Mrs. Lai Kumari Thapa with award received from LI-BIRD for her innovativeness in domesticating medicinal plants. Photo：Shashish Maharjan

Increasingly，development projects promote the role of farmers，smallholders，herders and other local resource users in conserving natural and agricultural biodiversity. However，they often overlook local efforts to make new uses of and enrich biological resources. Farmers’ past contributions to domesticating，selecting and breeding plants and animals are acknowledged，but rarely what they are doing today. Men and women farmers continue to explore new ways to use biodiversity to spread risks，enhance food security and improve livelihoods. Especially poorer farmers innovate in biodiversity management in efforts to increase their options for coping with change and to exploit micro-environments in their agroecosystems.

Local innovation is the process by which local people，on their own initiative，develop new and better ways of doing things. Out of this process emerge local innovations，which may be technical or socioinstitutional（such as making new rules for resource use）and are tailored to the needs of the local farm families and communities. These site-appropriate ideas deserve support. Recognising them encourages farmers and scientists to cooperate in research to improve agriculture and natural resource management. Local innovations offer entry points for identifying questions of mutual interest to explore together. Taking local innovation seriously reinforces farmers’ selfconfidence to manage and improve the resources on which they depend.

This approach to research and development reflects the very principles of good biodiversity management：appreciating local specificity，valuing and ensuring the continued existence of multiple types of assets（be these genes or creative ideas），keeping possibilities open for adaptation and，thus，assuring resilience and sustainability.