Funding

July 23, 2011

Contribute to video on culture of breadfruit in Hawaii

Your contribution to our Kickstarter campaign will help us to edit and distribute a web-series of video interviews with Hawaiian cultural experts on the culture and history of breadfruit and what breadfruit means for the future of Hawai‘i.

25 days and $3,660 to go. Please give generously! 22 people already have. And isn’t Kickstarter a great idea?

July 22, 2011July 22, 2011

Nibbles: AnGR, Fruit trees, IBC18, Tree pollination, Solomon Islands and climate change, Octopus diversity, Seed saving

Livestock diversity in the hands of FAO. No comment.
Let them eat fruit!
AoB breaks down International Botanical Congress 18 for us.
Species-poor tree plantations could be good for conservation of rare tree found in remnant forest patches in Chile because they encourage pollinators to move on. Agriculture, on other hand, is bad because it lures generalist pollinators into staying. Nature, don’t you just love it?
Climate-proofing the Solomon Islands to include “the isolation of crop species tolerant of high salinity, high rainfall, and drought.” Strewth.
Marine diversity. (Only kidding.)
Good advice on home seed saving from Suzanne Ashworth. She wrote the (a?) book.

July 9, 2011May 23, 2022

Nibbles: IRRI genebank, Andeans, Satoyama, Forestry fellowship

IRRI explains its rice genebank. Is this new? Why are so many pages on the internets undated?
Owen takes his Andean roots and tubers to another county. NatGeo not interested.
FAO recognizes two Satoyama sites as Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems, making eight in total.
Sub-Saharan Foresty Funding from the 2011 Abdou-Salam Ouédraogo fellowship.

July 1, 2011June 30, 2011

An apple a decade

So word has it that the Convention on Biological Diversity people will be handing out apples (or models of apples) with the logo of the Decade of Biodiversity on them during the 66th session of the UN General Assembly in New York City this September. Including to President Obama. The only photograph I’ve been able to find of these fruits comes from Nagoya last year, but they don’t look like heirloom varieties to me. An opportunity missed?

June 29, 2011July 1, 2011

Educate girls, plant a school garden, promote biodiversity

What’s not to like?

NewImage

This post is simply an abuse of authorial rights to promote a project. I just received the second project report from Educate 1300 Girls By Restoring A Marrakech Garden, which I am supporting via Global Giving. Why that project? Because it is relevant to me in all sorts of ways. Maybe to you too; they still need to raise about $15,000.

During the past academic year, thirty students conducted their own field research by interviewing Marrakechi herbalists about important cultural recipes. [The Global Diversity Foundation] is now organizing a database of the girls’ findings, titled, “An Ethnobotanical Study of Five Traditional Women’s Recipes.” In the autumn of this year, the girls will be able to re-examine, analyze, and discuss their own data. We hope that this will be the first of many such educational initiatives at Lalla Aouda Saadia.

I look forward to the next report, which I hope will tell me more about those traditional recipes, and to the garden’s continued growth.