- Ecological manifesto cum plant giveway cum art. ‘Nuff said.
- The effects non-native plants have on native plants and pollinators. Say what?
- Old books minable for ancient wisdom. You don’t say.
DIVERSEEDS puts out DVD
DIVERSEEDS is a scientific project supported fully by the European Commission´s 6th framework programme. We are “Networking on conservation and use of plant genetic resources in Europe and Asia.”
And I think we may have mentioned them before. Anyway, the latest news from the network is that they have a DVD out:
This documentary shows why biodiversity is important for agriculture and how it is conserved and used in many different locations in Europe and Asia.
The DVD costs about US$40, but you can get a discount if you order five or more. I haven’t seen it, so I can’t tell you much more about it. But the contents seems to consist of a series of fifteen or so short (average 3 minutes) films on a wide variety of agrobiodiversity conservation and use initiatives, ranging from the Austrian NGO Arche Noah, to the Thai genebank, to crop wild relatives in the Fertile Crescent, to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. I’ll try to get hold of a copy and report.
Livestock videos on YouTube
FAO’s Animal Genetic Resources Group has a YouTube channel. The latest addition is “Keepers of Genes — India’s pastoralists and their breeds.”
The League of Pastoral People has teamed up with award-winning documentary filmmakers, Moving Images to produce a series of films on pastoralism. Films have proved a very powerful tool for visually transporting policymakers into the situation of pastoralists. The first film in the series, Keepers of Genes, focuses on the role of pastoralists in conserving biodiversity.
Depictions of sacred plants in Maya pottery investigated
Hot on the heels of the belated identification of the “penis pepper” depicted on Moche pottery comes more news of ethnobotanical detective work involving plant iconography. Natural historian and archaeologist Charles Zidar of the Missouri Botanical Garden and botanist Wayne Elisens of the University of Oklahoma looked at 2,500 images from southern lowland Maya (Belize, Guatemala and Mexico) ceramics dated to the Classical Period (AD 250 to 900). They focused on depictions of Bombacoideae, “which are easily identified morphologically and have culinary, medicinal, ceremonial, economic, and cosmological significance to the Maya.” Of the ten species present in the area, four or five were found represented on the ceramics.
“I was surprised that a variety of plants from this family were depicted,” says Zidar.
Among them is Ceiba pentandra:
Considered the “first tree”, or “world tree”, the ceiba was thought to stand at the centre of the Earth. Modern indigenous people still often leave the tree alone out of respect when harvesting forest wood.
The thorny trunks of the ceiba tree are represented by ceramic pots used as burial urns or incense holders, which are designed in a strikingly similar fashion.
Investigation of the plant images is continuing, and is being extended to animals. Here’s Zinder again:
By determining what plants were of importance to the ancient Maya, it is my hope that identified plants can be further studied for pharmaceutical, culinary, economic and ceremonial uses. More should be done to conserve large tracts of forest in order to properly study theses plants for their value to mankind.
LATER: By the way, there are some depictions of plants in Mayan art which have yet to be identified.
Melaku Worede on the Seed Treaty
“Ex-situ gene banks have an important role to play. But we’ve been trying to save seed in gene banks for the last half century, with more failures than successes. To ensure a sustained supply of useful germplasm and a more dynamic system of keeping diversity alive, we must support farmers in maintaining seed in their field. If we lose this living diversity Africa and the world will not be able to adjust to climate change,” Worede said.