IPM CRSP Biodiversity Conservation Activities
Donald Plucknett
Program Director, Integrated Pest Management CRSP
Virginia Tech

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) – essentially applied ecology – aims to protect environmental and human health, reduce crop damage, and increase incomes through a systematized problem-solving approach to diseases, weeds, harmful insects, and other destructive organisms. One objective is to reduce chemical pesticide use without reducing crop yields.  IPM came into being because entomologists became concerned that continual use of pesticides promoted the development of pesticide resistance and reduced beneficial insect populations, resulting in poorer rather than better pest control – the famous “pesticide treadmill”. Biodiversity conservation is both a means of improved pest control and an objective in IPM programs. By definition, IPM promotes biodiversity conservation within the agricultural system in which it is used. Increased biodiversity is a tool to restore ecological mechanisms that keep pests in check. Though most often thought of as a technique for field agriculture and orchards, IPM is appropriate for public health pest management, forests, range, livestock, and human-built environments. The IPM CRSP focuses its activities on high-value crops and has been very successful in finding profitable and environmentally friendly measures to protect crops destined for local consumption and export.  Benefits to biodiversity in situ and in watersheds, for example, are often gained by reducing chemical pesticide use.  Nonetheless, the IPM approach benefits biodiversity in other ways.  The new IPM CRSP includes global themes regarding:  (i) invasive species that threaten both cultivated and uncultivated lands, (ii) studies of virus/vector complexes that threaten crops in places that have never experienced their presence, and (iii) pest information systems to support IPM decision making and to understand movements of pests around the globe. IPM CRSP also supports conservation of natural biodiversity in desert locust spray campaigns in Africa.