Ethiopia’s Institute of Biodiversity Conservation reminded us today — quoting an IUCN study from last year — that the African Wild Ass (Equus africanus) is critically endangered. Actually the Asiatic Wild Ass is also in trouble. The summary of the findings of the 2008 IUCN Red List of threatened mammals highlights the situation in SE Asia as particularly worrisome. People are clearly going through the data now and pulling out different themes. A few days ago there was an assessment of the state of rabbits, for example. I wonder if we can look forward to an overview of livestock wild relatives?
Nibbles: Perfume, Fish, Camel milk
- What agrobiodiversity lurks in ancient Egyptian perfume? We’ll soon know.
- Problems for aquaculture from Ireland to Vietnam. All the world’s a village.
- The whys and wherefores of camel milk.
Nibbles: Community forestry, Fresh water, Salinity, Seed systems, Acacia, Iron, Cambodia
- Community forestry not making enough money in Namibia. Yeah, but who is?
- Southern African freshwater bodies in trouble. Gotta be some worried rice wild relatives out there.
- Salinity increasing in Bangladesh. That can’t be good.
- Let the people have seeds of local varieties!
- Australian takes acacias to Niger, coals to Newcastle.
- Breeding rice for tolerance to high Fe in West Africa.
- “One of the most abundant sources of fish in Asia, the lake feeds a hungry nation.”
Water, water everywhere
A couple of fun stories about the historical dimension of the exploitation of aquatic biodiversity from Britain’s Daily Mail this morning. First, how Google Earth revealed a thousand-year-old fish trap off the coast of Wales. And second, how the reintroduction of the beaver, absent since it was hunted to extinction in the 16th century, could reduce water bills.
Nibbles: Wetlands, Grazing, Animal and diseases, Rose wine
- New wetlands map of China available. Useful for crop wild relatives?
- Sheep and cows do better and are better for you when they graze on diverse pastures.
- Animal Biodiversity and Emerging Diseases Prediction and Prevention at the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. Via.
- “…it would be ‘a catastrophe for Provence’s winegrowers if this ruling passes’.”