Our occasional contributor Andy Jarvis unleashes the changing geography of agricultural suitability on an unsuspecting world in Copenhagen.
Climate vulnerability in SE Asia mapped
The International Development Research Centre’s Economy and Environment Program for South-East Asia (EEPSEA) has just published a study on the effects of climate change on SE Asia. The authors first mapped climate hazard, including all kinds of different things, from drought to cyclones to sea level rise. They then compared that with maps of population density and adaptive capacity. That allowed them to identify a number of vulnerability hotspots. And here they are, the most vulnerable areas in each country:
All good places in which to start looking for agrobiodiversity to collect for ex situ conservation before it disappears, and in which to test agrobiodiversity for its possible contribution to adaptation.
Nibbles: Aquaculture, Philippines organic, Risk mapping, Jatropha, Plum
- FAO’s Regional Aquaculture Information System (RAIS) website launched. Covers the Gulf states.
- Pinoy farmers urged to go organic.
- Climate change risk mapped in SE Asia. Cambodia surrenders.
- Local weed makes good in Mexico.
- The Prunus mume collection at the Beijing Botanic Garden.
Nibbles: Breeding cucumbers, Seed exchange, Rice ecosystem, Viroids, GIS
- Psst, wanna breed a cucumber? With video goodness.
- Hudson Valley Seed Library.
- “One duck creates boundless treasure.â€
- Potato spindle tuber viroids go back to the beginning of life on Earth. Kinda.
- AGCommons’ Quick Wins: geospatial technology for smallholder farmers. Via.
More on mapping agrobiodiversity threats
Hot on the heels of a map showing how warfare has spared hardly any biodiversity hotspot in the past 50 years comes one on another possible threat to agricultural biodiversity. UNESCO has just announced the publication of its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. There’s a great interactive website all ready for people to start playing with. Below is a screen shot (there doesn’t seem to be a way to export maps, alas) showing critically endangered languages with fewer than 50 speakers in South and Central America. Worldwide there are 318 such languages.
I’d say a disappearing language was a pretty good proxy for risk of crop genetic erosion. So much to mash up, so little time.