Brits record waxcaps. World holds its breath.
Cutting down on cow emissions
Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and ruminant farm animals belch out a huge amount of the stuff. No wonder people are scouring agrobiodiversity for animal feeds that minimise emissions. A paper in Animal Feed Science and Technology ((C.R. Soliva, A.B. Zeleke, C. Clement, H.D. Hess, V. Fievez and M. Kreuzer. In vitro screening of various tropical foliages, seeds, fruits and medicinal plants for low methane and high ammonia generating potentials in the rumen. Animal Feed Science and Technology. Corrected Proof, Available online 18 October 2007. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.anifeedsci.2007.09.009)) has come up trumps. The researchers found differences in methane production not just among tropical feed species, but also among accessions of Acacia angustissima and Sesbania sesban. Something to add to the list of evaluation descriptors.
One village at a time
The Guardian Group in the UK has got together with Amref and Barclays to try “to enlist your help in improving the lives of the people of Katine sub-county, in north-east Uganda.” They call the initiative It Starts with a Village. And they say its aim is to lift Katine out of the Middle Ages, a time of “civil war, plague and ignorance.”
What do we hope to achieve over the three years of the plan? Quite a lot, we hope. In consultation with the people of Katine, Amref has drawn up an overview of local needs and a comprehensive plan (PDF file) for how it hopes to meet them.
That’s a lot of hope. In the agriculture sector, the workplan includes, among other things, organizing farmers’ groups, introducing and testing new crops and varieties, doing marketing studies and improving local marketing skills. You can get an idea of the challenges ahead by reading about Esau Edonu, a local farmer, and watching a short video. There does seem to be an awareness of the importance of agrobiodiversity, for example to adapt to climate change. Maybe the emphasis is a little too much on bringing in new things for the market. Anyway, the strong focus on adding value locally to agricultural biodiversity is surely a good idea.
I’m not sure what to think of this effort to privatize aid. Is it just another example of well-intentioned but ill-conceived European do-gooding in Africa? Or does it stand a chance of making a difference? I’ll be following its progress on the project blog. Maybe I’ll even make a donation…
Climate change will cause more than extinction
A comment in Conservation Biology this month ((D.K. Skelly et al. (2007) Evolutionary Responses to Climate Change. Conservation Biology 21 (5), 1353–1355. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2007.00764.x)) criticizes a recent paper in the same journal ((J.R. Malcolm (2006) Global Warming and Extinctions of Endemic Species from Biodiversity Hotspots. Conservation Biology 20 (2), 538–548. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2006.00364.x)) which estimated that up to 43% of the endemic biota in some biodiversity hotspots could go extinct as a result of global climate change.
While not disputing that climate change will cause extinctions, the authors of the comment suggest that the climate envelope approach to predicting range changes ((That’s the same kind of approach that’s been used by our friend Andy Jarvis and others to predict dire consequences for the wild relatives of the peanut, potato and cowpea.)) ignores the possibility that species may in fact evolve in response to changes in the climate. And they quote evidence that such genetic change is happening.
Continue reading “Climate change will cause more than extinction”
Rice, China and climate change
Remember Jeremy has an omnibus post about Chinese agrobiodiversity.