Category: Threats

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More on mapping agrobiodiversity threats

Hot on the heels of a map showing how warfare has spared hardly any biodiversity hotspot in the past 50 years comes one on another possible threat to agricultural biodiversity. UNESCO has just announced the publication of its Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger. There’s a great interactive website all ready for people to start playing with. Below is a screen shot (there doesn’t seem to be a way to export maps, alas) showing critically endangered languages with fewer than 50 speakers in South and Central America. Worldwide there are 318 such languages.

map1

I’d say a disappearing language was a pretty good proxy for risk of crop genetic erosion. So much to mash up, so little time.

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Nibbles: Rituals, Pig, Diseases, Beer, Hog, Fair

  • The Green Revolution has messed with rice rituals in Bengal.
  • National Pig Day is coming up. Bacon for breakfast at last!
  • The Star Trek tricorder finally arrives, though only for plant diseases so far.
  • Organic beer can be good. You had me at beer.
  • Speakin’ of bacon, make mine endangered.
  • Biodiversity Fair held in Bhutan “to recognise the farmers’ contribution …; create awareness … and encourage farmers …; promote in situ conservation and … ex situ (gene bank) conservation; and provide … opportunities to exchange seeds.”
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Agrobiodiversity in trouble in Cameroon

Ivo Arrey Mbongaya of the African Centre for Community and Development in Cameroon has a blog on the Eldis Community and has recently discussed threats to two different sorts of agricultural biodiversity in his country. Apparently, goat rearing is in decline, because of the disappearance of grazing land, harsh policies about strays and the lack of veterinary services. He doesn’t say if a local breed is involved, however, and does make reference to “efforts by Heifer Cameroon to distribute cheap animals.”

Also in trouble is “eru,” or Gnetum africanum, a shrub whose leaves are consumed as a green vegetable. Unsustainable harvesting and land use changes are taking their toll, and Ivo recommends taking the plant into domestication.There’s been some work on that by ICRAF and others.

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Nibbles: Easter Island, Quail, Kimchi, Assisted migration, Solar, Training materials, Ancient wine squared, Economics, Wild food