So there’s an Innovation for Biodiversity Photo Contest running over at Myoo Create, sponsored by National Geographic and UNEP. I voted for the picture of Svalbard, natch. Deadline for submitting entries is 30 May, for voting June 4.
Videos on genebanks set to go viral
Being very Web 2.0-savvy, our friends at the Crop Genebank Knowledge Base project have set up a YouTube channel. So now you can watch a couple of nice little videos on why genebanks are so important. And reflect on what really feeds people. Here’s a clue: it’s not genetic erosion numbers.
Sheep mover honoured
Speaking of shepherds and their flocks trekking through Europe, one of this year’s Guardians of Diversity in the Mediterranean, awarded by Bioversity International and supported by COPEAM, was Jesus Garzón, founder of the NGO Transhumancia y Naturaleza to promote transhumance, the movement of flocks from winter quarters on the plains to mountain pastures for the summer. Here’s the video honouring Garzón at the awards ceremony.
Guardian of Mediterranean Biodiversity Jesus Garzon from Bioversity International on Vimeo.
And here’s some film shot during the transhumance.
Shepherds and their flocks trek through Europe
Evelyn Mathias of the League for Pastoral Peoples and Endogenous Livestock Development just posted an interesting piece on DAD-Net. Unfortunately I was not able to find a web page to link to, so I take the liberty of reproducing the post in full here.
They are good-natured, produce tasty meat, and their wool gets turned into sweaters. Everyone knows so much about sheep. But few people know about the benefits that sheep provide through grazing. As they move from place to place, mobile flocks maintain the ecology, so conserving many threatened plants, animals and insects. The landscapes they create enhance the quality of life for local people and tourists alike.
Grassland that has been extensively grazed in a controlled way is an excellent water filter. It protects the soil from wind and water erosion, stores a huge amount of carbon, and converts carbon dioxide into oxygen in winter when trees no longer have leaves.
But grassland must be maintained through grazing – otherwise it will be overrun with brambles and scrub, which lack many of the advantages of grasses. Mobile flocks of sheep are an important way to conserve these landscapes.
To raise awareness of the advantages of mobile livestock production, Europe’s shepherds have organized a sheep trek across Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands during the summer of 2010. The trek aims to draw attention to the contribution that mobile herding makes.
“Shepherds all over the world face similar problems”, says Günther Czerkus, spokesman for the German shepherds association. “Too much bureaucracy, and an increasing number of restrictions that make it more and more difficult to maintain a mobile herd.”
Shepherds in Europe also find it difficult to market their products. Wool prices are so low that it is not profitable to shear the sheep. And the market for meat is dominated by imports from New Zealand. Czerkus hopes that the trek will encourage consumers to buy home-grown lamb.
The trek will start in Berlin on 5 June and end at the “Green Land Day” (Grünlandtag) in Trier on 16-17 October. The trek will be a kind of a relay walk, with each flock and shepherd covering a certain distance and then handing over to another flock for the next stage. Accompanying vehicles will manage traffic and distribute information materials.
Special events in Paderborn (1 August), Duisburg (21 August), Brussels (16 September) and Trier (17 October) will highlight the contributions of sheep. Other events may be organized through hout the trek. The trek will provide excellent opportunities for school classes to learn about agriculture and ecology in general, and mobile herding in particular.
A similar but smaller trek took place in Belgium in 2008. The webpage from this earlier trek gives an idea of what a trek might look like.
Nairobi’s International Day of Biodiversity in pictures
Taz, who describes himself on his blog as a Kenyan science writer, was at the National Museums of Kenya on the occasion of the International Day for Biodiversity, and he kindly left a comment to that effect on our short post on that subject. His own description of the event includes some great photos. Any other reports, from Nairobi and elsewhere?
LATER: Susan MacMillan of ILRI also has some photos from the Nairobi celebrations on her Facebook page.