There is an inseparable link between agriculture and biodiversity (broadly referring to the variation and richness of wild species of plants, animals, and micro-organisms existing and interacting within an ecosystem). Natural biodiversity provides the foundation for agricultural plants and domesticated animals, on which humans rely for food and livelihood sustenance. Biodiversity also performs many ecological services, including pollination of agricultural crops such as fruit trees and major staple crops, recycling of nutrients, controls local microclimate, regulates local hydrological processes, controls the abundance of undesirable organisms, and detoxifies noxious chemicals (Altieri, 1999). Additionally, the vegetative cover of forests and grasslands prevents soil erosion, replenishes groundwater and controls flooding by enhancing infiltration and reducing water runoff. Furthermore, biodiversity provides a wide variety of food (wild vegetables, game meat, fish, fruits, nuts etc.), fibre, herbal medicine, and fuelwood on which rural people depend. Dependence on extractive use of biodiversity is more prominent in semi-arid areas, where due to erratic and insufficient rainfall (≤ 400mm/annum); yields from agricultural production are generally poor – impelling rural communities in these areas to largely rely on natural resources to satisfy their nutritional needs. This reliance is aggravated by limited and unexploited economic opportunities in most rural areas; hence poverty in all its manifestations, such as undeveloped human capital, and lack of physical, economic and social capital assets is entrenched in the rural SSA. Dependence on natural resources, coupled with shifting cultivation, which prevails in these areas, contributes to the degradation of biodiversity due to the encroachment of agricultural activities into wildlife habitats, leading to undesirable depredation of agricultural crops and livestock by wild animals. Consequently, rural communities often consider wildlife, an important component of the region’s biodiversity, as a cost and not as an asset for enhancing their livelihoods through, for instance, ecotourism development.
