So the Mujib Nature Reserve, “Jordan’s jewel of eco-tourism,” is poised to be promoted to UNESCO Biosphere Reserve. There have been ethnopharmacological studies of the flora of the site, which has even been used to “test models to improve the conservation of medicinal and herbal plants and the livelihood of rural communities through the management, and sustainable use of medicinal and herbal (M/H) plants for human and livestock needs.” And the flora baseline survey for the reserve is listed in Jordan’s monitoring system for implementation of the Global Plan of Action on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture as being part of the country’s efforts to “promote in situ conservation of crop wild relatives.” Wonderful. But I got all that by googling. Why is not more made of the plants on the page devoted to the reserve on the website of Jordan’s Royal Society for the Conservation of Nature, along with the Long-legged Buzzard and the Eurasian Badger? And yes, that’s a rhetorical question.
The diversity of Andean diversity festivals
Hot on the heels of the Fifth Potato Festival in Peru, which we mentioned a few days ago, comes the Festival Nacional de la Agrobiodiversidad Frutos de la Tierra, also in Peru, 24-26 June. And, not to be outdone, Ecuador weighs in with the I Seminario Internacional de la Papa, also on 24 June. One has to wonder what is driving this proliferation of agricultural events in the region. And since we’re on the subject of Andean diversity, does anyone else think that some of the potato varieties illustrated by National Geographic are nothing of the sort?
Nibbles: G20, Chickens, Yucca flowers
- Advice to the G20: “hunger is neither the result of demographic problems nor just the result of a mismatch between supply and demand”.
- Let there be chickens! Picture goodness from National Geographic.
- How to cook yucca flowers. And eat them, obviously.
National Geographic does genebanks
This is the beguiling paradox of seeds. They are, for all their obvious significance, so readily dismissible, especially by those of us in the well-fed world, who have forgotten where our food even comes from.
Let us hope this National Geographic article helps to change things.
Nibbles: Cattle affected, Conservation, Wildfires, Grains, Sudan’s PGR, Sunflowers
- Rare breed of cattle affected by climate change.
- MoBot to host conference on Global Plant Conservation Strategy, 5-7 July 2011
- Russian wildfires expected to be worse this year. What price wheat?
- GOOD gets its head around the meaning of “grain”. As in “15-grain bread in supermarkets”.
- Sudan Agricultural Research Corporation’s Plant Genetic Resources Programme popped up in my Reader. No idea why.
- Uganda’s farmers discover the value of sunflowers.