Indigenous knowledge systems

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010

Sheep mover honoured

Speaking of shepherds and their flocks trekking through Europe, one of this year’s Guardians of Diversity in the Mediterranean, awarded by Bioversity International and supported by COPEAM, was Jesus Garzón, founder of the NGO Transhumancia y Naturaleza to promote transhumance, the movement of flocks from winter quarters on the plains to mountain pastures for the summer. Here’s the video honouring Garzón at the awards ceremony.

Guardian of Mediterranean Biodiversity Jesus Garzon from Bioversity International on Vimeo.

And here’s some film shot during the transhumance.

May 25, 2010May 25, 2010

Nibbles: Hunter gatherers, Amaranthus and corn in Mexico, Protected areas and poverty, African ag, Pollan, Aquaculture in Laos, Range, Rainforest

Pygmies forced to take up gardening, and they’re mad as hell about it.
An amaranthus a day… And also from Mexico, saving maize from GMO nastiness. Oh, and the NYTimes does a number on maize domestication today to boot.
Protected areas not so bad for people after all. But do they conserve biodiversity effectively? At least when community-managed, that is.
African agriculture in theory and practice. Glib, I know. Get your own blog.
Pollan does his usual shtick. But he does it well.
You are subscribing to Danny’s nutrition thing, are you not? If you were, you’d know about the role of aquatic rice field species in rural Laotian diets.
So how do you restore prairie? Expert opinion summarized and synthesized to within an inch of its life. But you can also hear from a range expert directly.
Ok, so that’s grassland. If you wanted to restore a tropical rainforest you’d have to know about long-distance seed dispersal.

May 20, 2010May 20, 2010

Nibbles: Potato chemistry, Millennium Seed Bank, Sacred sites, Japanese festivals

Measuring micronutrients and stuff in potatoes.
Kew wants you to adopt a seed, save a species. Easy as that.
Maybe religion can do some good in the world after all? Allow me to be skeptical.
Wait, can I change my mind? The wonderfulness that is Japanese penis festivals. Well, they mainly take place in the spring. Agrobiodiversity mainly grows in the spring. There is a connection, surely.

May 18, 2010July 26, 2010

Nibbles: Sorghum and rice and climate change, Pacific agrobiodiversity today and yesterday, Japanese microbiota, Wolf domestication, Organic and fungi, Crop wild relatives, Bees, Hunger, Silk

Sorghum going to need a hand in India. Rice in China? Maybe not so much.
Photos of the 6th Annual Hawaii Seed Exchange.
More Pacific stuff: 3000-year-old Lapita chickens were haplogroup E, “a geographically widespread major haplogroup consisting of European, Middle Eastern, Indian, and Chinese domestic chickens.”
More on that thing about the gut biota being adapted to ethnic diets.
Wolves may have been turned into dogs earlier than previously thought.
Organic farming good for underground mutualists. Which sounds totally appropriate somehow.
Crop wild relatives: all you ever needed to know.
Bring back bees by bringing back the boy scout bee-keeping badge.
Here’s a weird one. US to cut 1.5 trillion calories from food by 2015. And there are 1 billion hungry. You do the math.
Farmers rear endemic moths on intercropped host plants for high quality silk in Madagascar. Enough hot buttons in there for ya?

May 10, 2010May 10, 2010

Nibbles: Allanblackia domestication, Rampion census, Mali reforestation, Indian sacred groves, Oysters, Seaweeds, Breeding organics, EMBRAPA, Fisheries bycatch, Writing NUS proposals, Nutrition mag, Biofortification

Boffins trying to domesticate Allanblackia for its oil.
Phyteuma spicatum must be saved, British folklore depends on it. How about domesticating it?
Farmers replanting forest in inland Niger delta. Sort of domesticating the forest, you mean?
And here’s another domesticated forest, this time in Kerala.
Are oysters domesticated? And seaweeds? Lots of uses for seaweeds, after all.
Why plant breeding is incompatible with organic agriculture. Eh? First of a trilogy.
Management of plant genetic resources in Brazil deconstructed.
Oh dear, now boffins say avoiding bycatch may not be good after all.
CTA calls for research notes in preparation for proposal writing workshop on neglected and underutilized plants.
New Sight and Life magazine is out, with interesting discussions of Vitamin A supplementation in newborns and HIV patients.
While at Scidev.net HarvestPlus defends biofortified crops against charge of medicalizing micronutrient deficiency.