Wild relatives

October 7, 2009October 7, 2009

Andy Jarvis in the limelight

Our friend, colleague and occasional contributor Andy Jarvis received GIBF‘s Ebbe Nielsen Prize for innovative bioinformatics research last night in Copenhagen. Andy has been doing his trademark work on the spatial analysis of crop wild relative distributions ((The maps below are an example. They show the modeled distribution of species richness in the genus Phaseolus now, and then in 2050.)) at CIAT, just outside Cali in Colombia, jointly with Bioversity International. He used the occasion to highlight the contribution made to this effort by his numerous Colombian colleagues. Congratulations to all of them.

Phaseolus_current_ predicted_ species_ richness

after

LATER: Here’s Andy’s talk.

September 29, 2009September 29, 2009

Nibbles: WFP and Millennium Villages, Agroecotourism squared, Mango, Wild pollinators, CGIAR change process, Grape breeding, Landraces and climate change, Mau Forest, Eels

“…WFP’s partnership with the Millennium Villages Project would deploy the full range of the Programme’s tools and help utilize the Millennium Villages as a platform for best practices.” Good. But let’s just hope the villagers’ own best tool — agrobiodiversity — doesn’t get left behind.
More on the Cotacachi agroecotourism project in Ecuador.
Heritage tourism in the Virgin Islands targets old sugar cane mill.
The “mango villages” of India.
Pollination needs to go wild.
Ok, so the CGIAR is going to re-organize itself into mega-programmes (look at the PDF at the bottom of the page), one of which is on “Crop germplasm conservation, enhancement and use.” Big deal? I wish I knew.
Pssst, wanna discuss grape breeding?
More from IIED on landraces and climate change.
Deforestation, drought and politics in Kenya.
Tracking eel migrations.

September 26, 2009

Nibbles: Moufflon, Eartworms, Charcoal

Hunting wild sheep relatives in Armenia.
Counting earthworms in Scotland.
Making charcoal in Africa. Money stat: Rural electrification rate in sub-Saharan Africa is 8%.

September 26, 2009September 25, 2009

Mapping free fruit

Free-fruit enthusiasts have put together a Google Maps application to help them forage. Only has a few sites around Britain and Germany at the moment, but I bet it will grow.

Would it be so difficult to have something similar to report threats of genetic erosion, for example? I know Jacob thinks that would be useless, as a threat is only really a threat if it is likely to have an effect on overall genetic diversity, not just on what is available locally. But I’m not so sure. And it would be fun to do.

September 25, 2009

A new hope, or the empire strikes back?

I seem to have angered my old friend Nigel Maxted. ((Nice beard, Nigel!)) A recent piece of mine suggested that IUCN’s new book Conservation for a New Era may be evidence of a rapprochement between the biodiversity and agrobiodiversity communities. Nigel begs to differ:

I do not want to dull Luigi’s spin on the Conservation for a New Era which I guess is not meant to be specific but I just think again it draws attention to the need for joined-up conservation, that is the integration of biodiversity with agro-biodiversity conservation which I believe is far too often ignored altogether or simply given lip-service only.

After a detailed analysis of what’s been happening — or not happening — in crop wild relatives conservation, and why, Nigel ends thus:

For me in a time of climate change and increasing food insecurity THE issue is how the better integrate biodiversity with agro-biodiversity conservation, not fashionable perhaps but a real priority. The McNeely and Mainka text in my view fails to address this issue!

Do read the whole thing. What do you think? Glass half full or half empty? Or maybe totally empty? And what do we do about it?