Somewhere this morning I read something silly from a conservation whiner that the mainstream media would pay more attention to Paris Hilton taking a pee in South Africa, or 10 murders, than the loss of 10 wild species. I didn’t even bother to bookmark it, so familiar was the sentiment. To redress the balance, here’s an entirely new banana cultivar, heretofore unknown to science, spotted by Luigi on the proMusa website and shared with the world via Twitter. It was collected in Oman in 2003 or 2004 and grown on in Germany. I’m not sure yet what it is good for, although it is drought resistant. And “[t]he authors speculate that the variety, which they named Umq Bi’r, might have reached Oman many centuries ago via Zanzibar, Madagascar or the Comoros”. More interesting than Paris Hilton taking a pee? You bet!
Nibbles: Orissa, Salatin, Economic impact, Olives, Food security, Lettuce, Chayote
- Koraput, in Orissa state, India, is about to be recognized as a globally important agriculture heritage system, which is nice.
- Chemical-free farmer has enough.
- How much is that drought-tolerant maize really worth?
- UK now has home-grown olives, seven varieties. Luigi says: “And so it begins …”
- Food security for the faint of heart. A book for people, not policy-makers.
- What was the cultural significance of the iceberg salad? Answers win a great book.
- CIAT touts its chayote success story in Vietnam. Nice film.
Stop deforestation with pretty videos
With regard to the false choice between rainforests and beef, here’s a nice little bit of propaganda.
I expect it plays better on Central Park West and Holland Park than in Brazil or Indonesia, and a single tree downed by a chainsaw is no match for two Caterpillar tractors chugging through the rainforest linked by a massive chain. My question is this: what does the video, pretty and moving though it is, want me to do? All may be revealed on Earth Day 2010, apparently.
Thanks to Jeremy Yoder, who found it originally at kottke.
Featured: Database discussions
Elizabeth synthesizes!
yes scientists do use social network tools like the common of human being! It is not incompatible with using books, inventories and databases. < … snip … >
I would suggest tagging this discussion with few keywords (perhaps using an automatic ‘tagger’ ), e.g. the name of the varieties involved in the pedigrees and trait names so we could link this discussion to a web site, to the content of a scientific or bibliographic database or a photos repository, etc.
Good thinking. We probably don’t make nearly enough use of tags for things like species names. NB: Commenters can add tags (I think).
Oh dear: biodiversity in the firing line
Richard Black, a BBC environment correspondent, has stirred up the most remarkable hornet’s nest with a post yesterday predicting that the conservation of biodiversity would become as controversial as climate change — at least to a rabid few — because both require people to change the way they live. He analyses US objections to ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity and points out that the fear that the CBD might cramp unfettered US access to the world’s biodiversity was the underlying reason for many of the politicians who blocked ratification. And here’s how he explains the problem:
Here’s a hypothetical example raised at the InterAcademy panel meeting.
Let’s say you want to protect the Amazon rainforest and the rich biodiversity it contains.
One way you might look to do that is by reducing deforestation; and one of the main causes of Amazonian deforestation is clearance for cattle ranches.
So you might choose to campaign among Western consumers, or to lobby Western governments, to reduce the amount of beef consumed on Western plates; less beef equals more trees.
Does the issue look uncontroversial now?
See! Farming and the supply of food is the enemy of biodiversity conservation. Black doesn’t actually talk about the need to conserve the biodiversity on which our food supply depends — although buried among the outpourings from commenters who agree that biodiversity is useless and has no value are some who point out that it might help to feed us. But hey, who cares about that?
Thanks to catofstripes for the pointer.