ICARDA Caravan, Issue No. 24

Focus

Fruit Trees:
Conserving Biodiversity in West Asia

Ahmed Amri

Biodiversity conservation isn’t simply an environmental issue. For many rural communities, loss of biodiversity means loss of income and livelihoods. ICARDA and its partners are working with rural communities in four West Asian countries to protect biodiversity by linking conservation with sustainable use and new livelihood opportunities.

How does value addition help conserve biodiversity? Communities in West Asia are finding it pays to conserve vulnerable species.

Spikes parched and roasted (left) and green Frike grains (right).

Resources at risk
West Asia is a genetic treasure-house. Many of the world’s most important fruits – olives, figs, grapes, almonds, pistachios, pears, prunes, apricots, cherries, date palm, pomegranates – originated or were first domesticated here. So did many vegetables: alliums (onion, garlic, leek), turnip, carrot, artichoke, and others. West Asia is also home to a large number of wild fruit trees, most of them neglected or under-utilized: Arbutus, Crataegus (hawthorn), Rhus (sumaq), Berberis, and the wild relatives of pistachio, almond, prune and pear.

Landraces of fruit trees are still widely grown in both dryland and mountain ecosystems across the region. Their wild relatives, and other wild species from which cultivated species were developed, are still found in undisturbed natural habitats. But for how much longer? In the Eastern Mediterranean, for example, pressure on forests continues to increase, as a result of urbanization, overgrazing, and encroachment of farmland. Human
influence is leading to irreversible losses of local agrobiodiversity and severe land degradation, threatening the livelihoods of communities which depend on these resources for survival.

How to conserve?

This olive tree in Syria has produced reliable harvests for almost 200 years.

Landraces and their wild relatives are vitally important for two reasons: as the main source of livelihoods for poor farmers, and as a source of genes to improve cultivated species.

Biodiversity can be conserved either ex situ (seeds or plants are preserved under cold conditions in genebanks or grown in field genebanks) or in situ (preserved in their natural habitats or on farms). Ideally, both approaches, and different components of each approach, should be used in combination. In earlier years, in situ conservation focused on creating natural and forest reserves where human/livestock access was banned – but biodiversity losses continued. Current approaches to in situ conservation involve three elements: on-farm conservation of landraces, better design and management of protected areas, and reforestation with indigenous trees rather than fast-growing introduced species such as eucalyptus and pine.

Diversity of fruit trees in an orchard in Ajloun, Jordan.

The West Asia Agrobiodiversity Project
In 1999, ICARDA and its national partners launched a project, ‘Conservation and sustainable use of dryland agrobiodiversity’, funded by the Global Environment Facility and the UNDP. The project aimed at promoting community-driven in situ/on-farm conservation of land-races and wild relatives of a range of species – field crops, fruit trees, Allium species and forage legumes – originating from West Asia.

The project operated at eight pilot sites in four countries:
• Muwaqqar and Ajloun in Jordan
• Aarsal and Baalbek in Lebanon
• Jenin and Hebron in Palestine
• Al-Haffeh and Sweida in Syria

Students and local communities in Jordan are helping to reforest degraded natural habitat.

Project teams first conducted a series of surveys to assess the status and major threats to local agrobiodiversity at each site. They then worked with communities and local authorities to develop a holistic strategy for conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, combining several aspects: improved technologies, new sources of income, strengthening of local institutions, awareness campaigns, and recommendations on policy and legislative options.

Landraces: tried and trusted
The first project survey, conducted in 1999, examined the extent of use of fruit tree landraces on 680 farms in 26 communities. All figs, over 80% of olives and grapes, and half of the almond, apricot and plum trees were landraces. Farmers said they often had to graft landraces when a new ‘improved’ variety failed. Most areas contained olive trees several hundred years old; and new orchards were often planted with clones selected from these old landraces.

Why are landraces so much more popular than improved varieties? Because they are better adapted to harsh environments and low-input agriculture; their fruits taste better, and fetch higher prices. The exceptions are apples and cherries, where landraces constitute less than 35% of trees, because commercial producers are targeting specific markets with specific variety requirements. And even here, landraces have their own advantages. Two apple varieties, Sukkari and Khashabi, are widely grown; the former for its sweetness, the latter for its resistance to insect pests.

Orchards typically contain several landraces, each with different characteristics. The survey documented 4-12 olive landraces in each area, more than 12 for figs, 4-9 for grapes, 1-2 for almonds, 3-6 for cherries, 1-5 for apples, pears, plums and apricots. Farmers in mountainous areas usually grow several species of fruits, and several varieties of each species. This makes for a healthier, more varied diet, provides more income opportunities, and smoothens out labor demand over the season.

