agroforestry, livestock and pastoralism, aquaculture, urban and rural development, energy, climate change, biodiversity conservation, and water resource management, to promote ecoagriculture
We believe that mobilizing a movement of diverse stakeholders inspired and committed to ecoagriculture and the improvement of rural livelihoods together with preservation and restoration of ecosystem services, will build synergies and achieve globally significant benefits for food security, human health and nutrition, poverty alleviation and environmental sustainability.
Nairobi, Kenya
1 October 2004
RAVINE CREEK GARDEN FARM 