Forests & trees

March 26, 2008March 26, 2008

Nibbles: potato, EU catalogue, trees, cocoa

Boffins discuss potatoes in Cuzco. The media are duly alerted.
Dominique Guillet (M. Kokopelli) offers his French history of the EU Common Catalogue. Jeremy comments: “You translate it, we’ll post it”.
Tanzanian women making money from tree diversity.
“UK committed to Ghanaian cocoa farmers.” And to cacao diversity?
Yams in trouble in Nigeria. Make that foufou to go.

March 22, 2008March 22, 2008

Follow your tree in Google Earth

I agree with Frank Taylor at Google Earth Blog: it is a really good idea. You go to mybabytree.org, pay $5.50, and WWF plants a tree (you have a choice of 3 species) for you in Sebangau National Forest in Kalimantan, Indonesia, and sends you a KML file of its location. How about doing the same for heirloom varieties of fruit trees or something?

February 10, 2008February 11, 2008

Of rats, bamboo and semelparous mass flowering

Over at Ecosystem and Poverty, our friend and occasional guest contributor Andy is asking whether anyone has a use for bamboo flowering culms… BTW, thanks for linking to our latest posts, Andy.

February 4, 2008

Talking Plants

NPR’s Talking Plants blogger is in the Amazon.

January 16, 2008November 28, 2017

FAO developing forestry strategy

…and you can download the discussion document and comment on it here. Via ~~Non-Wood Forest Products Newsletter~~¹.

1. Ancient farmers didn’t have to wait for the genetic diversity that made domestication possible. They selected from variation already present in wild plants, including the ancestors of rice and maize. Domestication was as much about spotting (or happening upon) useful differences as creating new ones.
2. English colonists in America called Indigenous dogs “wolves,” revealing as much about colonial perceptions as about the animals themselves. This history of Indigenous dogs shows how unfamiliar animals were classified through peculiarly European ideas about wildness.
3. Austria is bringing forgotten apple varieties back to life. Saving old varieties in genebanks is one thing: getting people to grow, sell and eat them is another, but it can be done. Or at least tried.
4. Jordan’s olive-oil heritage centres on traditional varieties such as Nabali and ancient Rumi trees, but most production is consumed locally, leaving exports limited and making provenance, cultivar and harvest date important indicators for buyers. Compare and contrast with Austrian apples.
5. Small island developing states have distinctive food cultures and ingredients, but face particular challenges in building sustainable and resilient food systems. FAO’s A Taste of SIDS explores the connections between island food, biodiversity and culinary heritage. Nice to see diversity within crops considered, though a few local variety names would have been nice.
Published on October 21, 2026