Featured: Enough with the factsheets already

Michael says what Luigi was too much of a wuss to do more than imply:

These factsheets can be nice corporate/project hand-outs, if well done, but otherwise a waste of time. When I need information on baobab or other useful plants, I certainly will not go to an institutional website to look for factsheets. I google, and what usually comes up is a Wikipedia article (as for baobab) with oftentimes far better information.

Can one ever have too many factsheets on the baobab?

Baobab pepsi
Fresh on the heels of Bioversity’s ‘African Priority Food Tree Species’ factsheet on the baobab, which was itself fresh on the heels of the Agroforestree database factsheet on the baobab, we now have, again from Bioversity, another, ahem, factsheet on the baobab. Well, this is different. I think. It’s part of a series on neglected and underutilized species. Or maybe nutritious and underutilized, as they are also described on the website. Maybe because it’s becoming difficult to call the baobab neglected. In fact, with the recent update of a review of the use of the species, perhaps the time has come for a meta-factsheet on the baobab.

How to implement the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources

A very useful message on DAD-Net brings us all up to date “on progress in the development of the set of guidelines that FAO is developing to support policy-makers and technical experts in the implementation of the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources…” Here’s the state of play:

Two observations. The first is that I wish we plant people were so organized. And the second is that surely a place could be found on the FAO or DAD-IS website for such a list.