Featured: Protected areas

Nigel sort of agrees with Dave on the usefulness of protected areas:

Dave is interestingly provocative and I have a lot of sympathy with his frustration which I at least in part share!

But you just know there’s a “but…” coming up. And indeed there is. In spades. Read the whole thing. Then have your say.

Oh, and there’s more on this discussion here, from Danny and Jeremy.

Featured: Conservation

Peter Matthews attempts to mediate between agriculture and nature:

I think if the nature-conservation ethic could extend further into agricultural landscapes, then there would be more room to extend the development-ethic into natural landscapes. Lets say 20% for nature, 60% for nature and us, and 20% just for us? What are we aiming for, if we have any aims?

So, let’s all hear it for the Satoyama Initiative and “socio-ecological production landscapes”?

Featured: Genetic erosion

Our innocuous post on genetic erosion in Georgia elicits consternation from Dirk at the lack of proper reference to previous work, support from Eliseu by analogy with a similar study in Portugal, and the usual diatribe from Luigi about the level of discourse on genetic erosion. But really, it was all about the threshing board.

Featured: Spatial data

Glenn tells us Google is all people need to find the spatial data they need.

Whether we could find spatial data from Google or whether we need some kind of special setup has not yet been fully resolved… I understand that Google is working on some protocols for finding spatial data. But my sense is that this question has been put on the back burner because people don’t think it is all that relevant. They can seem to find what they need.

One less thing for the CG to do, I guess.

Featured: Taro leaf blight in Cameroon

Zachee Ngoko confirms many experts’ worst fears about a new taro disease in Cameroon:

Our investigation, confirmed by CABI showed that P. colocassiae is the agent responsible in Cameroon from lab. analysis and rapid mount… But we are in the process of having more information on the situation with the help from CABI/Global Plant Clinic, UK. More information will come out as soon as available.