Category: Indigenous knowledge systems

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Equator prize winners bank on biodiversity

The five winners of the United Nations Development Programme Equator Prize shared US$1.5 million and something else: biodiversity. Of the five, three depend squarely on biodiversity, one is managing a natural resource more effectively, and one educates people about biodiversity.

The village of Andavadoaka in Madagascar was among the winners, honoured for demonstrating how it managed an octopus fishery so that it can provide sustainable long-term benefits.

In Kenya, the Shompole Community Trust won for conserving the country’s vast and scenic grasslands and savannah as part of a profit-making ecotourism venture for the local Masai people.

In Guatemala, the women of Alimentos Nutri-Naturales won the prize for reinstating the Maya nut as a staple source of nutrition and this conserving the nut forests in the buffer zone next to a biosphere reserve.

The women of Isabela Island’s “Blue Fish” Association, who work within the World Heritage-listed Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, were rewarded for marketing a local delicacy – tuna smoked with guava wood – as a way to promote the alternative use of marine resources and control invasive plant species.

The other winner, Shidulai Swarnivar Sangstha, uses riverboat-based educational resource centres throughout the Ganges River delta in Bangladesh to deliver information to locals about sustainable agricultural practices and market prices.

Not surprising, really. But it would be nice to know more, and that information is proving hard to find. If any of the winners or their colleagues happen to read this, point us to a source for your story, please.

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People power

Here’s another potpourri, this one centred on local people’s perceptions of agricultural biodiversity. From the journal Livestock Science comes a paper looking at how traditional livestock keepers in Uganda select breeding bulls and cows among Ankole longhorn cattle. Another paper, this one from Crop Protection, discusses how Ethiopian farmers rank sorghum varieties with regard to their resistance to storage pests, and indeed what they do about such pests. And finally, from The Hindu newspaper, news of an initiative, to be launched on the International Day for Biological Diversity by the Kerala State Biodiversity Board, for a “people’s movement” to “prepare a database of all living organisms and traditional knowledge systems” in Kerala. The initiative is part of the state’s draft biodiversity strategy and action plan, which apparently includes consideration of agricultural biodiversity.

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Archaeology of food

Speaking of conferences, there’s another one that’s worth keeping an eye on, which I learned about via Eurekalert. It’s called Food and Drink in Archaeology 2007 and will feature a keynote address by Professor Martin Jones of the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge entitled “Feast: Why Humans Share Food.”

Why is this relevant to us here at the Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog? Well…

Whilst the importance of nutrition for survival has long been recognised, recent studies have increasingly stressed the cultural significance of the production, distribution and consumption of foodstuffs through out all archaeological periods. An understanding of diet in past societies is therefore crucial to an understanding of daily life, and the relationships between different classes and societies throughout the world.

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Make more jam

Possibly in response to the previous post about ecological entrepreneurs, a reader recommends The Jamlady Cookbook, by Beverly Ellen Schoonmaker Alfeld. ((That’s not a typo; there’s no space in the title, which is why I am giving full details of the author’s name.)) I haven’t seen it, but it contains advice and recipes for using every conceivable type of fruit. Maybe it will inspire others to become micro-entrepreneurs, although my understanding is that in Europe at any rate, if you propose to prepare food for sale, you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to do so legally.

One thing that has struck me on recent jaunts through the Italian countryside had been the profusion of fluffy white flowers on the elder (Sambucus nigra) bushes. Of course, the Italians make Sambuca from elder, though I can detect almost no elderflower or elderberry flavour in there, only the anise note of licorice, its other main ingredient (beside alcohol). But they do not seem to know about either elderflower champagne or elderflower cordial. I must put them to rights. Maybe they do know elderflower fritters; I’ve been unable to find out. Here’s just the book to help: The Elder in history, myth and cookery, from the ever-wonderful Prospect Books.

While we’re on the subject of books for this sort of thing, I have two stand-bys, admittedly unused for the past few years as I have not had anywhere to use them. One is Putting Food By, by Ruth Hertzberg, Beatrice Vaughan and Janet Greene. If it isn’t in there, it isn’t worth doing. The other is an astonishing book from Britain’s old Agriculture and Food Research Council (when such things mattered). Home Preservation of Fruit and Vegetables contains a good amount of sensible advice and practical recipes.