Dr Meine van Noordwijk, the Global Science Advisor of the World Agroforestry Centre, presented a paper entitled "Climate Change, Agrobiodiversity and Sustainagility in Agroforestry Systems" during the Second DIVERSITAS Open Science Conference in Cape Town, South Africa (13-16 October 2009).

"I was at a session that brought together experience on agro-ecosystems in various stages of intensification," said Meine who co-chaired the session: "Biodiversity and agricultural sustainagility: from assessment to adaptive management" together with Louise Jackson from the University of California, Davis, USA.

"SustainaGility was the keyword most discussed during my presentation. While there is a lot of effort to bring considerations of ‘persistence' aspects of sustainability into the sphere of decision making that look first of all at ‘efficiency', maintaining the resources for future change is as important, sustaining agility."

During his presentation, Meine gave examples of the difference between a ‘persistence' and a ‘change' orientation on the issues of livelihoods and biodiversity. He said that agroforestry, as the interface of the spheres of agriculture and forest, provides options for ‘intermediate intensity' management of lands for multifunctionality.

On the Conference's call for policy-makers to act swiftly and effectively on the already-established and future findings relating to ways of limiting further biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystem services, Meine said, "New institutions are needed to link the global concerns to current decision making, with ‘carrots, sticks and sermons' as the three ways external stakeholders interact with farmers."

Abstracts of presentations during this 2nd Open Science Conference of DIVERSITAS can
be found on http://www.diversitas-osc.org/docs/Abstract%20intreactive%20final.pdf