Category: Commodity

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Cacao and conservation

A whole issue of the journal Biodiversity and Conservation looks at how cocoa production landscapes can contribute to biodiversity conservation. There are several papers on specific case studies and also an overview. Most of the discussion is — predictably — about what cacao cultivation can do for biodiversity, but, what about the other way around? The overview does suggest that

it is important to understand trade-offs between productivity and conservation and the economic costs of conservation friendly practices to land users so that more effective policies can be designed… Quantifying the benefits (both short and long-term) of biodiversity within agroforestry landscapes to farm productivity, for example via pest and disease control … requires attention.

What are these biodiversity-friendly practices? Here’s a few ideas, again from the overview:

  • eco-friendly certification
  • research and extension to increase productivity while maintaining diverse tree canopies
  • development of markets for non-cocoa products
  • payment for environmental services

As far as certification is concerned, the Fair Tracing Project may suggest solutions:

The Fair Tracing project believes that attaching tracing technology to Fair Trade products sourced in developing countries will enhance the value of such goods to consumers in the developed world seeking to make ethical purchasing choices.

I’ve just come across this project, and I don’t know much about it. A piece on its web site — basically a blog — about the ICT being used to trace fair trade coffee in Haiti did point me to a rather interesting example of a corporation trying to bridge the digital divide.

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Summer-grass winter-worm

We went to the opening of a new exhibit at the Bioparco di Roma called Bioversitalia last night. The exhibit was fine, although as usual agricultural biodiversity got short-changed a bit, and so was the food on offer. The introductory talk, however, was a thorough disappointment. Not at all inspiring. What the boffins on display should have talked about, perhaps, is things like Cordyceps sinensis, aka དབྱར་རྩྭ་དགུན་འབུ་, aka the “summer-grass winter-worm.”

The summer-grass winter-worm is a parasitic fungus from Tibet which attacks and takes over the bodies of moth larvae living in the soil. Livestock really like to eat the resulting worm-like mummies, which are also used in traditional medicine. They’re a really valuable commodity: what alerted me to their existence was a newspaper piece today about a fatal gun battle that exploded when neighbouring villages clashed over access to this resource.

Now, it is stories such as this one of the medicinal moth-mummifying fungus of Tibet that would really have got people excited in the Bioparco last night about the wonder and importance of biodiversity!

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Orchid to be exploited

Remember the recent post about ylang ylang? Timbuktu Chronicles sent me to an oldish article from South Africa’s Mail & Guardian which lists the tree among Madagascar’s fragrant exports. But the article is really about a rare and threatened Malagasy orchid and how it will be cultivated for the French perfume industry. I hope everyone has their ABS arrangements down tight.