…25% by 2020, at $2,800 per species. Not sure I understand the bit at the end about “molecular and genetic markers for the viability of seeds,” but there’s more on the website. And thanks for the plug for Svalbard.
Will climate change make protected areas useless?
Not for birds in Africa, apparently — and surprisingly, at least to me. 1 A recent paper looked at likely turnover of species in Important Bird Areas (IBAs) in Africa under a range of climate change scenarios. The results showed that although there would be significant shifts in the species composition of individual IBAs, overall about 90% of 815 endangered species “are projected to retain suitable habitat by 2085 in at least one IBA where they occur currently.” And some IBAs will become newly suitable for some species. Only a few endangered species will lose all suitable habitat from the IBA network.
Nevertheless, the authors acknowledge the importance of the shifts in species distribution and suggest a number of recommendations. In particular, the results highlight the need for regionally focused management approaches. For example, increasing the number and size of protected areas, providing ‘stepping stones’ between habitats and protected areas and restoring critical types of habitat, as well as ensuring that the current IBA network is adequately protected into the future.
Sensible recommendations, which would apply all the more strongly to any similar network for crops wild relatives, say, which don’t by and large have the mobility of birds. 2 We need to carry out a similar resilience study for CWRs in protected areas, I would suggest. But also, do we know how good the IBAs are at capturing CWR diversity? I suspect when people look at CWR distributions in protected areas, it is mainly national parks and the like that they consider, rather than such specialized things as IBAs, but I could be wrong. 3 Here’s the distribution of IBAs in Africa. I seem to be having a thing about maps of Africa lately.
Lost Crops of Africa on air
The National Research Council’s series on Lost Crops … is on our shelves, and well-thumbed too. Now comes news that Voice of America has just launched a five part series reporting on various aspects of the story. The first episode — “Lost Crops” of Africa Could Combat Poverty and Hunger — is online here, with links so you can download and listen to the broadcasts.
Other episodes available are:
- Certain Fruits Among Africa’s Lost Crops with Noel Vietmeyer
- Certain Vegetables Among Africa’s Lost Crops with Martin Price
- Local African grains among Lost Crops with Adi Damania
- Plans and Hopes for Developing Lost Crops of Africa with Professor Damania again
It’s odd, though, that in the final episode Professor Damania gives the impression that only two of the CGIAR centres are involved in research on these lost crops. We can think of others…
Yield trial sites mapped
Glenn Hyman has a great map over at AGCommons. It shows the sites in Africa where international crop networks carried out yield trials in the 1960’s, 70’s and 80’s (and some beyond). Here it is:
Would be interesting to compare with the various accessibility maps I posted a couple of days ago, and indeed with agroclimatic maps. No doubt Glen is doing it as we speak, and lots of other stuff too.
Read the interesting comment too: “Africa’s green revolutions will be fundamentally different from Asia’s — because Africa and Asia are fundamentally different, because times have changed, and because we have learnt a few tricks in the meanwhile!!”
Kenyan butterfly farmers flying high
The Kenya Forest Service is one of the forces behind butterfly farming projects around the country. According to the latest KFS annual report (which I found out about from ASNS), household incomes have really benefited from the project, mostly by exporting butterfly pupae to collectors and butterfly farms abroad, mostly in the United States and the United Kingdom. The report, launched last week, says: 4
The butterfly farming project based at Arabuko-Sokoke forests is one of the various initiatives aimed at involving forest adjacent communities in conservation through sustainable utilization of forest resources to improve livelihoods. The community appreciates the role that the project has played in the improvement of their household income and the positive contribution impacted towards conservation and management of the forest.
We’ve written about butterfly and silk farming in Africa before and it is good to know that these projects do seem to be working. The primary impact is to preserve the forest, by giving local villagers an incentive to keep it intact as a new source of income. Digging around a bit, I found some more useful resources. David Ngala at Wildlife Direct had a post about the Kipepeo project, which links to the project’s own web site. All very worthwhile.
Photo, of Papilio demodocus, by Matt and Kim Rudge, used under a Creative Commons license.