- You’ve heard of alternative lifestyles? Now read all about alternative pollinators.
- Why should we spend money digitizing natural history collections?
- Not all quinoa cultivars may be good for celiacs.
- The largest comparative growth experiment ever. Hope some of the 600+ species are crop wild relatives.
- Mangroves trap heavy metals. And sequester a lot of carbon. But they are moving. Thank goodness there’s lots of ways to value the services they provide.
- CABI’s Plantwise Knowledge Bank is online.
- Kew boffins blow up coffee. The genus, settle down.
Nibbles: Social CRP, Coconut genebank, Rice breeding, Conservation debate, Mongolian herders, American chestnut, Marine conservation
- CGIAR Research Programme on Roots, Tuber and Bananas gets a blog to go with its Facebook page and Twitter feed.
- Coconut clones? I don’t think so.
- Rice yield gene? I don’t think so.
- NY Times hosts a debate on conservation, and genebanks get a look-in.
- Mongolia’s reindeer herders get some advice.
- “My great grandfather’s legacy is something I grew up knowing and respecting, but my parents’ conservation ethic is something that I have always lived.”
- Marine reserves can be good for fish. And abalone?
Forests and Trees: Serving the People of Africa and the World
There’s a big forestry meeting going on in Nairobi, with that title. You can see photos. IISD are on it, of course. And ICRAF and others are twittering up a storm.
No matter how much you market it, people have to see value for your product in order to use it. – Onsango KEFRI #ForestPolicy
— CIFOR-ICRAF (@CIFOR_ICRAF) June 28, 2012
How is agriculture being presented? As the enemy, as usual? Or is the “landscape approach” rhetoric gaining purchase? Anyone want to share their impressions with us?
Forest data up the wazoo
Ok, so let’s recap, there’s the Global Forest Disturbance Alert System (GloF-DAS), then there’s InfoAmazonia.org (also, like GloF-DAS, written up by Mongabay.com), and finally (?) there’s Terra-i, which has just got a write up by the NY Times, no less. All online mapping platforms. All nicely interactive. All about forests. All doing somewhat different, but related, things. You just have to wonder if there might not be some mileage in bringing them together in some way.
Nibbles: Agroforestry award, Medieval agrobiodiversity, Agricultural R&D, Fermentation, Climate-smart agriculture, Drought, Aleurites moluccana, Language erosion, Sri Lanka, Livestock, Peas
- My friend Zac bags a well-deserved award.
- Agricultural diversity in the Middle Ages: squirrels and cotton. And there’s probably more where those came from…
- Keeping score on agricultural research spending.
- Fermentables interview.
- What does this climate-smart agriculture look like anyway?
- And do they ever need it in the American midwest.
- And what in blazes is candlenut?
- A tool for documenting endangered languages. Maybe endangered landraces or crops one day too…
- Documented: One Sri Lankan farmer’s thoughts on sustainable agriculture.
- Not to mention the plusses and minuses of livestock — straight from the horse’s mouth.
- And the myth that will not die: King Tut’s peas alive and thriving. Kudos to Jackson Holtz, a properly skeptical reporter.