Nibble: Colombian cassava, ITPGRFA in Costa Rica, Inca foods, Chaffey, Plantation, Artificial meadows, Squash, Wheat genome, Papyrus islands

A London botanical garden in trouble

It sounds as though the botanical garden of the South London Botanical Institute may be threatened by development. According to BGCI the garden has a particularly important collection of Rubus. The institute’s website mentions a Medicinal Border, Gerard’s Border, a Southern Hemisphere Area, and also that

British natives, ferns, scented plants, drought tolerant plants, monocots and unusual vegetables are also represented.

So some agricultural biodiversity is involved here, though I do not know to what extent the “unusual vegetables” and Rubus species, say, are to be found in other genebanks and botanical gardens. In any case, if you think losing this garden would be a bad idea, you can sign a petition. Fingers crossed.

Nibbles: Irish Famine book, Breeding for adaptation, Neolithic diets, Randy Thaman, Ecological Babylon, IPR for smallholders, Botanical gardens

  • Don’t underestimate the importance of a new book on the Irish Famine, despite the weird construction used in praising it.
  • Impossible to overestimate the importance of crop breeding for climate change adaptation. And would you like a presentation with that?
  • Cannot underestimate the diversity of early Neolithic diets. No, wait.
  • Difficult to overestimate the contribution made by Prof. Randy Thaman to the conservation of agrobiodiversity in the Pacific. One of several honoured by IUCN for services to conservation.
  • Fed up with linguistic tricks? Well, too bad, because here’s another one. It turns out you can use agricultural biodiversity terminology as examples to explain what’s wrong with ecology.
  • Here we go again. Easy to underestimate the importance of IPR legislation in enabling smallholders to conserve agrobiodiversity.
  • Plain impossible to list the x best botanical gardens in the world.

Nibbles: Red List, Açaí, Edible forest, Horticulture, Heirloom seed bank, Malnutrition journal, Tea breeding, Speak!