Author: Luigi Guarino

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Micronesian canoe making on the wane

How many plants does it take to make a canoe? Well, according to a great paper in the latest Conservation Biology, the answer is 27, at least in Pohnpei, both wild and cultivated. Unfortunately, canoe-making skills and knowledge are eroding fast: “Given current trends, the present generation of Pohnpeians may be the last to retain any knowledge of this traditional craft.” The authors issue a bit of a challenge at the end of their paper:

Because of the immense scale of traditional knowledge erosion in virtually all areas of the globe, we invite other researchers, conservationists, and development workers to assess the loss of traditional knowledge and practices, identify areas for interventions, and help make those interventions happen in the areas where they work. Efforts at strengthening awareness of the link between culture and the environment can be very helpful in supporting local conservation programs, and important for personal, community, and environmental well-being around the world.

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Long-crowing chicken origins

You may have noticed a neat new feature on the blog. There’s a “Show on map” link after some of the latest postings which whisks you off to a pointer to the geographic location of the story. Jeremy will say a bit more about how he did it and why later on. I bring it up now because it was the reason why I stumbled on an interesting paper.

You remember that video of the long-crowing chicken from a few days back? Well, how do you geo-tag that? Where does the weird creature come from? The caption on MySapceTV says that it is a pure-bred Totenko cockerel. If you google that, one of the things you get pointed to is a DNA study that suggests that this and a couple of other long-crowers were bred on Okinawa from fighting cocks from southern China or Indochina. Want to see exactly where Okinawa is? Click below…