- Nobellist praises biodiversity, ignores food.
- TED video on world-saving mushrooms.
- God: “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yieleling seed; to you, it shall be for meat.“
- Pollan: “Vote with your fork, for a different kind of food. Go to the farmer’s market. Get out of the supermarket… Plant a garden… Declare your independence from the culture of fast food.”
- Rodale Institute: “Yield data just by itself makes the case for a focused and persistent move to organic farming systems.”
Nibbles: Carbon, Oaks, SALT, Gardens, Wild horses, Rural depopulation, Finnish cows, Dabai
- You can monitor carbon dioxide from fossil fuels by analyzing wine (and maize leaves for that matter).
- Yes, we have no acorns.
- “Salt is sort of a diversified farming system.”
- “There’s a lot to learn from the past and how Native cultures have gardened“
- The end of the mustang?
- Urbanization and biodiversity conservation.
- Convicts conserve cows.
- Freezing technique opens door to commercialization of Canarium odontophyllum in Sarawak.
- Zero Mile Diet Seed Kit.
The need for diverse street trees
City planners take note:
Tree diversity helps prevent pests from gaining a foothold, said Mike Bohne, forest health group leader for the United States Forest Service. It also makes it so that a community does not lose its entire urban canopy if there is an infestation.
Too late for Worcester, Massachusetts (USA), where 80% of the street trees are maples. Most of them are infested by the Asian long-horned beetle and need to be removed. Property values may plummet further.
The beetle was introduced to the USA with wood packing material from China. Eradication efforts are intense as much larger economic damage is looming. Worcester is in New England and the invasive beetle might now spread to the famed maple forests that produce large quantities of syrup, wood, and leaf-peeping tourists.
Nibbles: Earthworms, Statistics, Bison, Urban, Cork
- Boffins find lots of cryptic genetic diversity in earthworms.
- China produces half the world’s vegetables?
- Know your bison.
- Flouting Zimbabwe’s laws on urban agriculture to stay alive.
- Cork certification.
I’ve never met an axolotl, But Harvard has one in a bottle
The axolotl is a salamander that was an important part of Aztec legend and diet but is now barely hanging on in the tourist canals of Lake Xochimilco in Mexico City. It’s on the IUCN Red List of threatened species, as a result of the draining of the lake on which the city was built, increasing pollution and the introduction of tilapia.
Local fisherman Roberto Altamira, 32, recalls when he was a boy, and the axolotl was still part of the local diet. “I used to love axolotl tamales,” he says, rubbing his stomach and laughing.
Scientists are proposing captive breeding and re-introduction, and “a pilot sanctuary is expected to open in the next three to six months in the waters around Island of the Dolls, so-called because the owner hangs dolls he finds in the canals to ward off evil spirits.”
I hope it works out. I’d like to taste one of those tamales some day. And since we’re on the subject of edible Mexican agrobiodiversity, another example came to my mind today when I read that the new First Family-elect needs an hypoallergenic pooch. They have lots of options beyond the somewhat boring goldendoodle. My personal choice would be the Xoloitzcuintli. And not because its meat is said to have healing properties. Or not primarily for that reason.