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May 24, 2010May 24, 2010

Nairobi’s International Day of Biodiversity in pictures

Taz, who describes himself on his blog as a Kenyan science writer, was at the National Museums of Kenya on the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, and he kindly left a comment to that effect on our short post on that subject. His own description of the event includes some great photos. Any other reports, from Nairobi and elsewhere?

LATER: Susan MacMillan of ILRI also has some photos from the Nairobi celebrations on her Facebook page.

May 24, 2010May 24, 2010

Nibbles: Endangered African breeds, Rice and bananas, AGRA, Adaptation, Old Masters

ILRI continues its attempt to take over the internet.
Dorian Fuller summarizes rice in Madagascar in a paragraph. Good trick. And for his next one he rounds up the latest on bananas. The guy’s a machine.
No adaptation without agrobiodiversity, rapt masses told. And here, like manna from heaven, is an example. Well, sort of.
Bruegel on agriculture. With picture goodness.

May 22, 2010May 23, 2010

Nibbles: Yams, AnGR, Intensification

One of the top 10 species described in 2009 is a yam. Yeah, I didn’t believe it either.
ILRI video on why it’s important to conserve livestock genetic diversity.
Edible Geography does the sort of deconstruction of Radical Cartography’s agricultural history maps that I was hoping to do but probably wouldn’t have been able to.

May 21, 2010May 21, 2010

Nibbles: Land lease, Maasai flexibility, Small farms, Coffee, coffee, coffee, Climate change, Sahelian trees, Food as drugs, Field genebanks, Chinese medicinals, Bolivian NTFP, Invasives

Dinka men despise manual labour, hence “southern Sudan might soon be on the block for having a lot of its potential farm land leased to, and worked by, foreigners”.
Maasai, on the other hand, “diversifying into cropping, by keeping fewer and faster growing animals and … taking on paying jobs”. Takes all sorts.
What is a small farm? Depends.
Coffee contains insecticides. Who knew?
Global Coffee Quality Research Initiative (GCQRI) launched.
Central America’s coffee lands to shrink under climate change, Reuters reports. Enough! I’ve got the shakes.
Africa, meanwhile, needs technological innovations to cope.
Domesticating baobab. You know it makes sense.
Take two snacks in the morning and call me if you don’t feel any better.
Climate change will affect Portuguese ex situ plant conservation sites too.
“How best can communities conserve their medicinal plants?” A case study from China.
Bolivia could make more of its Araceae and Bromeliaceae. Couldn’t we all?
Are protected areas in Africa harbouring crop wild relatives? Just kidding: it’s invasives IUCN is talking about.

May 19, 2010

International Day for Biodiversity in Nairobi

If you’re in Nairobi, Kenya, next Saturday 22 May and you feel like celebrating the UN’s International Day for Biodiversity in this, the UN’s International Year for Biodiversity, you could do worse than pop along to the National Museum of Kenya’s Louis Leakey Auditorium for the first Nairobi Agrobiodiversity Debate. Kick off is at 11.30 a.m., and this is what you can expect, according to the organizer’s website:

Hans R Herren, an internationally recognized scientist and current president of the Millennium Institute (Washington, D.C., USA), will be the key note speaker. Hans’s fellow panelists will include Professor Steven Gichuki, Dean, School of Environmental Studies Kenyatta University and Patrick Maundu, an Ethnobotanist with National Museums of Kenya and Honorary Research Fellow with Bioversity International (Kenya and Dr Balakhrishna Pisupati from UNEP along with a few more special guests. The Nairobi Agrobiodiversity Debates will be moderated by our very own Dr Toby Hodgkin, Coordinator of the Platform for Agrobiodiversity Research and Principal Scientist with Bioversity International (Italy).

We’ll gratefully accept any first-hand reports.