Category: Genebanks

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Yams in New Caledonia

Danny has just sent me this great old postcard from New Caledonia: “Preparations for a family celebration.” You can see how central yams are to Kanak culture. In 2004 the Kanak Traditional Senate established a Conservatoire de l’Igname. I never visited it, but I saw photos of it when a couple of the people responsible, including a senator, came to our regional plant genetic resources network meeting in Fiji a couple of years ago, and it looked great. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to have much of an online presence.  Yet.

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Classifying conservation actions

An article in PLoS Biology recently suggested that IUCN should change the classification system it uses for protected areas (PAs). ((Change the IUCN Protected Area Categories to Reflect Biodiversity Outcomes Boitani L, Cowling RM, Dublin HT, Mace GM, Parrish J, et al. PLoS Biology Vol. 6, No. 3, e66 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0060066.)) Currently reflecting management intent (e.g. “National Park: managed mainly for ecosystem protection and recreation”), the idea would be for the new categories to rather “be based on the quality and quantity of the contribution of each PA to conservation of biodiversity (and associated sociocultural values).” So: actual result, rather than intent; and “what ” and “how much” rather than “how.” Seems like a pretty good idea. And it also seems like the concept could be applied not just to protected areas, but to conservation actions in general. That would spell the doom of the tired old in situ/ex situ dichotomy. Not a minute too soon, as far as I’m concerned.