Nibbles: Databases, Hell squared, Genebanks, Goats, Olives, Safe movement, Pouteria, Roman wine

Nibbles: Fraxinus, Sheep, Fish, Potato, Chickens, Eden, Microlivestock, Saliva, Mashua, Vine

Wallacean agrobiodiversity overlooked?

There was an International Conference on Alfred Russel Wallace and the Wallacea in Makassar last December. Wallacea is of course one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots, a link between the Sahul and Sunda landmasses. I was only able to find a sketchy programme on the internet, so I don’t really know in detail what was covered. In particular, was agricultural biodiversity included in the discussions? There have been fleeting mentions of “Long-term biodiversity monitoring including that of the Anoa dwarf buffalos on Buton (Phillip Wheeler, University of Hull)” as one of the papers. ((Why was this thing never domesticated?)) But what about spices, for example? Does anyone know?

Incidentally, while looking into this I came across some great pictures of the house where Wallace lived on Ternate. Another site to add to the list for our long-planned tour of the Spice Islands, Robert?

100 things I’ve done: agrobiodiversity edition

You may have come across the “100 things I’ve done” meme. Jeremy succumbed to it, and a lot of fun it was too reading about it. I’ve just come across a somewhat more specialized version, by a geologist. Maybe there’s room for an agrobiodiversity version? If so, here are ten things that I think should be included, off the top of my head. I haven’t done them all, but I hope to, some day.

  • Harvest (or buy in the supermarket) and then prepare and eat a dish of traditional leafy greens in Africa.
  • Botanize crop wild relatives in the Fertile Crescent.
  • Talk cassava cultivars with the inhabitants of an Amazonian village.
  • Take part in the Ethiopian coffee ceremony at the coffee field genebank near Jimma.
  • See volunteer sweet potato seedlings being protected in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.
  • Visit the Vavilov Institute.
  • Walk through a milpa at harvest time.
  • Look at potato varieties and wild relatives around Lake Titicaca.
  • Visit the Ifugao rice terraces.
  • Make the pilgrimage up to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

Leave your suggestions in the comments.