There are 125 different styles of beer. I just need a cold one.
Bamboo galore
The latest issue of FAO’s NWFP-Digest seems to be joining in with the celebrations of the 10th birthday of the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR). In addition to the International Bamboo & Rattan Expo in Guangzhou, China (see map), it points to a new technique from India for rapid bamboo propagation, the manufacture of bamboo bicycles in Ghana, the sale of bamboo socks in the UK and the planting of bamboo in Bhutan. There’s lots of other stuff too, though.
Forest products generate income
Rural workers and indigenous people are lobbying the Brazilian government for a policy and start-up cash for small-scale community-level projects on the extraction and processing of non-timber forest products from the Amazon. They say it would be good for them and good for the rainforest, and have a hefty report to back that up with. Meanwhile, in the cerrado, things seem to be developing on an altogether larger scale for local fruits, including the pequi. Via FreshPlaza.
Summer-grass winter-worm
We went to the opening of a new exhibit at the Bioparco di Roma called Bioversitalia last night. The exhibit was fine, although as usual agricultural biodiversity got short-changed a bit, and so was the food on offer. The introductory talk, however, was a thorough disappointment. Not at all inspiring. What the boffins on display should have talked about, perhaps, is things like Cordyceps sinensis, aka དབྱར་རྩྭ་དགུན་འབུ་, aka the “summer-grass winter-worm.”
The summer-grass winter-worm is a parasitic fungus from Tibet which attacks and takes over the bodies of moth larvae living in the soil. Livestock really like to eat the resulting worm-like mummies, which are also used in traditional medicine. They’re a really valuable commodity: what alerted me to their existence was a newspaper piece today about a fatal gun battle that exploded when neighbouring villages clashed over access to this resource.
Now, it is stories such as this one of the medicinal moth-mummifying fungus of Tibet that would really have got people excited in the Bioparco last night about the wonder and importance of biodiversity!
Street legal
Man finds way to make legal absinthe in the US.