Author: Luigi Guarino

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Wild fruit relatives threatened in Central Asia

Fauna & Flora International and Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) have published a Red List of Trees of Central Asia. This is part of the Global Trees Campaign.

The new report identifies 44 tree species in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan as globally threatened with extinction. Many of these species occur in the unique fruit and nut forests of Central Asia, an estimated 90% of which have been destroyed in the past 50 years.

One of the threatened fruit trees is the red-fleshed Malus niedzwetzkyana, from Kyrgyzstan.

Working with the Kyrgyz National Academy of Sciences, the Global Trees Campaign is identifying populations of this rare tree in Kyrgyzstan and taking measures to improve their conservation. With distinctive red-fleshed fruit, the Niedzwetzky apple is an excellent flagship for the conservation and sustainable management of this beleagured forest type.

The report is available online.

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The Last

On seeing our recent post on the tahr, Carol Halberstadt contacted us saying that she had written the following poem in 2000 after reading an article in the Boston Globe about hunters killing the last Arabian wolf and the last tahr. Unfortunately, I can’t find the article in question, but clearly the demise of the tahr was exaggerated.

Imagine the loneliness
of the last wolf, her howl
unheard in the wilderness,
his place unmade.
What small tear in time remains?
They are lost with the untamed sheep,
gone from the hills.
Horns that summoned
the birthday of the world
are still, the rock
their feet wore, emptied,
the paths unfilled.

The bison walk this way,
shaggy and gentle.

(©2/29/00 Carol Snyder Halberstadt – used by permission)

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Featured: Cretan wild date palm

Prof. Heywood gives us holiday advice:

In fact, Phoenix theophrasti grows in nine coastal localities in Crete. See here (scroll down to the English text!). That at Moni Preveli, which I have visited several times, is an inlet by a popular tourist beach and you can view the Phoenix populations by pedalo! Very laid-back way of botanising.

Sounds ideal!

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The great Gatsby teaching resource

The Gatsby Charitable Foundation, which funds plant science research in the UK, established Gatsby Plants as a National Teaching Facility for Plant Sciences 4 years ago. The project has received continued funding until 2011.

Gatsby Plants aims to enthuse undergraduate students to study plant science further through two initiatives which expose them to the exciting developments in plant science and the scientists leading this research. These are:

  • an annual Summer School for high-achieving 1st year undergraduate students from UK Universities
  • a Teaching Resource providing plant science lecturers with access to novel and inspiring teaching material

Very worthy. I’ve been having a look at the teaching materials in particular. You need to register to get access.

The majority of materials have been kindly contributed by members of the plant science research community (see Terms of Use for how to credit their efforts). Gatsby Plants has also negotiated access to material from some commercial organisations and is actively involved in generating novel content.

There’s a number of lectures with definite agrobiodiversity interest, for example one by Prof. Peter Beyer, University of Freiburg, Germany on “Golden Rice on a Mission” and another from Dr Peter Craufurd on “Crop Science for Development: A Journey from the Laboratory to Farmers’ Fields in the Tropics.” And another: Prof. Monique Simmonds of Kew entitled “Plants in our Lives: from Beauty to Death.” You get a video of the lecturer delivering the talk, with accompanying slides. If you want your students to view the lecture you contact Gatsby Plants and they send you a username and password which allows access to a URL.

You also get practicals (there’s one on pea genetics), images and movies.

I would imagine they could be very useful to trainers, although I must say it would have been nice to be able to also download the presentation and adapt it to one’s particular situation and audience. Anyone out there with training resources on agricultural biodiversity to share? How about on CWRs, for example?

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Rokupr rotting away

An opinion piece in the Awareness Times of Sierra Leone decries the current parlous state of Rokupr Agricultural Research Station. It starts, however, by waxing lyrical abut the past.

Established about half a century and decade ago, the Rokupr Rice Research Station was a darling vision of the early colonialists who among other considerations were fascinated by the fertile ecologies and enviable terrain of the Scarcies coastline… With rice as a popular diet in West Africa and around the world, Sierra Leone in the shadows of Rokupr Rice Research was put on the spot light of fame and popularity. Rokupr became internationally known.

Indeed. And not only for rice breeding, but also for being at the forefront of the scientific thinking about on-farm conservation of plant genetic resources in the 1990’s, as part of the Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation Project. Alas,…

…[t]he present condition of Rokupr Rice Research is dismal. The one time elegant roads in the station premises are presently all gorges and death traps. The compound remains uncared for. Trees, shrubs and grass have overgrown and form a canopy over the compound. The trees are dens for giant snakes and other poisonous pests. Research trial fields are abandoned. There are no resident senior staffs and research activities have been suspended for ages. The compound looks marooned and deserted. The aura of research is dilapidated. Laboratories and staff quarters are ransacked and in dear need of renovation. Staff morale, dedication, and motivation are low and devoid of promise.

A pity, especially since an alumnus of the station was minister of agriculture until fairly recently. Who will save Rokupr?