Video, slideshow and more on IRRI’s work.
Breadfruit overlooked
USAToday has done a nice write-up of the National Tropical Botanical Gardens in Hawaii, but, unaccountably, this does not even mention the work of the Breadfruit Institute, which is a department of the NTBG. I blogged about the Institute and Diane Ragone’s pioneering efforts in breadfruit conservation not too long ago. They really should get more exposure. But so should other NTBG work on cultivated plants, such as the restoration of the taro terraces at Limahuli, which are now used to grow various varieties of a number of traditional Hawaiian crops. There’s a photo of the terraces in the USAToday piece, but the text is entirely about wild plants. Important stuff, but why leave out the amazing work going on in agricultural biodiversity?
Horse diversity
The wonders of livestock breeding.
The benefits of sharing
A post in Google Earth Blog alerted me to the great efforts by staff and students at the Faculty of Agronomy and Forest Engineering at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile to geo-tag the specimens in their herbarium. They’ve produced a Google Earth kml file to show hundreds of collecting locations throughout the country. Below are the localities of Persea lingue, a congener of the avocado, though I’m not sure how closely related they are. It’s threatened, according to IUCN, and indeed there’s only a couple of specimens in the herbarium, quite near each other:
Preserving rare breeds at the grassroots level
Because there is only modest interest by most national governments in the preservation of rare farm animal breeds, much of this work is done by non-governmental organizations. ((Contributed by Michael Kubisch.)) These are often operated on shoestring budgets and frequently require some pretty imaginative financial acrobatics to exist. Below is a list of some of these organizations. I realize it is likely to be incomplete — lists like this always are — but I hope it’s at least a fair representation of the types of organizations that are involved in this effort. Some are simply umbrella organizations of breeders of specific breeds, while others have actual facilities that produce animals. Some focus on one breed, while others have a barnyard full of different critters.
I can personally attest to the effectiveness of the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy, having been a member a while back, but I don’t really want to provide any specific endorsements here. If you think rare breed preservation is a worthwhile endeavor (and who wouldn’t), check out these websites, and if you find an organization that appeals to you, join and support it. If, on the other hand, I have omitted your favorite organization, just post a comment with a link and I will publish a more complete list in the future.
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