Bring biodiversity to the table

30 July 2010. What is the impact on biodiversity of the choices you make for your diet? How can these choices help protect nature?

The vegetarian restaurant Bem-me-quer in Portugal launched a project aiming to show that a simple dish can contain millions of years of species evolution. The project, titled “Biodiversidade à Mesa – como proteger Natureza com faca e garfo” (Biodiversity at the table – how to protect Nature with the fork and knife), is inspired by rural development models, nature conservation, eco-entrepreneuring, and communication.

The central idea is to analyze and understand the value and impact of people’s every-day food choices, and the important role that traditional agriculture has played over millennia to bring us crop varieties.

Each month a Portuguese region is represented in the vegetarian dishes available at the restaurant. In this way Bem-me-quer offers its clients an array of dishes made of regional ingredients and prepared in a traditional way.

While the restaurant’s dining space is used to showcase conservation and biodiversity enrichment projects in the region, the upper floor hosts a “grocery shop”. The shop offers a variety of organic, “ecological” products from various regions. This not only strengthens the region-product-community link, but also allows people to buy organic products for their home cuisine.

Bem-me-quer collaborates with other companies, including AmBioDiv, another Countdown 2010 partner, in organizing debating cycles, friendly gatherings and various activities related to the protection of the nature and conservation of biodiversity in Portugal.

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