Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
The Equator Initiative, a United Nations-led partnership that supports grassroots efforts in biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation, has selected 25 winners of the Equator Prize 2008.
And here they all are. Lots of great stuff there on agrobiodiversity conservation and use. Somewhat invidious to single anyone out, but I can’t resist. Check out in particular the work of the Unión de Organizaciones Campesinas e Indígenas de Cotacachi.
Ranching in South America tends to get a bad press because it is often associated with Amazonian deforestation, but of course there are vast swathes of the continent where it makes good environmental sense, as well as economic. ((For a discussion of the related question of the bad press that pastoralism gets, see this post in CABI’s blog, which coincidentally came out just a few hours after I posted this.)) The Pampas grasslands of Argentina are a case in point. The home of gaucho culture ((Which, incidentally, is not as homogeneous and predictable as one might think.)), the Pampas are undergoing drastic change. The soybean boom is not just having an effect on the livestock industry, but also, perhaps surprisingly, on honeymaking. Much smaller in value, no doubt, than either soybeans or livestock, but these are not times to pass up on diversification.