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The revival of taro biodiversity in Hawaii, in film

This just in from a reader in Hawaii. Thanks, Penny.

The film short “Na Ono o Ka Aina; Delicacies of the Land” featuring Jerry Konanui, a Hawaiian, expert in the identification of traditional Hawaiian taro cultivars, and an inspiration in their recovery. This film is the work of award winning Hawaii-based filmmakers, Na Maka o Ka Aina. The film garnered awards at the Aotearoa (New Zealand) and Hawaii film festivals in 2009 and 2010, and the short was featured on National Geographic’s “All Roads Film Festival” in 2008. One way to protect local crop biodiversity — reinspire everyone — from farmers to researchers to students; especially within the community that once created that diversity. It’s in the numbers; the more old cultivars we recover and grow and the more who grow, the less risk of loss we will have. You can get a taste of the film short — and the ono (delicious) taros of Hawaii below.

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Biofortification “news”

Some people are just born ingrates. Sherry Tanumihardjo, who has “worked on provitamin A biofortification efforts since 2004 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison” is unhappy with the welcome Scidev.net gave to biofortified crops in its article Biofortified crops ready for developing world debut. Not warm enough, she seems to be saying in her letter at Scidev.net In defence of biofortification. Was it being attacked? I didn’t think so.

To be perfectly frank, I can’t be bothered to take Dr Tanumihardjo’s complaints all that seriously, not least because although her “lab strongly advocates the promotion of vegetables and fruits to enhance overall health and general well-being,” she doesn’t actually mention that except under the blanket of “other approaches”. Methinks she doth protest too much.

On the other hand, the world does not yet seem to be beating a path to biofortification’s door, judging by the comments at a blog post designed specifically to enable interested parties to “share your thoughts” on a Proposed Framework For Action that emerged from the recent First Global Conference on Biofortification. Two comments in over a week? Maybe everyone who was at the conference is perfectly happy with the draft Framework? Or maybe they are sharing their thoughts privately. On the other hand, I looked at the draft and, despite being assured by one participant that everyone was talking about dietary diversity, honest, and not just techno-fixes, I could find no evidence of that in the Framework for Action. So why aren’t I sharing my thoughts? Perhaps because I’ve seen no evidence that they’ll be given any notice.

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3D trees in Google Earth

The latest version of Google Earth has 3D trees! Just a few cities’ parks, a couple of wild sites (rainforest, mangroves…) and a reforestation project for now, but surely more to come.

I look forward to seeing the world’s great field genebanks in 3D in due course, such as the coconut genebank in Ivory Coast or the Breadfruit Institute’s collection in Hawaii. And maybe eventually even smaller ones, such as this fruit collection I visited last week in Tajikistan.

But maybe we could start with Pavlovsk?