Whether the issue is the alleviation of world hunger, modern biotechnology, or preservation of Planet Earth’s wild life and wild places, the key sector of global ecology that touches each and is too often forgotten in the debate is the issue of agricultural ecology. The International Foundation for the Conservation of Natural Resources (IFCNR) has not forgotten. Nor will it.

Agricultural ecology is connected to virtually every human endeavor, whether terrestrial or marine. If we are to function, we must eat. Providing nutrition for the burgeoning global population of humans and animals alike in an orderly, secure, and efficient manner involves the use of land, water, weather, time, energy and agricultural techniques. Of the latter, some are ancient, some ultra modern. As the need for food grows, the competition for resources between domestic agricultural demand and the preservation of wild places also increases.

Balancing the need for ever greater food production and higher nutritional value against the need to preserve wild places and species is a chief concern for IFCNR. Similarly, a high IFCNR priority is the symbiotic relationship among elements of agricultural and wild ecology. Another IFCNR concern is the conservation of agricultural biodiversity in an ever-increasing move towards mono-culture agriculture.

The welfare of bee keepers and their swarms is one example. Bees and their biological function as nature’s pollinators are vital to other crops such as almonds. Therefore decisions made affecting bees and the health of hives can help or harm vast segments of agriculture with an equally important wave effect at the consumer and retail levels. Grocers, restaurants, home owners alike will be affected. Efforts by environmental NGOs to shut down livestock operations due to perceived harm to wild places in one state or region can be used as precedents to shut down ranching, farming, food processing, etc. elsewhere causing untold damage to the world’s food supply.

IFCNR is concerned about the protection of domestic species, once popular among family farms, whose existence is threatened by more productive hybrids. Many domestic species have numbers appallingly low compared to many of their rarest wild brethren. IFCNR believes there is room among us for both.

IFCNR’s world view is inclusive, not exclusive. IFCNR believes that the sound eco-system is the one that includes a diversity of species and cultures whether those species and cultures are domestic chickens, honey bees, hogs, horses, farmed shrimp, tigers roaming India’s Sunderbans, lemurs in Madagascar, Circumpolar Inuit or New England Farmers and their families.

Today, every aspect of sustainable use is under intense scrutiny. Each has its opponent or opponents endeavoring to bring about either a radical curtailment of activities or its very end. IFCNR believes that is wrong. IFCNR stands as an advocate for agricultural ecology as an integral component of the equilibrium that is the core of the well-being of the entire planet’s eco-system.