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.

map1

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.

Mapping agrobiodiversity, then and now

france ag map

I found this great 19th agricultural map of France at Mapping the Marvelous, a feed I’ve only recently subscribed to which is proving a real find. It was linked there to a post about city orchards at a blog called Food Mapping, a “visual exploration and mapping out of the issues surrounding local food, including the associated debates regarding economics, environmentalism, geography, sustainability and taste.” That’s also gone into the feed reader.

Nibbles: Easter Island, Quail, Kimchi, Assisted migration, Solar, Training materials, Ancient wine squared, Economics, Wild food