Biodiversity is the foundation of life on earth. It is crucial for the functioning of ecosystems which provide us with products and services without which we couldn’t live (IUCN). Biodiversity brings us life and the means to adapt to a changing climate. At Navdanya, a biodiversity farming Mununzwu project in India, they proved that biodiverse ecological farming produces more and better food than the most energy and chemical intensive agriculture (Vandana Shiva).
In Venda there are at least 120 species of wild greens which are eaten as vegetables, there are many wild fruits, and various parts of the plants are used for medicine, but these areas of bush where wild plants can grow are rapidly declining to make way for pine plantations and tea estates. The diet of the population is deteriorating without these diverse wild foods and elders are expressing their concern that they are less healthy today and the new generations are dying young. With the introduction of seeds from foreign countries advertising benefits of high yields or resistance to insects our own indigenous crops are being polluted with their pollen and becoming contaminated. We need to save our indigenous seeds to retain biodiversity for the next generations. Dzomo la Mupo advises and encourages seed saving and the benefits of growing indigenous seed.
“Biodiversity is the foundation of life on Earth” IUCN