Prof. Jack Hawkes, a pioneer and a giant of the science — and practice — of plant genetic resources conservation and use, is dead at 92.
International Kitchen Garden Day
Did you know there’s an International Kitchen Garden Day on the fourth Sunday of August each year? Neither did I, but it’s a good way of celebrating agrobiodiversity, isn’t it? Anyway, I got to hear about it via a wiki on Sustainable Community Action that Danny has just blogged about over at Rurality.
Access and benefit sharing discussed… again
All too often it seems as if the “debate” on access to genetic resources (and the sharing of the benefits derived from access and use ((Together known as “access and benefit sharing,” or ABS.)) mostly consists of people talking past each other. Today we have, from the animal genetic resources conference at Interlaken, a statement to the effect that the talking is coming at the expense of urgent action on conservation. Meanwhile, we have more talking from an international workshop in Beijing on genetic resources and indigenous knowledge, ((Held in Beijing on 4 September, but I can’t find further information about it on the CBD website, or anywhere else for that matter! Maybe someone out there can educate me?)) where Gurdial Singh Nijar, a law professor at the University of Malaya in Malaysia, said that:
Developing countries are losing out because their laws do not specify which resources should be paid for and how… This is due to the lack of a legal definition of what constitutes payable genetic resources, and clarity on who owns these resources: national governments or local communities of origin.
Scottish oaks
Protecting an ancient oak forest in Scotland.
Danny goes solo
You may remember some of Danny Hunter’s excellent contributions to this blog, for example his take on the importance of mentoring in helping to enhance scientific research capacity in developing countries. He also recently kicked off a fascinating discussion on the worldwide distribution of the practice of floating-bed cultivation.
Well, no doubt inspired by our example, Danny’s got a brand new blog of his own now. It’s called Rurality, and its mission is to:
collect and share information relevant to rural development in an Irish context by exploring commonalities between global and local experiences and practices. By generating discussion and debate, it hopes to construct information that will be accessible in one place, and of value, to people with an interest in rural living.
Do check it out, it’s really great. We’ve added Rurality to our blogroll, and we’ll be visiting Danny regularly for his thoughts on agrobiodiversity.