According to this article in The Independent, “Nature conservationists have called on the Government to protect Britain’s traditional orchards from further destruction, on the grounds that cultivated fruit trees provide a rich habitat for wildlife.” Good to see that their value in providing a rich habitat for traditional varieties of fruit trees is not going unnoticed!
Linking the agri to the cultural
FAO’s Globally Important Agriculture Heritage Systems (GIAHS) initiative is a potentially really cool way of linking agricultural and cultural heritage. They’ll be having a forum about it in Rome later this month. This will contribute to the development of projects in the following places:
- the Inca farming systems of the Peruvian Andes
- the oases of the Maghreb countries
- the integrated rice-fish system in China
- the Ifugao rice terraces systems in the Philippines
- Chiloé Island, one of the world centres of origin of potatoes