indigenous peoples

Agrobiodiversity plays a central role in the coping strategies of rural communities and indigenous peoples. It is an important part of the livelihood strategies of poor farmers, contributing not only to meeting food and shelter requirements, but also providing medicines and fuels, contributing to the provision of ecosystem support and regulating services and meeting cultural needs. Climate change is bringing new challenges to rural communities and indigenous communities who are have to adapt to changing production conditions and environments in addition to the problems they already face. The Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research (PAR), which aims to enhance the sustainable management and use of agrobiodiversity by improving knowledge of all its different aspects, has undertaken a survey aimed at identifying the extent to which farmers around the world are using agrobiodiversity to cope with climate change. The survey, available as a web-based knowledge sharing resource, provides information on when and where farmers use agrobiodiversity to help cope with climate change, how it is used and what kinds of agrobiodiversity are most important. This paper describes the ways in which the information has been collected, how it can be used by the agricultural and rural development communities and suggests how it might be further improved. Some major findings of the survey are summarized and illustrated and the implications identified