Sources of income
A farming systems survey in 2004 studied households from 26 communities, looking at sources of income. Off-farm income from employment and remittances contributed a large share of total income. Fruit trees were a major part of on-farm income, especially in mountainous areas, which are best suited for most fruits. For example, in Al-Haffeh in Syria, fruit trees contributed 46% of total income and 85% of farm income. At all locations, this contribution was important across the board, irrespective of farm size or household income.

Simple water-harvesting techniques nourish fruit trees and help rehabilitate degraded habitat.

Wild treasure
Botanical surveys were conducted in 24 areas in 2000 and 2003, focusing on the remaining natural habitats. The aim was to identify ‘hot spots’ – areas with high diversity of wild fruit trees, threatened by degradation – and the main causes of degradation. At least 13 important wild species were found in seven of the eight target areas. Based on these results, government agencies are now developing plans to promote the use of wild fruit trees, and establish natural reserves to protect the wild relatives of cultivated fruits. The
project has recommended that a trans-boundary reserve be established between Syria and Lebanon, to protect specific areas of high species richness and to design management/conservation plans for areas to be returned to the Palestinian Authority under the peace process.

The survey also found several other wild fruit tree species, classified as under-utilized, including Crataegus, Arbutus, Ziziphus, Rhus and Ceratonia. These species are used by local communities for fruits, and for medicine, spices and aromatic use, but their exploitation is not optimized. For example, fruits are generally collected from the wild, for household consumption. Cultivating these trees, even in small numbers, would provide more stable, reliable supplies, and enable poor households to significantly improve their incomes by selling fruits or value-added products.

The major threats are deforestation for urbanization and orchard expansion, tree-cutting for wood and other uses, overgrazing, and in some cases, quarries, as in Hebron and Aarsal.

In situ /on-farm conservation
There has been little research or extension effort on fruit tree land-races. Instead, R&D tended to focus almost exclusively on introduction of improved varieties for intensive production. Efforts by the Biodiversity Project, strongly supported by government agencies, are beginning to redress the balance.

Street stall or supermarket? The region’s fruit diversity offers unique opportunities.

The project provided training, technical backstopping and initial incentives for the establishment of eleven private nurseries to multiply and supply landraces. It also helped establish field genebanks for grapes, almonds and figs in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. These field genebanks include most of the landraces still used by farmers in the target areas; and will be progressively expanded with more landraces collected from other parts of each country. National partners are building on these efforts. For example, a government nursery in Lattakia, Syria, produces over 35,000 plantlets of fruit tree landraces each year for distribution to farmers in the Al-Haffeh region.

The project’s efforts have led to a significant policy shift, of greater use of wild fruit trees in afforestation programs. The Ministries of Agriculture in Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria have instructed forestry departments to use native species for afforestation. In Syria alone, more than 3.5 million trees of wild fruit species are distributed every year. To back up these efforts, a community nursery has been established in Aarsal, and now supplies seedlings to development projects throughout Lebanon.

Abdul Sattar, a farmer in Lattakia, Syria, established a specialized nursery to multiply fruit tree landraces.

Integration, conservation

Local and regional fairs showcase value-added products made from little-known or under-utilized species of fruit trees.

Conservation will not work as an abstract principle. Communities will conserve a species only if they directly benefit from doing so. That will require an integrated approach: awareness, training, economic incentives, and a policy environment that encourages conservation. The project has achieved encouraging results on all fronts. Almost 1500 people (including 580 women) from local communities, government extension services and NGOs have been trained on establishment and management of tree nurseries, simple methods for home processing (e.g. preparing dried fruits), and value addition by making jam, compotes, syrups and other products. New products, notably jam from hawthorn and Arbutus, have been introduced for the first time. Links have been developed with markets near project areas. At two project sites (Al-Haffeh and Ajloun), market stalls have been established, in conjunction with a local NGO, where home-made products including those from wild fruit trees, are now sold.

Management plans for in situ and on-farm conservation have been developed jointly by project staff, local communities, and other stakeholders. Government policy makers are building on project results to develop and implement conservation-oriented policies, and encourage community-led efforts to preserve indigenous species. Lessons learned from the project are helping to design similar interventions elsewhere. And gradually, biodiversity conservation in West Asia is being transformed from a series of individual projects into a synergistic, region-wide effort to conserve our natural heritage.

	___________________________________________
	Ahmed Amri (a.amri@cgiar.org) is Coordinator of ICARDA’s West Asia Regional Program, based in Amman, Jordan.

Contents | About ICARDA and the CGIAR | From the Director General
Table of Issues | ICARDA Publications | ICARDA Home