Frankincense — traditional gift at this time of the year — is the resin of a tree called Boswellia papryrifera native to the Horn of Africa. Alas, a scientific study in the Journal of Applied Ecology proves that tapping the tree for resin decreases the number of flowers and seeds the tree produces, thus “potentially” harming the regeneration of the frankincense woodlands. Non-tapped trees produce three times more seeds than tapped trees, and those seeds are five times more likely to germinate. The authors say that collectors should make fewer taps per tree and allow long rest periods with no tapping.
Seed relief manual — at last
FAO has just published the conclusions of a workshop on seed relief systems held in May 2003. Why note that, apart from to poke fun at the delay? Because one of the most important conclusions to emerge from the best studies of emergency seed relief is that local informal markets, often focussed on locally important varieties, are often the best sources of seed that will not interfere with local agricultural biodiversity.
The Garden of Eden revisited
The Iraqi wetlands made famous by Wilfred Thesiger as the home of the Marsh Arabs and devastated by Saddam Hussein are apparently making a comeback, thanks to a UNEP “project to restore the network of watercourses which provided inhabitants with water for drinking and farming, and supported the region’s unique ecology.” I’m intrigued by that reference to agriculture. What did (do?) the Marsh Arabs farm? Rice, wheat, barley and millet, as it turns out, although there is apparently another group which specializes in raising the buffalo. But do they still have their traditional crop varieties and livestock breeds? If not, will it be possible to recover at least some of them from genebanks around the world? I hope someone is looking into this.
Coincidentally, from half a world away, comes an example of a genebank helping to restore an indigenous community’s crop genetic resources.
A Philippines point of view
A long piece on Philippine agricultural biodiversity and agroforestry in a blog called MagSakaUnlad, written by Virgilio Villancio, who is with the Agricultural Systems Cluster of the College of Agriculture, University of the Philippines at Los Banos.
The perils of rarity
It stands to reason that as the cost of finding and an over-harvested medicinal plant, say, increases beyond the market value of the product, people will stop looking for it, hopefully giving the population a chance to recover. Well, yes, but what if the very increasing rarity of the plant – or animal – actually in turn ratchets up its value? The result is a positive feedback loop which can only end in extinction. Or so says a mathematical model described in Nature, backed up by some telling examples. So publicizing the fact that a species may be rare and threatened (for example, in a Red Data List) may actually make things worse! Taking species into cultivation may be one way around the problem.